Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Full Moebius Irony

Katy Tur lit up the rightwing media today when she corrected a guest who referred to Daily Caller writers as "journalists." Honestly, that site is somethin' else. Anytime I have been suckered into clicking one of their links it has been bizarre. It must be a new site, right? I never heard of them until recently. Oh I see, Tucker Carlson is behind it.

But I have to admit that the conservative site has done something right this time. They have accomplished Full Moebius Irony, a rare rhetorical feat where a statement so purely mocks itself that it becomes logically inverted and comes out where it started -- proving that in reality there is only One Side.

They sent a writer to a rally in St. Louis where the successful and popular progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke in support of Democratic congressional candidate Cori Bush. The writer's shock is wonderful.

Direct quote, for real:
But then Ocasio-Cortez spoke, followed by Bush, and I saw something truly terrifying. I saw just how easy it would be, were I less involved and less certain of our nation’s founding and its history, to fall for the populist lines they were shouting from that stage.
  • I saw how easy it would be, as a parent, to accept the idea that my children deserve healthcare and education.
  • I saw how easy it would be, as someone who has struggled to make ends meet, to accept the idea that a “living wage” was a human right.
  • Above all, I saw how easy it would be to accept the notion that it was the government’s job to make sure that those things were provided.
I watched as both Ocasio-Cortez and Bush deftly chopped America up into demographics, pointed out how those demographics had been victimized under the current system, and then promised to be the voice for those demographics. The movement, Ocasio-Cortez shouted, “knows no zip code. It knows no state. It knows no race. It knows no gender. It knows no documented status.” I’M A CONSERVATIVE, AND I WENT TO AN ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ RALLY
Yes, I know, this is clearly terrifying to a rational person. Luckily the writer is more involved and more certain of our nation's founding and its history, or she could have fallen for this socialist propaganda.
Bush, after saying her piece, noted that she had been careful to allow speakers from across all demographics to make it clear that she was not running to represent just one particular group, but all. I left the rally with a photo — in part to remind myself of that time I crashed a rally headlined by a socialist, but also in part to remind myself that there, but for the grace of God, go I.
At the top of the page is a nice picture of the writer, we assume, smiling, and a smiling Octavia-Cortez.

So... it is just mind-boggling to think what these people tell their kids, sitting around the breakfast table. And when the kids reach their teens and rebel, what are they going to do, empathize with people? Maybe there is hope.

313 Comments:

Anonymous it's alright, cold beer on a friday night, tight jeans that fit just right, and the radio on said...

John Brennan had a tough time when he took his first CIA lie-detector test in 1980. He was asked a standard question as to whether he had ever belonged to an organisation dedicated to the overthrow of the United States government. Just four years earlier Brennan had cast his first vote for president. For the candidate of the Communist Party USA.

The CIA let him in. A little more than thirty years later, he was appointed by Barack Obama to lead the agency. But now, ex-CIA director Brennan is questioning the patriotism of Obama’s successor, accusing the president of being an agent of Moscow. “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors,’ Brennan wrote on Twitter. “It was nothing short of treasonous.”

Comrade Brennan would know, right? But no—a dumb college kid’s vote for the CPUSA is no more treasonous than a president who takes a less adversarial approach to Russia than Democrats demand. Brennan has evidently never had a good grasp of the U.S. Constitution, whether as a Communist-voting student or the nation’s top spy. That he now turns policy disagreements and personal disgust into “nothing short” of treason is par for the course.

Sen. Rand Paul, the Republican who votes against Trump more often than any other in the U.S. Senate, has called on the president to strip Brennan of his inactive security clearance. Trump is considering doing just that. Democrats claim that this is intimidation, though the question on many observers’ minds is: why do so many ex-officials have these clearances in the first place?

The answer to that question was provided by what is now the most anti-Trump newspaper in the land, the Washington Post, back during the Obama administration. A series of articles collectively published as “Top Secret America” in 2010 explained the lucrative market in consulting and government contracting for holders of clearances. The title of the article that provided the details—“A hidden world, growing beyond control”—still stands as an apt description of what Trump supporters call the Deep State. It is an economy and power structure unto itself, and wields considerable authority in elite politics.

Since 2016, Trump has defied the elite political consensus time and again, and so figures like Brennan are left to vent their frustration on Twitter. They are losing prestige, and with it, power. The risk to their security clearances is one more symbol of that.

It would be mighty strange if an unelected former government salaryman like Brennan were entitled to the special aura of authority granted by a security clearance, an authority he employs to attack the policies of a constitutionally elected president.

As a private citizen, Brennan is free to say whatever he damn well pleases and to vote for whatever Communist runs against Trump in 2020. But he is not entitled, morally or legally, to a government privilege to bolster his public credibility. Brennan, by his own admission, is not using his clearance for government-related work. There is simply no public need for him to have it, and a good public reason for him not to have it. He is a private citizen, just as the intelligence officials who are still in government are public servants—not the public’s masters. Or the president’s. Whether his diplomacy is wise or foolish, Donald Trump is fighting a battle on behalf of democracy and constitutionalism by putting a figure like John Brennan back in his place. If Brennan doesn’t like it, he’ll just have to return to his old ways and try to overthrow the Constitution.

July 24, 2018 9:59 PM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

Sen. Rand Paul is doubling down on calls to revoke the security clearances of former intelligence officials who have criticized President Donald Trump, calling the individuals “bad apples.”

“We’ve got some bad apples that need to be dismissed from the swamp of Washington,” Rand told a crowd of more than 600 young conservatives at Trump International Hotel in Washington on Tuesday night. “I am thinking, maybe, how about John Brennan, number one?”

Those attending the Turning Point USA dinner erupted in cheers, listening as Paul singled out Brennan, a former CIA director, as well as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI attorney Lisa Page and former FBI agent Peter Strzok for what he called “falsely accusing the president of treason and lying to members of Congress.”

After sustained criticism over Trump’s performance at his summit with President Vladimir Putin of Russia last week, the White House said on Monday that the president was looking into revoking the clearances of certain former officials. Brennan had said it was “nothing short of treasonous” when the president appeared to side with Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies on whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Paul, a self-described “libertarian conservative” who has been vocal on the issue, met with Trump on Monday to discuss it and also tweeted: “Is John Brennan monetizing his security clearance? Is John Brennan making millions of dollars divulging secrets to the mainstream media with his attacks on @realDonaldTrump?”

Paul said that that former officials could pose a “real danger” to Americans.

“This is happening to the most powerful man in the world, the president,” he said. “What do you think happens to ordinary people? What if it happens to one of you that your government turns on you and decides to use the apparatus that can listen to every phone call, record every text message, look into every email? You stop these individuals who have gone rogue.”

July 25, 2018 10:22 AM  
Anonymous “Republicans are so scared of me that they’re faking videos and presenting them as real on Facebook because they can’t deal with reality anymore,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. said...

After a fake interview of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went viral, its maker said it was satire

The video traveled quickly after being shared Monday on Facebook, gathering more than 1.5 million views in less than a day.

In it, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the congressional candidate from New York whose democratic socialist campaign has stuck a lightning bolt into the world of Democratic politics, appeared to give bizarre answers in a 2½-minute video that was staged as an interview with conservative commentator Allie Stuckey on the site CRTV. Ocasio-Cortez shook her head “no,” when Stuckey asked if she had any knowledge about how the political system worked and seemed to imply that Venezuela was in the Middle East and was a model of socialism.

But the video did not depict a real interview, despite its caption: “Allie *grills* congressional hopeful and progressive it girl ‘Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ on her socialist agenda and knowledge of government … or lack thereof.” Instead, it used heavily edited footage from an interview Ocasio-Cortez did with PBS earlier this month spliced to appear as answers to questions read by Stuckey.

After an outcry, the Facebook page for Stuckey’s show, which the social media giant has given an informal imprimatur in the form of a blue verification check mark, was updated to note that the video was satire and include a reference to the original PBS show. But the fact that the video traveled so widely — and for some, apparently believably — has served as another example of how misleading information continues to thrive in the fast-paced flow of information online despite Facebook’s promise to better weed it out...

...Stuckey joined a chorus of conservative commentators who responded defiantly to the backlash against the piece, comparing it to satirical videos published by outlets such as the Onion and comedians such as Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.

“If you have to do research to figure out that a video that blatantly absurd is satirical, you shouldn’t be on the Internet,” Stuckey wrote.

Some writers rebutted that idea.

“It would be one thing if Stuckey or CRTV in general were known for doing satirical stunts on a regular basis like this. Facebook is rife with people falling for what are clearly meant to be jokes from regular purveyors of such like The Onion,” the Observer wrote. “But this is something different.”...

More lying GOPers

July 25, 2018 11:38 AM  
Anonymous How has tRump monetized his presidency -- let's count the ways said...

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-family-monetizing-presidency-morning-joe-host-claims-1039836

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/donald-trump-preeminent-grifter-threatens-to-punish-ex-obama-officials-for-monetizing-public-service

https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/all-the-ways-trump-cashes-in-on-the-u-s-presidency.html/

https://www.economist.com/business/2017/07/20/how-donald-trump-is-monetising-his-presidency

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-02-17/donald-trump-monetizes-the-presidency

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2017/06/trump-capitalism-monetizing-the-presidency/

July 25, 2018 12:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

“But this is something different.”

of course it is

satire is only real if directed at conservatives

just like elections are only real if leftists are elected

and media is biased unless it supports the liberal agenda

and, for heaven's sake, the SCOTUS nomination process needs "fixing" if justices are nominated who defend the Constitution

July 25, 2018 12:20 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump EPA Revokes Obama-era Coal Ash Regulations

As part of its seemingly endless crusade to erase everything Obama ever did and give businesses a free pass to pollute as much as they want (with taxpayers ultimately paying the bill for the cleanup), the Trump administration has now revoked regulations put in place to protect against contamination from coal ash ponds.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Wednesday it has eased Obama-era standards on the disposal of toxic coal ash, a move expected to be the agency’s first revision of the standards and one that was slammed by environmentalists.

The 2015 rule established minimum national standards for the disposal of coal ash, a byproduct of coal-fired power plants that contains materials such as arsenic and lead.

The EPA said the revision would give flexibility to utility companies and states, which had fought against the standards calling them unduly burdensome, and save $28 million to $31 million per year in regulatory costs.

Coal ash is a by-product of producing energy by burning coal (duh), and it is often stored in ponds, where it forms a liquid slurry. What happens when those ponds leak? Devastation to local environments and to public health. We would do well to remember what happened before this regulation was put in place. A month before Obama took office, a large coal ash pond in Tennessee burst through a dyke and more than a billion gallons of toxic slurry poured out literally buried 12 houses and made dozens more uninhabitable. It also leeched heavy metals into two rivers. These things actually matter.

July 25, 2018 1:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is having a bad week – and it’s about to get worse. On Friday we’re expected to learn from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis that the U.S. economy grew at a blistering pace in the second quarter of this year, further affirming the success of President Trump’s tax cuts and deregulatory efforts.

Economists expect the Bureau of Economic Analysis report Friday will show that the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew between 3.3 percent and 4.6 percent in the second quarter – showing not only a strong economy, but one that is accelerating.

Schumer hopes each day to distract from the booming economy by championing a bewildering array of issues – the latest being the news that “ghost gun” plans will appear on the Internet starting Aug. 1 and enable people to make guns with 3D printers.

The Democratic leader started off this week confronting unimaginable polls that are good news for President Trump and bad news for Democrats.

Despite withering criticism for President Trump’s press conference in Helsinki, establishment outrage over his trash-talking of NATO, alarm among even his supporters about a looming trade war, lingering angst over families separated at the border and serial other “offenses,” President Trump’s approval rating over the past week crept higher.

Schumer, who desperately wants Democrats to take back the House and the Senate by winning majorities in each chamber in the Nov. 6 midterm elections, must wonder: What will it take to bring this president down?

To be sure, President Trump’s support comes almost exclusively from Republicans, some 88 percent of whom expressed approval of his job performance. As far back as President Harry Truman, only George W. Bush earned higher accolades from his own party at this point in his presidency, and in his case it came on the heels of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This is extraordinary – but not mysterious. A poll from the Wall Street Journal also showed a record 50 percent of people giving President Trump high marks for his handling of the economy.

The problem for Democrats is that the economy is the issue that counts most. Every survey that ranks the concerns of Americans puts the economy up top. As families sit around their kitchen tables, few worry whether North Korea’s denuclearization is going as planned. But they sure are concerned about whether they’re about to lose their jobs.

Democrats are in a tough position. They would like to convince voters they hold the key to a more prosperous future. Facing an extremely prosperous present, they have adopted ever more extreme programs like guaranteed jobs or free college tuition to attract support.

July 25, 2018 2:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Some think such promises are almost too good to be true. They are correct.

Take the proposal by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. D-N.Y., for a guaranteed jobs programs. In an interview with The Nation, she argued that such a plan is “exactly the type of roles that government must take to shift power back to workers and our communities.”

Don’t look now, senator, but that power shift is taking place today, when there are more job openings than people applying for work. Unemployment among blacks and Hispanics has hit all-time lows; felons and the disabled are also being hired in record numbers. That’s how capitalism works.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities conducted a study on Gillibrand’s guaranteed jobs idea, which is designed to “transform the U.S. labor market,” concluding it would cost nearly 3 percent of GDP. For comparison, our entire military budget makes up about 3.5 percent of the economy. Not happening.

Not every Democratic plan is nonsensical. Most recently, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House minority whip, launched yet another economic platform meant to inspire candidates running for House seats in the midterm elections.

Hoyer’s “Make it in America” program is actually an 8-year-old agenda refreshed by insights from what its author calls the “Make it in America Listening Tour” which, not surprisingly, focused on toss-up states won by Donald Trump. The new program emphasizes job training, providing health-care for entrepreneurs, and repairing infrastructure.

These are good ideas, which is why the Democrats’ program has been virtually pre-empted by President Trump.

On June 16 the president signed an executive order expanding the nation’s skill development and apprenticeship programs, an idea he campaigned on. In doing so, President Trump could tout the tight labor market – citing, for instance, that for the first time in the nation’s history there are more job openings than applicants.

Also, the White House just hosted a “Made in America” program, showcasing what the president described as “the greatest products in the world – products made with American heart, American sweat, and American pride.”

President Trump can point not only to knives and trucks made in the U.S.A., but also to the 344,000 manufacturing jobs that have been created since he took office. That’s powerful, especially since any number of left-leaning economists have long written the U.S. off as a manufacturing hub.

The White House is also working to create less expensive health-care for affiliated groups. That should help entrepreneurs and other small businesses.

A year ago Sen. Schumer launched a meager economic platform, called “The Better Deal,” which failed to get much notice. He rolled it out in response to polling that showed only 37 percent of voters thought that the Democratic Party stood for something, while 52 percent said the party only stood against President Trump.

For Democrats, things have only gotten worse. Not only has Trump’s approval rating gone up, but Gallup reports Americans’ satisfaction with the direction of the country recently hit a 12-year high. To repeat, the country is happier with our course today than at any time during Obama’s presidency.

Schumer knows his party needs to sell more than anti-Trump vitriol to voters. With every indication the economy will hum along through November, he has his work cut out for him.

July 25, 2018 2:05 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Washington Post

Without the Russians, Trump wouldn't have won

No rational person can believe Trump would have been elected without the help of the Russians

July 25, 2018 2:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Hey Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous, who are you going to vote for in the mid-terms: Democrat or Russian?

July 25, 2018 2:33 PM  
Anonymous Trumplandia sucks, we shall have America back said...

Figures -- more FOX news misinformation.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/25/liz-peek-why-chuck-schumer-s-about-to-have-very-bad-week-hint-it-s-trump-economy-stupid.html

July 25, 2018 2:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

In Canada Queen Elizabeth is the head of state.

In the USA President Putin is the head of state.

The difference being that the queen has no actual control over what happens or who gets elected in Canada.

July 25, 2018 3:07 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Sean Spicer’s Book: Trump’s Pro-LGBT Message At 2016 Convention Was Paul Manafort’s Plot To Silence Critics

People Magazine reports:

When Donald Trump promised at the 2016 Republican National Convention to “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens,” it was heralded as an unprecedented declaration by a GOP presidential nominee — and a sign of hope that Trump would prove more moderate in his gay-rights policies than his party platform.

Spicer writes that Trump’s campaign team was on a mission at the time to derail anti-Trump delegates seeking to prevent Trump from becoming the Republican presidential nominee — a process that “Never Trumpers” had initiated by signing a petition ahead of the Republican convention.

“[Trump campaign chairman Paul] Manafort and his lieutenants went one by one down the list of people who had signed the petition and persuaded them to remove their signatures,” Spicer writes. The last one to be removed was that of Robert Sinners, a delegate from Washington, D.C.

Sinners told Jason Miller, Trump’s senior communications adviser, that he wanted the nominee to support LGBT rights. “Jason assured Sinners that Trump would be the most ‘inclusive’ candidate the Republican Party ever had,” Spicer writes.

“Jason told Sinners Donald Trump’s acceptance speech would acknowledge the LGBT community” the former press secretary said.

Two years and multiple anti-LGBTQ policies later, Sean Spicer's book reveals that the sentence in Trump’s convention speech was nothing more than empty payback for a political favor.

July 25, 2018 3:15 PM  
Anonymous The emoluments case is the nightmare Trump has long feared said...

The Post reports:

"A federal judge on Wednesday rejected President Trump’s latest effort to stop a lawsuit that alleges Trump is violating the Constitution by continuing to do business with foreign governments.

The ruling, from U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Greenbelt, Md., will allow the plaintiffs in the case — the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia — to proceed with their case, which says Trump has violated the Constitution’s little-used emoluments clause.

The plaintiffs now want to interview Trump Organization employees and search company records to determine which foreign countries have spent money at Trump’s hotel in downtown Washington."

This is the nightmare — or one of them — that Trump has long feared, namely litigation in which his business operations, perhaps even his tax returns, are laid bare. Norman Eisen, who is co-counsel with the District and Maryland, tells me, “It is another major crack in the dam that has so far been holding back accountability. [Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III] is closing in; [Michael] Cohen is about to cut a deal; and now we have taken another leap forward in being able to understand how Trump is profiting off the presidency, including possibly from Russia.” He adds, “‘Follow the money,’ the old adage goes, and we are going to do exactly that thanks to this decision.”

The decision, running over 50 pages, is an impressive, detailed analysis of the Constitution and 18th century language. This is a judge who did his homework. The ruling is the inevitable result of Trump’s decision to maintain ownership of his far-flung business operations and to continue to reap the benefits, foreign and domestic, resulting from his presidency. (Ivanka Trump sure seems prescient in her decision to dump her clothing business, which raises many of the same issues of conflicts of interest and foreign emoluments as her father faces.) The court held: “Plaintiffs have convincingly argued that the term ’emolument’ in both the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses, with slight refinements that the Court will address, means any ‘profit,’ ‘gain,’ or ‘advantage’ and that accordingly they have stated claims to the effect that the President, in certain instances, has violated both the Foreign and Domestic Clauses.” In doing so, the court rejected Trump’s argument that an emolument is only an emolument if the president gives the foreign government something in return. ..

July 25, 2018 3:48 PM  
Anonymous The court explained: "The text of both Clauses strongly indicates that the broader meaning of “emolument” advanced by Plaintiffs was meant to apply. As Plaintiffs point out, the Foreign Clause bans, without Congressional approval, “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 8 (emphasis added). Use of such expansive modifiers significantly undermines the President’s argument that this Clause was meant to prohibit only payment for official services rendered in an employment-type relationship. If there were any doubt as to the limits of the Foreign Clause, the Framers used the word “any” twice, ensuring a broad and expansive reach. The President’s argument that these modifiers merely ensure that the Foreign Clause bans receipt of every type of “present,” “emolument,” “office,” or “title” is unconvincing. Even without the inclusion of the modifier “of any kind whatever” in the Foreign Clause, it would still ban every type of prohibited category because it provides no exceptions. If “no word was unnecessarily used,” as the President argues … his own position runs aground. The more logical conclusion is the one that Plaintiffs urge: The use of “any kind whatever” was intended to ensure the broader meaning of the term “emolument.”" The court cited approvingly Maryland and D.C.’s argument that “the purpose of the Clause was to prevent the least possibility of undue influence and corruption being exerted upon the President by foreign governments. … That is, the Framers created a prophylactic rule to prevent the slightest chance of such influence.” Likely included in the broad definition endorsed by the court would be hotel room rentals, trademarks, licensing deals and other benefits afforded to Trump businesses. While the Constitution allows Congress to approve emoluments, the emoluments have to be identified. If Democrats take one or both houses in the midterms, you can be sure they will not approve any foreign receipts, but rather, will dig to find Trump’s foreign monies and perhaps even make him cough them up. Trump might finally face the prospect of choosing between his business interests and his presidency. Laurence Tribe, who along with Eisen has been making the emoluments argument in court and in the court of public opinion, says, “It’s an extremely significant ruling, the first federal judicial decision addressing — and endorsing — the theory we have been advancing on the Emoluments Clause ever since the start of the Trump administration.” On that, Trump would no doubt agree. You can be sure Trump will try to appeal the ruling. said...

...The court explained:

"The text of both Clauses strongly indicates that the broader meaning of “emolument” advanced by Plaintiffs was meant to apply. As Plaintiffs point out, the Foreign Clause bans, without Congressional approval, “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 8 (emphasis added). Use of such expansive modifiers significantly undermines the President’s argument that this Clause was meant to prohibit only payment for official services rendered in an employment-type relationship. If there were any doubt as to the limits of the Foreign Clause, the Framers used the word “any” twice, ensuring a broad and expansive reach. The President’s argument that these modifiers merely ensure that the Foreign Clause bans receipt of every type of “present,” “emolument,” “office,” or “title” is unconvincing. Even without the inclusion of the modifier “of any kind whatever” in the Foreign Clause, it would still ban every type of prohibited category because it provides no exceptions. If “no word was unnecessarily used,” as the President argues … his own position runs aground. The more logical conclusion is the one that Plaintiffs urge: The use of “any kind whatever” was intended to ensure the broader meaning of the term “emolument.”"

The court cited approvingly Maryland and D.C.’s argument that “the purpose of the Clause was to prevent the least possibility of undue influence and corruption being exerted upon the President by foreign governments. … That is, the Framers created a prophylactic rule to prevent the slightest chance of such influence.”

Likely included in the broad definition endorsed by the court would be hotel room rentals, trademarks, licensing deals and other benefits afforded to Trump businesses. While the Constitution allows Congress to approve emoluments, the emoluments have to be identified. If Democrats take one or both houses in the midterms, you can be sure they will not approve any foreign receipts, but rather, will dig to find Trump’s foreign monies and perhaps even make him cough them up. Trump might finally face the prospect of choosing between his business interests and his presidency.

Laurence Tribe, who along with Eisen has been making the emoluments argument in court and in the court of public opinion, says, “It’s an extremely significant ruling, the first federal judicial decision addressing — and endorsing — the theory we have been advancing on the Emoluments Clause ever since the start of the Trump administration.” On that, Trump would no doubt agree. You can be sure Trump will try to appeal the ruling.

July 25, 2018 3:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"No rational person can believe Trump would have been elected without the help of the Russians"

oh sure, it's really rational to believe that the meager effort and expense of the Russians determined the result of the election

if so, I'm sure political campaigns in the future will all be hiring consultants from Moscow

hahahahahahaha!!!

anyway, I can save you a little money with some free advice:

if you want to win, stop attacking the Constitution and try to address the plight of blue collar workers in the Midwest

poor Dems

how painful it must be

to know that so much has been lost and it's all their own fault

"anonymous, who are you going to vote for in the mid-terms: Democrat or Russian?"

oh, there will more choices than that

but i won't be voting for Dems

"more FOX news misinformation"

I'll get back to you when the economic reports come out Friday

In Canada, Queen Elizabeth is the head of state.

In a nuthouse in Canada, Priya is the head up the ass.

They have in common that neither has any actual influence over what happens or who gets elected in Canada.

"A federal judge on Wednesday rejected President Trump’s latest effort to stop a lawsuit that alleges Trump is violating the Constitution by continuing to do business with foreign governments."

personally, I agree with the court on this

"The ruling, from U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Greenbelt, Md., will allow the plaintiffs in the case — the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia — to proceed with their case, which says Trump has violated the Constitution’s little-used emoluments clause."

yeah, it's little used because we usually have some stupid lawyer for a leader

we've never had a President that's actually achieved anything

still. I agree that he should divest or ban foreign visitors to prevent an appearance of conflict

"This is the nightmare — or one of them — that Trump has long feared, namely litigation in which his business operations, perhaps even his tax returns, are laid bare."

don't get too excited

they can only justify looking at the hotel records

"Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III] is closing in;"

oh yeah, he's getting close

what's so amazing is how skillful a criminal Trump is

so far, for two years, he's evaded the FBI, an unelected special prosecutor that the DOJ has given virtually unlimited resources and powers, Senate and House Committees, intelligence agencies the globe and the vast worldwide media

but, yeah, Mueller's gettin' close!!

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

"Michael Cohen is about to cut a deal;"

he's saying he's going to tell everything he knows

since he's already saying that, what deal could there be to make?

"The court cited approvingly Maryland and D.C.’s argument that “the purpose of the Clause was to prevent the least possibility of undue influence and corruption being exerted upon the President by foreign governments. … That is, the Framers created a prophylactic rule to prevent the slightest chance of such influence.”"

well, I agree with that but I'm not sure Cavanaugh and Goresuch will

"You can be sure Trump will try to appeal the ruling."

probably not

he'll just have Congress approve his deals

July 25, 2018 6:35 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Fox Analyst: Trump Has No Attorney-Client Privilege With Tape, They Were Discussing Committing A Fraud

July 25, 2018 Trump Corruption, Trump Lies

“There is an indication of a fraud. And the significance of that is, if the client and the lawyer discuss the commission of a crime, or discuss the commission of a fraud, there is no attorney-client privilege in that conversation. Meaning the tape can be used by anybody who can get their hands on it for any purposes. Both civil fraud and criminal fraud are enough to burst the attorney-client privilege.” – Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, adding that Trump has “reason to worry.”

July 26, 2018 1:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks, Andrew

how is buying a story to keep it out of the press criminal fraud?

and who is this situation has any damages to sue for civil fraud?

and, other than leftists desperate to find anything, anything to use against trump, who the f cares?

the person here with the greatest civil liability is Cohen, who had no right to secretly tape someone

here in Maryland, that's felony

July 26, 2018 5:39 AM  
Anonymous It's state law said...

Cohen taped tRump in NY, which is a one-party consent state.

Maryland is a two party consent state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Two-party_consent_states

States that currently require that all parties consent to the recording include:

California,[23]
Connecticut,[24]
Florida,[25]
Hawaii (in general a one-party state, but requires two-party consent if the recording device is installed in a private place),[24]
Illinois (except for electronic communications, see next section),[26]
Maryland,[27]
Massachusetts [24] (only “secret” recordings are banned, but is the only state without a “public location” exception),[28]
Montana (requires notification only),[29]
Nevada,[30]
New Hampshire,[31]
Pennsylvania,[32]
Washington (however, section 3 of the Washington law states that permission is given if any of the parties announces that they will be recording the call in a reasonable manner if the recording contains that announcement).[33]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#One-party_consent_states

Other states [like New York] (and the District of Columbia) not listed above require only that one party consent to the recording.[22]


July 26, 2018 8:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Henry Kissinger suggested to President Donald Trump that the United States should work with Russia to contain a rising China.

The former secretary of state—who famously engineered the tactic of establishing diplomatic relations with China in order to isolate the Soviet Union—pitched almost the inverse of that idea to Trump during a series of private meetings during the presidential transition, five people familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. The potential strategy would use closer relations with Russia, along with other countries in the region, to box in China’s growing power and influence.

Kissinger also pitched the idea to Jared Kushner, the top White House adviser whose portfolio includes foreign-policy matters, one of the sources briefed on the discussions said.

Inside the administration, the proposal has found receptive ears, with some of Trump’s top advisers—in addition to officials in the State Department, Pentagon, and the National Security Council—also floating a strategy of using closer relations with Moscow to contain Beijing, according to White House and Capitol Hill insiders.

Kissinger has met with Putin 17 times over the years. And Kissinger has repeatedly advocated for a better working relationship between Washington and Moscow. Of last week’s summit in Helsinki between Trump and Putin, Kissinger said, “It was a meeting that had to take place. I have advocated it for several years.” He has also expressed doubt about the purpose of Russian interference in the election, and promoted a better balance of power among the world’s largest influencers.

His overall views seem to have made their way into explanations for Trump’s affinity for Putin. One former Trump administration official referred to Trump’s posture toward Putin during the Helsinki summit earlier this month as “the reverse of the Nixon-China play.”

“Russia and China are cozying up to each other and it’s a lethal combination if they’re together,” said the former official, who was familiar with the strategizing behind the summit.

July 26, 2018 8:30 AM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

After the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed his razor-thin defeat in the 2000 presidential election, former Vice President Al Gore could have gone to the mat trying to delegitimize the presidency of George W. Bush. Much to his credit, he didn’t.

Democrat Gore had won the popular vote, after all, and the turmoil created by the historic 36-day recount in Florida was all he needed to divide the country for selfish and ideological reasons. But instead of orchestrating a radical leftist resistance, Gore chose country over power.

As difficult as it must have been, Gore was big enough to let it go, accept his loss, and recognize that Republican Bush was the legitimate president of the United States.

In a constitutional republic like ours, every two years there are winners and losers at the ballot box. After a rigorous debate and exchange of ideas, “We the People” make the ultimate decision about who will do the governing until the next election.

Historically, the party that loses the previous election licks its wounds, reboots its message and works with the majority party on issues where common ground can be found. This recipe that is the American miracle has worked remarkably well for 230 years – until now.

Now there’s a permanent Democratic obstruction campaign in Washington and a radical socialist resistance across the country. What’s driving this?

Never before in American history have disgruntled leaders of the minority party sought to deligimitmize and bring down a duly elected president of the United States.

It’s been over 20 months since President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the historic election of November 2016, but the left will not let it go and it’s doing great damage to our country.

From twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to former CIA Director John Brennan to actor Robert DeNiro to fake news, deranged leftists are determined to try to bring down a presidency. Their attacks are based on a false narrative and they don’t care if they tank our country and system of government in the process.

Just this past weekend, Hillary Clinton continued to question President Trump’s allegiance to America while speaking about his recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Clinton pushed the centerpiece of the Democratic agenda – Russia – when she disingenuously asked her audience: “Why didn’t he (Trump) stand up for our country? In this case it doesn’t seem like our president cares. He’s trying to be friends with Putin for reasons we are all trying to figure out.”

Hillary Clinton is a lot of things. She’s dishonest; she’s the embodiment of entrenched power and the failed Washington status quo; and of course, she’s crooked. However, one thing she’s not is stupid.

July 26, 2018 9:17 AM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

Clinton knows full well that Christopher Steele’s phony dossier is a steaming pile of political crap because she paid for the opposition research herself. She also knows that her cronies in the Obama administration pushed the fake dossier through official intelligence, diplomatic and law enforcement channels because a President Hillary Clinton would have rewarded the swamp creatures handsomely.

This is why Brennan and his deep state ilk are running around labeling the leader of the free world a traitor – just because President Trump ruined Hillary’s coronation and swept them all from power.

Clinton also knows that she started her service as Obama’s secretary of state with the failed Russia “reset” in an effort to improve relations between our two countries. She spent four years cozying up to Russia in search of a foreign policy success to hang her hat on and to line her husband’s pockets and the Clinton Foundation with Russian cash.

Hillary relies on her allies in the anti-Trump media to gloss over that wrinkle in their concocted narrative. But the resistance doesn’t stop with her political and media pals. She’s also got Hollywood in full war mode.

The once-respected actor Robert DeNiro goes ballistic and screams “f--- Trump!” at a televised award ceremony. Wealthy comedian Bill Maher waxes on about how great an economic recession would be for Democratic chances to retake power – ignoring the fact that a recession would hurt millions of hardworking American families.

These and other Trump-haters make it clear that the left is united in its effort to get rid of President Trump – no matter what.

Unfortunately for the agenda-less liberals, the Trump economy is on fire and this Friday’s report on the gross domestic product will confirm what the American people already know: President Trump’s pro-growth economic program is working and the results are exceeding all expectations.

It’s a dangerous game being played by national Democratic leaders and it’s not without consequences. Whether it’s turning their backs on our police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, or attempting to provoke a war with Russia, the Democrats have become totally unhinged.

Will any adults in the Democratic Party show some leadership and say it’s time to move past 2016 once and for all? Or will they continue their sad and destructive decline into Third World chaos and socialism?

Make no mistake, Hillary Clinton is fueling the resistance and encouraging others to join in because she can’t get over losing, despite the fact that she pledged to accept the results of the election. It’s still all about Hillary – America be damned.

July 26, 2018 9:17 AM  
Anonymous Hmmm a Maryland tRump-supporter with religious gay issues....imagine that said...

A Maryland man who had an underground bunker full of machine guns, explosives and child pornography has been sentenced to more than 16 years in federal prison.

The sentencing Wednesday for Caleb Andrew Bailey, 31, of Waldorf, came more than two years after he was first arrested in a case that originally began as an investigation into a suspicious package he sent through the mail.

“I screwed up beyond words and I will never forgive myself,” said Bailey, who ran as a delegate for Donald Trump before the Republican National Convention and ran for a seat in Maryland’s 5th congressional District. “The damage I’ve done haunts me.”

Bailey had attempted to ship hundreds of rounds of ammunition without a permit to a store in Wisconsin in February 2016, but the box broke open at a U.S. postal facility, according to court filings. Bailey called to ask about the undelivered package, leading the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to Bailey’s home.

While executing a search warrant, investigators uncovered a cache of machine guns, unregistered short-barreled rifles and explosive devices. Authorities also found recording equipment and electronic devices containing more than 2,000 files depicting child pornography, including videos of teenage boys he recorded surreptitiously, according to his plea agreement.

During the search, authorities also found a 17-year-old described as a “minor victim” at the house. The teen had earlier taken a laptop, camera, and hard drive from inside the residence to hide near a footbridge in the woods at Bailey’s instruction, court filings state.

Bailey had an admitted fascination with firearms and also collected them as a means of personal protection, according to testimony from his sentencing. Bailey kept the weapons locked up and did not intend to harm others, his attorney said.

During the search, authorities also found a 17-year-old described as a “minor victim” at the house. The teen had earlier taken a laptop, camera, and hard drive from inside the residence to hide near a footbridge in the woods at Bailey’s instruction, court filings state.

Bailey had an admitted fascination with firearms and also collected them as a means of personal protection, according to testimony from his sentencing. Bailey kept the weapons locked up and did not intend to harm others, his attorney said.

Bailey and his attorney said he grew up in a conservative and religious community and he recorded the videos because he was ashamed of his attraction to other men and couldn’t openly express his sexual preferences.

“I did not know how to deal with my attraction to the same sex,” Bailey said.

Grimm said Bailey’s possession of child pornography were “very serious crimes.” The judge alluded to the lifetime of trauma victims suffer as they are notified every time images of them being violated when they were “small and defenseless” circulate and recirculate through the Internet and become part of a criminal case.

“What folks need to understand is that the victims of child pornography become victims often for the rest of their lives,” Grimm said. “They write heart-wrenching letters of the trust that will never be restored.”

July 26, 2018 9:19 AM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

hey must be burning whatever gallons of midnight oil they have left at MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. -- all the propaganda organs of the Democratic Party -- trying to figure out how to downplay the agreement Donald Trump just made with European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker, but it's not going to be easy. This is the beginning of a massive free trade deal between Europe and the U.S. with zero tariffs outside the auto industry. If even half of it comes true, there will be a YUUUGE growth in trade benefitting both sides of the Atlantic.

Forget porn stars. Forget tapes. Forget evil Vlad and Rocket Man. Forget insulting our NATO partners (whatever that means). Forget that pseudo-socialist with the hyphenated name. Forget Mueller, sleazy Strzok , Adam "Leaker" Schiff, Fingers Clapper, Knuckles Brennan, Rocko Rosenstein, or any of the sordid crew. Forget even Twitter! (well, maybe). By comparison, those are all sideshows. As everyone knows, in politics, "It's the economy, stupid!"

Or, put another way, "It's the art of the deal." And that's what came through today and then some. This is the most significant moment of Trump's presidency since the tax law passed -- and he's had plenty, more than any president of any of our lifetimes if you actually think about it.

Boom went the stock market within seconds of the announcement. It already looked as if we were headed for another Trump bull market with growth approaching a jaw-dropping five percent. Good for everyone.

The Dems and their media lackeys are not going to have the tariff issue to kick around anymore. Turns out it was what anyone with the proverbial IQ in triple digits knew it was -- a bargaining chip.

Needless to say, many of those conventional dullards who loath Trump knew this too, but wouldn't admit it. Therefore they gave him about ten minutes to make his deal. He made it in five. Panic in Media Park.

Making matters worse for the Dems, this new deal entails growing sales of liquid natural gas by our country to Europe. Who does that most affect? Well, duh, Comrade Putin, of course. Thought experiment: What do you suppose would trouble Putin more -- the U.S. cornering the LNG market or Trump calling him a bunch of nasty names?

It's so obvious that Trump has done more to actually "trouble" Putin by his actions (really arming the Ukrainians, etc.) than any of his recent predecessors that it would be generally acknowledged in a semi-honest media environment. The whole hoo-haw about Helsinki was less than a bunch of nothing in the grand scheme of things. But the oppressive leftwing media environment affects even the right so they often can't see straight and apologize for things that need no apology. This new deal should straighten some of that out.

It also should be powerful ammunition for any Republican running this fall. Do you want the Trump economy or do you want a return to the Obama economy? It's as simple as that. Trump continues to negotiate great agreements for America, at home and abroad. The "Art of the Deal" may be a cliché by now, but it appears to work. And when something's working for once, why change it -- especially to something that already failed?(Or, in the case of socialism, worse than failed -- caused mass impoverishment and mass murder.)

If Republicans can communicate that simple message, they will win big. Not always geniuses at marketing their ideas, this one is so obvious maybe even the GOP can do it.

Are we tired of winning yet?

July 26, 2018 10:16 AM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

Let’s get right to the good stuff: In a new poll conducted by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, just 33 percent of those surveyed think the Democratic Party is “in the mainstream.” More than half, 56 percent, consider them out of step.

Just two years ago in 2016, those numbers were far different: 48 percent mainstream, 42 percent out. That means the “mainstream” number has plunged 12.5 percent, a huge drop in just two years.

Man, it’s not easy being a Democrat these days.

Chief among the party’s problems, and they have many, is that the Democrats lack a leader. The last head of the party, Barack Obama, took his mojo with him when he left town, and he’s busy partying it up with Jay-Z and Beyonce in Paris. Meanwhile, 2020 is still too far away, so no one has yet emerged around whom the party faithful can rally.

The Democratic Party is a rudderless ship, and the captain left on a life raft years ago. Only the rats are still on board.

What few leaders the party has are all ancient mariners: Rep. Nancy Pelosi is 78, Sen. Bernie Sanders is 76, the two-time loser Hillary Clinton is 70, the wannabe nominee for 2020, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is 69, and the party’s angriest member, Sen. Chuck Schumer, is 67.

Still others are just downright nuts, like Rep. Maxine Waters. The networks love putting her on the air to rail against President Trump, but all those Americans out there see is another crazy out-of-the-mainstream Democrat.

Sure, Hillary is still waltzing around in her housecoat or muumuu or whatever the heck she was wearing the other day. And she’s still exhausted and still coughing her lungs out as she makes little murmuring noises that she’ll run again. She doesn’t know it yet, but there’s zero chance the party will nominate her again. Zero.

So that’s left a vacuum in the party. Into that gaping hole has stepped Mr. Sanders and his new buddy, fellow socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old former bartender preaching free everything for everybody as she runs for a House seat. The two socialists joined forces last week to campaign for House candidates in Kansas, where they preached their socialist ideals to a packed auditorium.

The new slogan for the Democratic Party is “A Better Deal,” and the pair declared that means lots of free stuff for everyone. They’ll tax those horrible rich people and those awful corporations (who cares if they’re the ones giving regular people jobs), and they’ll somehow come up with $1 trillion for free health care and a trillion more for all the other free stuff they want to give away.

Now, let’s be clear: That pitch works in the cities and along the two coasts. But it sure doesn’t play in Peoria.

Democrats gathered in Ohio last week for a conference organized by the center-left think tank Third Way. The group spent a year taking the pulse of rank-and-file Democrats and came away with one key finding: Socialism doesn’t sell. “Once again, the time has come to mend, but not end, capitalism for a new era,” Third Way President Jonathan Cowan said in a speech to a few hundred congressmen and Democratic officials. The group is encouraging Democrats to do what Bill Clinton did in the 1990s: moderate.

Which is what makes that new NBC/WSJ poll’s findings so fascinating. In 2016, Democrats argued that President Trump was far outside the mainstream, but he turned out not to be. Now, just one-third of those polled think the Democrats of today are mainstream.

Where the party goes next is anyone’s guess. But where it’s going right now apparently scares the hell out of all those flyover-country “mainstream” Americans

July 26, 2018 10:48 AM  
Anonymous Dems are worried sick!! said...

I’m coming to you first thing this morning -- because I need your $1 and help quickly.

I just left my daily finance briefing, and the Republicans’ 2O18 cash haul has me worried:

Between Paul Ryan's super PAC and Trump's RNC, they've raised over $3OO MILLION to unload on our Democrats. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

With just 1OO days left, we can’t let Republicans steal the Midterm Election out from under us.

I’m calling on you because I can’t do this alone. I need a massive surge of support before our End of Month Deadline hits on Tuesday.

Will you rush in $1 to kick these Republicans out of office?

Thank you,

Nancy Pelosi

July 26, 2018 12:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Did you hear the audio recording of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump right before the 2016 election working out a payment that would keep a Playboy model quiet about an affair between the two?

Me neither. And neither did CNN, even though the network claims it has.

CNN late Tuesday aired what anchor Chris Cuomo called a “secret tape” in which Trump and his now-former lawyer Michael Cohen “discuss arrangements surrounding a payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, that was made by a third party, David Pecker, as head of the National Enquirer.”

McDougal alleges that she had an affair with Trump over the course of 10 months starting in 2006 and that the National Enquirer paid her for rights to the story ahead of the 2016 election, though the tabloid intentionally never published it.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, audio taped some meetings with Trump (for reasons thus far unknown) and Cohen’s own lawyer turned one of the recordings over to CNN.

But CNN isn’t even confident of what’s on the tape.

Before airing it on Tuesday, Chris Cuomo said, “I’m not including a translation of the tape because there is clearly a dispute about what is being said."

There is “clearly a dispute” because nothing can clearly be heard.

CNN aired the tape countless times in 24 hours but never included subtitles of what the audience was supposed to be hearing.

The only intelligible portion on the three-minute tape is when Trump calls for someone to, “Get me a Coke, please.”

But here’s the part that’s supposed to mean something pertaining to the McDougal payment, as transcribed by the Washington Post:

COHEN: Um, I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David, you know, so that — I’m going to do that right away. I’ve actually come up and I’ve spoken —

TRUMP: Give it to me and get me a [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

COHEN: And, I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with …

TRUMP: So, what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?

COHEN: … Funding . . . Yes. Um, and it’s all the stuff.

TRUMP: Yeah, I was thinking about that.

COHEN: All the stuff. Because — here, you never know where that company — you never know what he’s —

TRUMP: Maybe he gets hit by a truck.

COHEN: Correct. So, I’m all over that. And, I spoke to Allen about it, when it comes time for the financing, which will be —

TRUMP: Wait a sec, what financing?

COHEN: Well, I’ll have to pay him something.

TRUMP: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] pay with cash ...

COHEN: No, no, no, no, no. I got it.

TRUMP: ... check.

Setting aside that this is an unbelievably generous transcript, considering that I can’t make out half of this listening on my own with the volume up and a cup held to the speakers, this should mean absolutely nothing to anyone.

For one, McDougal is never mentioned.

What does “transfer all of that info” mean?

Trump himself sounds confused about what the “financing” is for and whether it should be paid for with cash or a check.

Why should anyone assume that this is a sleazy conversation about an affair Trump wanted to keep quiet, other than because his former lawyer, bitter about having been alienated by the White House, says so?

Not that any of this is important to anyone. In the middle of the Stormy Daniels extortion campaign controversy, a Quinnipiac University poll showed that 73 percent of registered voters didn’t care about it.

Maybe Trump did pay money to silence a nude model. But that’s not what CNN’s heralded tape shows

July 26, 2018 1:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Christian Right and Russia prey together

It turns out that the Christian Right and Russia are besties. Who knew? There’s an overwrought lovefest going on with Russia, and it’s not confined to the Sycophant in Chief.

Those of us of a certain age well remember the repugnance with which U.S. Christianity held the Soviet Union. “Godless communism” was the big threat, and opposition to it is responsible for some of our most intractable state/church entanglements. But today, right-wing evangelicals are in bed with Putin and his Russian agents, and maybe vice-versa.

In a bizarre news week, perhaps the most bizarre revelation of them all was the Justice Department’s discovery that indicted Russian operative Maria Butina chose to “establish a back channel of communication” at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. In other words, she allegedly used this nefarious gala of piety for espionage networking. As Butina fatuously emailed a prayer breakfast organizer, “A new relationship between two countries always begins better when it begins in faith.”

Butina attended the 2017 prayer breakfast with a group she reportedly described as “important political advisors to Russian President Putin,” followed by a “very private meeting.” At the 2018 National Prayer Breakfast, more than 50 Russians — believed to be the largest foreign contingent — attended, or rather infiltrated, thanks to Butina’s efforts.

Butina’s consort and Russian politician Alexander Torshin was formally invited to the 2018 prayer gala. Torshin and Burleigh had spoken at a Russian version of a prayer breakfast in 2017. Burleigh has bragged about leading evangelical efforts for 50 years in Russia, according to Religion News Service.

The news service also reports that Torshin and Butina allegedly tried to set up a 2016 meeting between President Trump and Putin at a “Persecuted Christians Summit” in Moscow organized by evangelist Franklin Graham.

Russian Orthodox Church patriarch Kirill I, an opponent of human rights, is close to Putin, and is reported to have been a former KGB agent.

July 26, 2018 2:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

It shouldn’t really be surprising that Religious Right figures would approve of Putin. First of all, the Religious Right has no shame. It has long conceded the moral high ground in its unreserved embrace of Trump.

But Putin also works hand in glove with the Orthodox Russian Church, as nasty a denomination as they come. Long-bearded, black-robed patriarchs persecuted the young feminist rebel band, Pussy Riot, leading to its prosecution. The church detests gayness, and is an ardent foe of abortion rights and LGBT rights.

From the perspective of Christian Right zealots, what’s not to like? Russia now has a godly oligarchy fully blessed by the Russian Orthodox Church and, apparently, by leading Christian nationalists in the United States.

The late Paul Weyrich, who has helped create such Religious Right and organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and Moral Majority, was an early proponent of working with Russia after the Soviet Union dissolved.

Trump backer Franklin Graham has praised Putin’s anti-gay agenda. Foreshadowing Trump’s rendezvous with Putin in Helsinki, Graham met privately with Putin for 45 minutes in 2015.

National Organization of Marriage President Brian Brown actually testified before Russia’s parliament in 2013 against adoption rights for gay couples.

American "Family" Association spokesperson Bryan Fischer has called Putin “a lion of Christianity.

Vice President Mike Pence, while a candidate in 2016, lauded Putin as “a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.”

Stewart points out that Russia has cultivated far-right groups in Europe: “Anti-LGBT politics are an effective tool in mobilizing religious nationalists everywhere, which is in turn an excellent way to destabilize the Western alliance and advance Russia’s geopolitical interests.”

Putin and Christian Nationalists don’t just pray together — they prey together.

July 26, 2018 2:23 PM  
Anonymous "It's the art of the deal." No, it resuming TTIP talks, duh said...

BRUSSELS — European officials are struggling to make sense of what seems a temporary trade war truce between President Trump and the European Union, following the visit of E.U. leaders to Washington this week.

Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, announced Wednesday that they had agreed to work toward resolving disputes over steel and aluminum tariffs, delay proposed car tariffs and talk about a bilateral trade deal.

“Objectively this a good news, that we avoided so far tariffs on cars,” said a senior E.U. diplomat, who like many officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions.

In capitals across Europe, a number of national officials echoed that sentiment, heralding the meeting as having prevented a trade war. German Finance Minister Peter Altmaier, for instance, called it a “breakthrough.” But others were wary, wondering whether it’s realistic to expect Europe to buy more soybeans from the United States, as Juncker signaled, or to become “a massive buyer” of U.S. liquefied natural gas, as Trump declared.

And to some European eyes, the more feasible parts of what Trump and Juncker discussed look a lot like the goals of what was known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, an initiative launched by President Barack Obama that aspired to free trade with Europe.

Wednesday’s joint statement between Juncker and Trump included calls for easing trade barriers in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, medical products and services — sectors that also were discussed within TTIP. Those negotiations have been mostly dormant since 2016, when they were sidetracked by Britain voting to leave the European Union and the United States electing Trump.

July 26, 2018 3:15 PM  
Anonymous Welcome to Trumplandia said...

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's lawyer, suggested to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night that Trump said, "Don’t pay with cash" and insisted, "I don't think anyone can suggest this [the recording] represents anything where the president did anything wrong." Cohen's lawyer Danis disagreed. He said, "listen to the tape, everyone. This is not a man shocked when Mr. Cohen said, we have to make payments."

The chatter in the aftermath was all about what was said and what was meant by the "cash vs check" part of the conversation. But the real issue is that statement by Davis. Trump was clearly not shocked by the subject of hush money being paid through a third party (allegedly American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer) to one of his former mistresses. In years gone by this alone would have sounded the death knell for a presidency solely on political grounds but Trump's voters don't care at all about his womanizing ways or the fact that he paid money to keep his mistresses quiet. Perhaps they believe that's another example of his stable genius at work.

However, there are laws against someone paying hush money when they are running for office if they don't properly report the expenditure. And there are laws against evading banking reporting requirements such as those that caught up former House Speaker Dennis Hastert when he was paying hush money to a former student whom he abused when he was a high school wrestling coach. The tenor of the taped conversation between Trump and Cohen clearly indicated that they knew they were doing something that was not on the up and up.

The most obvious parallel to the Trump payoff scheme is the John Edwards case in which the former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate was tried on felony charges of making illegal, unreported campaign contributions through some wealthy donors to pay for his mistress during his presidential run in 2008. He was acquitted on one charge, the jury was unable to agree on five others and the Justice department decided not to retry the case. Cohen's lawyer Davis brought up the Edwards case himself to MSNBC's Katy Tur, so it's definitely something that's on Cohen's radar.

According to experts in campaign law, this case is much stronger than the Edwards case because of one thing: Michael Cohen. Ken Dilanian at NBC news spoke to Brett Kappel, a campaign finance expert with Akerman LLP. He said that he people who made the payments to Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, over the course of two years all claimed that their motive was to spare Edwards' wife who was dying of cancer. The Trump payoff arrangements came much closer to the election. One of the participants appears to be ready to testify that that it was not about sparing personal embarrassment.There is at least one other woman who was paid off in the same period. And there are tapes.

On Wednesday the White House took the unprecedented step of banning the reporter who was assigned to cover a Rose Garden event because she asked about the Cohen tapes. Trump must be very upset.

July 26, 2018 5:29 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The evangelical support of Trump will be an indictment against its validity as a christian movement for generations to come.

July 26, 2018 10:49 PM  
Anonymous What would Reagan Do? said...

The son of former President Ronald Reagan believes Donald Trump’s political base is so consumed by hatred for the Democrats that they would vote for Vladimir Putin to be America’s president instead of virtually any member of that party.

“They really aren’t in touch with reality. The most important thing to them [is that Trump] seems to hate the same people that they hate,” Ron Reagan told Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Thursday. “That’s the real Trump derangement syndrome.”

On the other hand, they like the people Trump likes, Reagan said. Russian President Putin’s popularity is rising, he noted.

“If it was left just up to Trump’s base, they would elect Vladimir Putin as president of the United States over virtually anybody with a D after their name,” he added. “If Trump seems to love Putin, they’ll love Putin, too.”

A revved-up Matthews groused that if President Barack Obama had committed an antic like one of Trump’s, he “would have been keelhauled.”

Reagan responded: “You’re absolutely right. No previous president could have gotten away with even a tenth of the things that Donald Trump has.”

July 27, 2018 1:53 AM  
Anonymous Tired of "winning" yet? said...

Despite his promising to be “the greatest jobs producer that God ever created” after winning the presidency, Trump’s recent slew of overseas tariffs has led to an increasing number of job losses at home.

America’s largest nail manufacturer, Mid-Continent Nail, became the first company to lay off employees as a result of Trump’s tariffs in mid-June. The Missouri-based company made its nails with steel imported from Mexico, but Trump’s 25% tax on steel dealt a blow to production. Sixty employees lost their jobs, and the whole company—which employs 500—could be out of business by Labor Day, said the Washington Post.

REC Silicon, which produces polysilicon for solar equipment, laid off 100 employees Monday as a “direct result of the ongoing solar trade dispute between China and the United States,” said company officials. The Washington state-based company has reduced production to about a quarter of capacity due to these trade disputes.

Industry coalitions have warned that tariff increases will cause job losses in the future. The Solar Energy Industries Association estimated that new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration will lead to the loss of 23,000 jobs in the U.S. solar sector. BMW and General Motors each sent letters to the Commerce Department warning that new tariffs could lead to higher car prices and job cuts at production plants. Volvo had promised to hire 4,000 new employees for a new plant in South Carolina, but has said it may have to break this promise as a result of new tariffs.

Harley-Davidson announced it would be moving some of its U.S. production elsewhere after retaliatory tariffs from the European Union raised U.S. motorcycle tariffs from 6% to 31%, adding nearly $2,200 to the average cost of one of its bikes. The company has not said how many jobs will be affected by this move.

U.S. Steel and Century Aluminum have announced it will hire new workers as a result of Trump’s tariffs, creating a combined 800 jobs, but this number is dwarfed by the number that could be lost in the coming months.

July 27, 2018 1:58 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

82 known contacts with Russians, yet Trump denied them all and not a single contact was reported. A couple hundred more of these and we might see a pattern develop.

July 27, 2018 1:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Despite his promising to be “the greatest jobs producer that God ever created” after winning the presidency, Trump’s recent slew of overseas tariffs has led to an increasing number of job losses at home."

Seriously? We are now enjoying the lowest unemployment rates of the 21st century. Lowest ever for minorities. And, unlike under Obama, the rate has gone down while the labor participation rate has risen. They are quality jobs too.

Indeed, right now, there are more job openings than seekers and several states are mulling training programs to address this "nice problem to have."

Trump's ultimate goal if completely free trade with no tariffs anywhere. For years, "free trade" meant tariffs on american goods while we had none on foreign goods. Trump, to his credit and the benefit of American workers is not acquiescing in this situation.

July 27, 2018 11:12 AM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

Working-class and flyover Americans view the Trump White House as fighting successfully for them. But while the elite and chattering classes abhor President Donald Trump and anything he does, they can’t avoid the facts. And the facts are crisp, startling, and unavoidably in favor of President Trump being the American jobs president.

Here are five reasons why President Trump could be the “Jobs President” of our generation:

1. Unemployment is at a record low. The unemployment rate of Americans hit 3.8 percent in May, a record low. The unemployment rate of Latinos is at an all-time low. Women’s unemployment hit a 65-year low in May and African-American unemployment rates hit an all-time low at the same time.

2. A record number of Americans are working full-time. Nearly 130 million Americans now have full-time jobs. This is six million more than the most under President Obama.

3. The number of jobs available is at a record high. We’ve been seeing record-high job openings, ranging from 6.6 to 6.8 million between March and May. And as the Washington Post pointed out in May, that essentially means that there are as many jobs as there are unemployed Americans.

4. Corporate America is invested in the American worker — and the American economy. The Trumps engaged corporate America. The Trump White House succeeded in getting companies to commit to training and retraining workers for the skills America needs to compete globally.

Last week, Ivanka Trump coordinated a White House event where companies and associations pledged to develop the skills of over five million American workers.

Additionally, with support from the administration, Congress is in the process of passing legislation supporting community college and technical training education. By working with employers and communities, and emphasizing transparency, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act will prepare students for high-skilled, high-paying jobs, helping them avoid the crushing mountains of debt that so many millennials currently face.

5. Business is booming. The stock market has experienced strong growth under President Trump. Choking business rules have been cut. Taxes have been slashed. Top administration appointees have business experience and are welcoming input from business leaders on how the government could be more efficient and favorable to job creation and business formation.

In short, President Trump is keeping his commitment to the forgotten blue-collar worker and to the older worker in middle America who thought the world had passed them by. Just a few years ago, many of them had less hope for a future with job training or even a job.

Presidents often get too much credit or blame for the success or failure of the economy. But in this case, Trump deserves much of the credit for the optimism, opportunity, and strength of the market.

“Make America Great Again” Trump enthusiasts’ joy is well-placed.

July 27, 2018 11:21 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump Makes Another Pointless ‘Deal’ and Declares Problem Solved

One very obvious pattern with Trump is that he creates a problem, escalates it into an alleged crisis, then pretends to make a groundbreaking deal to end the crisis and declares himself a genius. He did it with North Korea and then did it again yesterday with a meaningless “deal” with the European Union on tariffs that really just kicks the can down the road — until after the midterm elections, not coincidentally. European leaders are rather baffled by it because there’s just no there there.

European officials are struggling to make sense of what seems a temporary trade war truce between President Trump and the European Union, following the visit of E.U. leaders to Washington this week.

Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, announced Wednesday that they had agreed to work toward resolving disputes over steel and aluminum tariffs, delay proposed car tariffs and talk about a bilateral trade deal.

And that’s the deal, in a nutshell. We’re gonna put some of this on hold and we pinky swear that we’ll work it all out later somehow. Trump, of course, declared it a huge victory, but then he thinks that if he ends the day without a brown streak in his underwear, he’s done something magnificent. Stephanie Ruhle, who knows a thing or two about financial markets and trade, called the deal “simply an agreement to begin talking about reconciliation. My question is reconciliation from what?” From Trump’s self-created trade war. It was Trump that created the problem in the first place because he thinks if we run a trade deficit with another country, they’ve beaten us somehow. That’s just nonsense and betrays about an 8-year old’s understanding of trade and economics.

July 27, 2018 1:16 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...


Mueller Subpoenas Trump’s Chief Financial Officer


On that now-infamous recording of Trump and Michael Cohen discussing the payoff to one of his mistresses, Karen McDougal, Cohen twice mentions someone named Allen, with whom he says he has spoken about arranging the financing for that payoff. That man is Allen Weisselberg, the Chief Financial Officer for the Trump Organization. He has now been subpoenaed by Robert Mueller to testify before a grand jury.

Trump should be terrified right now. As Trump biographer Timothy O’Brien notes, no one knows more about Trump’s financial and business dealings than Weisselberg.

Weisselberg isn’t a bit player in Trumplandia and his emergence on the Cohen-Trump recording – as someone possibly facilitating a scheme apparently meant to disguise a payoff – should worry the president. Weisselberg has detailed information about the Trump Organization’s operations, business deals and finances. If he winds up in investigators’ crosshairs for secreting payoffs, he could potentially provide much more damaging information to prosecutors than Cohen ever could about the president’s dealmaking…

Weisselberg, on the other hand, has worked for the Trump family since the 1970s, and knows more about the Trump Organization’s history and finances than nearly anyone. Almost 71 years old, he joined the company after graduating from college and worked for the president’s father, Fred, as an accountant…

Over the years, Weisselberg’s professional duties also came to include handling Trump’s personal finances as well as the Trump Organization’s corporate finances.

Weisselberg is far more dangerous to Trump than Cohen could dream of being. If Cohen knows where the bodies are buried, Weisselberg was probably the one who made the burial necessary, or knows who is. Trump has to be terrified right now. If he isn’t, he’s a fool. Look for his attacks on Mueller to get even more extreme and unhinged because that’s the only way he knows to respond to fear.

July 27, 2018 1:19 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump tells American military to ‘surrender’ large swaths of Afghanistan as US negotiates directly with Taliban

July 28, 2018 9:27 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If Obama, or any 0ther Dem, had told the military to surrender territory the screaming would have deafened us all.

July 28, 2018 9:28 PM  
Anonymous Obama the Worst was the worst President, like, ever said...

uh, Priya

Earth to Priya

we don't have any territory in Afghaniland

it's another country

history will ultimately judge Barack Obama as the worst president ever

here are six reasons, which are merely the tip of a massive iceberg:

6. Weaponizing the government against his enemies

Perhaps the most well-known example of the Obama administration abusing its power to target Obama’s political enemies is the infamous IRS scandal. Over a two-year period leading up to the 2012 election, tea party groups and other conservatives were improperly scrutinized by the IRS. Twelve different IRS offices across the country were involved and the entire operation was orchestrated out of Washington, D.C., and there was also evidence of White House involvement. The IRS also targeted private individuals critical of Obama, GOP candidates, and Romney donors.

There are also examples of conservative individuals being targeted as the result of gross abuse of power by the Obama administration. Conservative author Dinesh D’Souza was indicted for campaign finance violations for a crime typically not prosecuted at all. James O’Keefe of Project Veritas was put on a terrorism watchlist after a video was released of him dressed as a terrorist crossing back and forth over the U.S./Mexico border to demonstrate the lack of border security.

Obama’s pièce de résistance when it came to abuse of power is perhaps his spying on the Trump campaign. The Steele dossier on Trump (a partisan opposition research document funded by the DNC and the Hillary campaign loaded with loads of bogus and salacious accusations) was used to secure a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. Anti-Trump partisans were involved in the investigation, and based on text messages between investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page (who were having an affair) we know that Strzok saw the investigation as an “insurance policy” in case Trump won the election, and that Page, worried that Trump could win, was told by Strzok, “No. No he won't. We'll stop it.” Other text messages indicated that Obama wanted to be kept in the loop on their investigation. The independence and integrity of the FBI took a major blow during the Obama years, and we’re still learning just how bad it was.

July 29, 2018 7:14 AM  
Anonymous Obama the Worst was the worst President, like, ever said...

5. Obama’s surveillance state

According to the ACLU there was a 64 percent growth in electronic spying by the United States government during Obama’s first term. The Obama administration argued in federal court in 2012 that the public has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” regarding their cell phone location data and that the government can obtain these records without a warrant. Further blemishing Obama’s record on civil liberties, his administration green-lighted a giant government database of information on millions of citizens who weren’t even suspected of terrorism or any crime at all.

In May 2017, we also found out that Obama’s National Security Agency had been conducting illegal searches on Americans for years and was rebuked by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). We didn’t hear about it sooner because the Obama administration covered it up.

July 29, 2018 7:15 AM  
Anonymous Obama the Worst was the worst President, like, ever said...

4. Purging Gitmo

As a candidate in 2007, Obama promised he would close the terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (Gitmo), as soon as he was elected. He signed an executive order on January 22, 2009, requiring Gitmo to close within one year. Congress refused to go along, so instead of closing it, he systematically purged the prison of its terrorist inmates, as a sort of end-run around congressional opposition to closure. In 2003, there were 680 prisoners. By early January 2015, there were fewer than 130, and he continued releasing prisoners through the remainder of his second term.

One retired CIA officer estimated that at least 50 percent of those released from Gitmo returned to battle against American troops, and Paul Lewis, Obama’s special envoy for Guantanamo closure, confirmed that Americans have been killed by released Gitmo detainees.

July 29, 2018 7:17 AM  
Anonymous Obama the Worst was the worst President, like, ever said...

3. Obamacare

Despite his campaign promise to bring Democrats and Republicans together to reform healthcare, Obama signed a trillion-dollar government takeover of one-sixth of the United States economy with zero Republican votes in the Senate and only one Republican vote in the House. Despite a promise of transparency, Obama and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made sure that the final negotiations were held behind closed doors.

And who can forget the disastrous Obamacare rollout? Aside from website problems, there was evidence that the Obama administration fudged enrollment numbers to make it appear more successful and popular than it really was. Basically, everything connected to Obamacare was plagued with failure. The 23 taxpayer-funded healthcare co-ops nationwide established by Obamacare to compete with private health insurance providers proved to be unsustainable, and by January 2018, only four Obamacare co-ops remained. The Obamacare co-ops were basically the health insurance version of the Solyndra boondoggle, but bigger.

The most insulting part of it all was that despite the high costs of Obamacare, health premiums went up and coverage got worse. Remember “if you like your plan you can keep it”? That was a lie. While the Obama administration often touted the increased numbers of people who had health insurance, the number of people who delayed seeking medical care because of costs did not improve. In fact, in November 2015, the percentage of people who reported delaying medical care over costs was higher than it was before Obama even took office. So, people were forced to buy insurance even if they didn't want it, and they still couldn't afford to seek medical care because of the higher premiums. Woo-hoo!

July 29, 2018 7:18 AM  
Anonymous Obama the Worst was the worst President, like, ever said...

2. The worst economic recovery

There have been eleven recessions since World War II, each of which was followed by a recovery. Even Obama experienced an economic recovery… it just happens to be the worst one.
All jobs lost in post-World War II recessions were recovered after about twenty-five months on average. But, it took seventy-seven months for employment to return to pre-recession levels, making Obama’s recovery the slowest recovery of them all—and by a wide margin. Obama is also the only president in U.S. history to have never had a single year of 3.0 percent or greater GDP growth

July 29, 2018 7:19 AM  
Anonymous Obama the Worst was the worst President, like, ever said...

1. The largest deficits in history

When adjusted for inflation, Obama owns the seven highest deficits in history—surpassing the deficits incurred during World War II. Obama’s smallest deficit was still higher than the last deficit before he took office. While many try to argue that 2009’s spending should not count towards Obama’s spending record, 2009 was not actually constrained by the budget approved by President Bush. In fact, only three of FY2009’s 12 appropriations bills passed under Bush because the Democrats in Congress waited until Obama took office before going on a spending binge. So most of the spending that took place in 2009 was, in fact, approved by President Obama. This spending, which included Obama’s failed stimulus and bailouts, resulted in a 17.9 percent increase in spending over FY2008 compared to the 3 percent increase proposed by George W. Bush. This increase in spending was the highest annual spending increase since the Korean War.

July 29, 2018 7:21 AM  
Anonymous Obama the Worst was the worst President, like, ever said...

There are a lot more where these came from. But the truth doesn't mean much unless more people are aware of it. Liberals desperately want Obama to be remembered as a great president despite his horrible record. Don't let them succeed.

July 29, 2018 7:22 AM  
Anonymous make America great again vs that hopey changey thing said...

Friday’s excellent economic news — 4.1 percent yearly Gross Domestic Product growth in the second quarter — poses an immediate question: Will it keep up?

If so, then Team Trump has decisively debunked the critics who pooh-poohed its vow to bring average GDP growth above 3 percent. It also exposes as utterly false Obama-era claims that the US economy had fundamentally changed, and that we’d all have to get used to a “new normal” of growth averaging just 2 percent.

The difference is yuge: Already, the Trump boom has the unemployment rate at historic lows, including for blacks and Hispanics. And the tight labor markets are pushing up wages and pulling people who’d given up hope back into the workforce, two enormously positive developments.

As for keeping it up: Critics claim these GDP numbers are just a temporary jolt from last year’s tax cuts, but in fact the cuts should bring a sustained growth in business investment on the order of 10 percent — and that means sustained, broad expansion.

President Trump’s deregulation drive is another marked economic plus over the Obama years, as well as another reason why the “new normal” was never truly inevitable — and why 3 percent-plus growth can continue even as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates and slowly unwinds its other desperation measures of the last presidency.

Which leaves potential trade-war blowback as the biggest dark cloud on the horizon. The deal Trump and the European Commission president announced this week is a sign that all the bluster will end with lower trade barriers, at least with America’s friends and allies.

Bottom line: So far, at least, Trump’s doing a better job of delivering on “Make America Great Again” than his predecessor ever did on the “Hope and Change” front

July 29, 2018 8:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obama is also the only president in U.S. history to have never had a single year of 3.0 percent or greater GDP growth

ONLY

NEVER

July 29, 2018 8:59 AM  
Anonymous We hate Trumplandia said...

Well duh, Obama is the one who stepped in to rescue us from the precipice of the Great Recession Bush left dangling from.

Whichever Democratic President has to rescue us from the King of Debt will have similar problems.

Also, Obama also understands we're fucking over the earth and is wiling to work with our allies to remedy the problem your hero, IQ45, calls a Chinese hoax.

There is so much about this era that's awful. And maybe we'll all come out of it politically stronger. But having a moronic demagogue in the White House backed by a craven party of cowards in the congress which denies that any of this is happening and degrading science in general, could be catastrophic:

In the town of Sodankyla, Finland, the thermometer on July 17 registered a record-breaking 90 degrees, a remarkable figure given that Sodankyla is 59 miles north of the Arctic Circle, in a region known for winter snowmobiling and an abundance of reindeer.

This is a hot, strange and dangerous summer across the planet.

Greece is in mourning after scorching heat and high winds fueled wildfires that have killed more than 80 people. Japan recorded its highest temperature in history, 106 degrees, in a heat wave that killed 65 people in a week and hospitalized 22,000, shortly after catastrophic flooding killed 200.

Ouargla, Algeria, hit 124 degrees on July 5, a likely record for the continent of Africa. And the 109-degree reading in Quriyat, Oman, on June 28 amazed meteorologists because that wasn’t the day’s high temperature. That was the low . It was the hottest low temperature ever recorded on Earth.

Montreal hit 98 degrees on July 2, its warmest temperature ever measured. Canadian health officials estimate as many as 70 people died in that heat wave.

In the United States, 35 weather stations in the past month have set new marks for warm overnight temperatures. Southern California has had record heat and widespread power outages. In Yosemite Valley, which is imperiled by wildfires, park rangers have told everyone to flee.


And it's not a random coincidence:

The brutal weather has been supercharged by human-induced climate change, scientists say. Climate models for three decades have predicted exactly what the world is seeing this summer.

And they predict that it will get hotter — and that what is a record today could someday be the norm.

“The old records belong to a world that no longer exists,” said Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It’s not just heat. A warming world is prone to multiple types of extreme weather — heavier downpours, stronger hurricanes, longer droughts.

“You see roads melting, airplanes not being able to take off, there’s not enough water,” said Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “Climate change hits us at our Achilles’ heel. In the Southwest, it’s water availability. On the Gulf Coast, it’s hurricanes. In the East, it’s flooding. It’s exacerbating the risks we already face today.”


Those Chinese hoaxters sure are talented.

July 29, 2018 9:22 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Another ‘Fake News’ Story Is Proven True

The release of the audio recording of Trump discussing the payoff of Karen McDougal, one of the many women with whom he’s had affairs and then paid off to keep quiet, provides yet another example of a story that Trump or his spokespeople condemned as false that was later proven to be true.

When the Wall Street Journal first reported just before the 2016 election that the company that owns the National Enquirer agreed to pay $150,000 to a former Playboy centerfold model for her story of an affair a decade ago with Trump — but did not publish it — Trump’s spokeswoman Hope Hicks was quick to dismiss it. “We have no knowledge of any of this,” she told the WSJ, adding that Karen McDougal’s claim of an affair with Mr. Trump was “totally untrue.”

Hicks’s statements to the media were often dictated directly by Trump.

But that denial of knowing anything about the transaction was rendered false by the release July 24 by Cohen’s attorney of a recording of a conversation two months before the election between Trump and Cohen, secretly made by Cohen.

“Um,” Cohen says, “I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David,” which is potentially a reference to David Pecker, president of American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer. Cohen mentions that he had “spoken to Allen Weisselberg [of the Trump Organization] about how to set the whole thing up” and Trump asks, “So, what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”

In other words, not only was Trump aware of the payment by AMI, he even knew the figure.

The Post gives many more examples of such stories. No wonder Trump hates the Washington Post so much and rails against them publicly. They document his lies every single day, in exhaustive detail and with the evidence that proves that he’s lying. It’s reached the point where, if he says a story is fake, we might as well consider that prima facie evidence that the story is true.

July 29, 2018 12:59 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

White House Hails Trump For United “Sates” Economy

In a tweet that was posted three hours ago and has not been removed at this writing, the White House hailed the booming economy given to the United “Sates” by Glorious Leader. Embarrassing misspellings, aside, here’s some fact-checking from the Associated Press:

The U.S. economy just entered its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since 2017 by the Trump administration.

While Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, it exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency. But quarterly figures are volatile and strength in one quarter can be reversed in the next. While Obama never achieved the 3 percent annual growth that Trump hopes to see, he came close. The economy grew 2.9 percent in 2015.

The economy faces two significant structural drags that could keep growth closer to 2 percent than 3 percent: an aging population, which means fewer people are working and more are retired, and weak productivity growth, which means that those who are working aren’t increasing their output as quickly as in the past. Both of those factors are largely beyond Trump’s control.

July 29, 2018 1:00 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

When do we start drug testing the farmers receiving Trump's 12 billion in welfare?


The same people saying Melania is angelic for forgiving her husband's infidelities once said Hillary is an anti-feminist enabler for staying with hers.

July 29, 2018 1:00 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

American anti-gay christians love Russia and want to do this at home:

19-Year-Old Russian Student Faces Prison for Meme Comparing Jesus to Jon Snow

A 19-year-old film student from Siberia is facing up to five years in prison for a meme that compared Jesus Christ to Jon Snow, a character in Game of Thrones.

This is the meme in all its glory. According to a correspondent for RFE/RL, it says, “Jon Snow is risen! Truly he is risen!”

This isn’t the first time the Russian government has punished someone for allegedly blaspheming against Christianity — just last year a Russian YouTuber was arrested for playing Pokémon Go in church. This time the victim is Daniil Markin, from the Siberian city of Barnaul, and he chose to speak out only after seeing another resident complain of a similar charge for her memes.

Markin was actually accused of inciting hate speech over several images that includes jokes about Christianity, which were on his account with a social media networking site.

According to a reporter for RFE/RL, Russia’s financial watchdog also placed Markin on a list of “terrorists and extremists,” meaning he can’t access his bank cards or any of his accounts (despite not being convicted of anything at this time). The reporter also proclaimed Markin’s images to be among the tamest seen in similar cases.

Overall, the images in Markin’s case are among the tamest I’ve ever seen in Russian prosecutions on grounds of hate speech or “insulting sensibilities” of religious believers.

July 29, 2018 1:01 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump has nominated christian talibangelist Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme court. Republicans are trying to conceal records from 3 of the 5 years Kavanaugh worked in the White House for President Bush. I want to know what exactly is in those papers that they don't want the American people to see. We won't stop pushing on this - Kamala Harris.

July 29, 2018 1:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous voted for the same presidential candidate as the KKK.

July 29, 2018 7:12 PM  
Anonymous Obama the Worst was the worst President, like, ever said...

"Well duh, Obama is the one who stepped in to rescue us from the precipice of the Great Recession Bush left dangling from"

the Dems exacerbated the recession because the timing was close to the election

when he became President, he merely doubled down on the same action Bush was taking

then, Obama the Worst spent two years dwelling on Obamacare while unemployment rate worsened

truth is, since Ronald Reagan changed America's economy from Dem Jimmy Carter, every recession had been followed by an equal recovery

until Obama the Worst

"Whichever Democratic President has to rescue us from the King of Debt will have similar problems."

the current King of Debt is Obama the Worst, who borrowed more money than all other Presidents combined

"But that denial of knowing anything about the transaction was rendered false by the release July 24 by Cohen’s attorney of a recording of a conversation two months before the election between Trump and Cohen, secretly made by Cohen.

“Um,” Cohen says, “I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David,” which is potentially a reference to David Pecker, president of American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer. Cohen mentions that he had “spoken to Allen Weisselberg [of the Trump Organization] about how to set the whole thing up” and Trump asks, “So, what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”

In other words, not only was Trump aware of the payment by AMI, he even knew the figure."

funny, I don't see any clear indication what or who this conversation is about

no woman or claim is mentioned

and "david" is "potentially" someone?

Americans don't care much who Trump slept with or whether he bought rights to the story

"While Obama never achieved the 3 percent annual growth, he came close. The economy grew 2.9 percent in 2015."

how impressive

and yet, if he did get that extra .1, he still would have presided over the worst economic performance by a President in the post WWII era

face it: Obama the Worst was the worst

"The economy faces two significant structural drags that could keep growth closer to 2 percent than 3 percent: an aging population, which means fewer people are working and more are retired, and weak productivity growth, which means that those who are working aren’t increasing their output as quickly as in the past. Both of those factors are largely beyond Trump’s control."

this was the excuse Obama used for declining labor participation, and yet it's not declining anymore since Trump was elected

"When do we start drug testing the farmers receiving Trump's 12 billion in welfare?"

farmers are receiving benefits to insulate them form the effects of China launching trade war attacks on them

maybe we should start drug testing Canadians because we pay for more of their defense than they do

"The same people saying Melania is angelic for forgiving her husband's infidelities once said Hillary is an anti-feminist enabler for staying with hers."

really?

let's have some examples

are you lying again?

"Trump has nominated christian talibangelist Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme court. Republicans are trying to conceal records from 3 of the 5 years Kavanaugh worked in the White House for President Bush. I want to know what exactly is in those papers that they don't want the American people to see. We won't stop pushing on this - Kamala Harris."

Kamala, resistance is futile

"anonymous voted for the same presidential candidate as the KKK"

Priya the Foreign Troll can't vote

but if PTFT could...

PTFT wwould have for the same presidential candidate as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Anthony Weiner, Kamala Harris, and Al Franken

July 30, 2018 5:04 AM  
Anonymous Obama is the worst, like, ever said...

DOJ last week released copies of the FISA warrant applications that James Comey’s FBI used to begin electronic surveillance of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign advisor

it's heavily redacted, but it’s clear the FBI used the politically motivated Steele dossier as the primary basis for their applications

here's what that means:

a piece of partisan propaganda funded by the Democrats, compiled by an ex-British spy, filled with “intelligence” that has never been corroborated, let alone sourced, was used to justify spying on a U.S. citizen, on U.S. soil, in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights

this is similar to Communist Russia and KGB tactics than with anything traditionally associated with our constitutional republic, not surprising with Commie-lover John Brennan’s involvement with the whole process

remember: James Comey admitted under oath that in January 2017, that he told President-elect Trump the dossier was salacious and unverified

yet the Steele dossier was used three more times to justify continued surveillance of Page

worse is that the FBI used a letter sent to Comey by Harry Reid in August 2016 as further evidence

in the letter, Reid claimed to have been briefed by CIA Director John Brennan on intelligence that might be crucial to the outcome of the 2016 election

Reid was talking about the Steele dossier

the FBI also buttressed its case for a FISA warrant using aYahoo News article from Michael Isikoff, of which one Christopher Steele was the only source.\

heard of a circular firing squad?

this was circular corroboration: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was led to believe it was reviewing different sources

but each of those sources was based on a single source: an uncorroborated political hit job by Hillary

it’s troubling as well is to see what a rubber stamp the FISC has become: it approves 99 percent of the FISA applications

the court is supposed to protect “We the People,” not let the deep state abuse our constitutional rights on the basis of a fairytale

their job is to serve as the barrier between the FBI and a national surveillance program, not give the deep state carte blanche to perform invasive surveillance whenever it feels like it

July 30, 2018 11:07 AM  
Anonymous make America great again vs that hopey changey thing said...

One would think FISC is supposed to examine thoroughly FBI applications to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that law enforcement isn’t violating our constitutional rights. It’s clear the court and the verification process failed, but I’m pretty sure I know why that is. It centers around one person.

James Baker, by all accounts a partisan Democrat, used to run the FBI’s FISA office before becoming the FBI’s general counsel under James Comey. Baker was the nexus point for the Steele dossier being knowingly allowed as an integral part of the application. The surveillance court judges, having worked with Baker for decades, simply took him at his word that all the materials used as supporting evidence were documented and verified. Here it’s worth noting that Baker was removed abruptly from his position as general counsel in December due to revelations surrounding the Russia investigation that he was in contact with left-wing journalist David Corn.

And if that is true, we have a serious problem. Clearly, the FISA process does not have any real authenticating processes in place once an application arrives at the court. In many ways, it appears simply to be built on trust that those running our Justice Department and FBI are unbiased and not partisan hacks, that they have, in fact, followed their own protocols and only used verified and documented sources as evidence.

Yet the FBI used an unsubstantiated document as an integral part of not one, not two, but four applications to spy. Some, like Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), said the entire process was proper because the FBI went to the surveillance court and the judges signed off. Rubio clearly lacks the intellectual curiosity to know how or why the process was abused, as there were clearly lies of omission in providing real clarity as to where the Steele dossier came from and who paid for it.

Rubio also seems blissfully unconcerned about a broken system and the discrepancies about why the FISC approved bringing the awesome might of the U.S. surveillance state on Carter Page’s head and then the disconcerting aftermath of it all. This entire process comes into conflict with common sense: Why isn’t Carter Page even wearing an ankle bracelet? If he is actually a dangerous agent of a foreign government, why on earth is he walking free? What kind of evidence and process justifies this level of spying, but actually doesn’t end up with any serious criminal charges?

People should be asking why the FBI took such drastic measures with Page when there was already a pre-established relationship, especially when he’d helped them prosecute the case against Russian spies a few years before. The FBI didn’t even bother to interview Page before going down the dramatic route of invasive surveillance. You’d think some curious reporters in the media might ask about that, but questions of that sort might lead to an unpleasant truth: surveilling Page was nothing but a backdoor to spy on Trump and his associates.

This entire FISA abuse with the Steele dossier raises other serious questions. If the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can be so easily convinced, yet the FBI provides so little follow up in this case, what other kinds of investigations are the surveillance state conducting using the thinnest of excuses? How many other people has the FBI surveilled without following with criminal charges, much less prosecution?

July 30, 2018 11:14 AM  
Anonymous make America great again vs that hopey changey thing said...

Frankly, there are just too many questions that many at the Justice Department, FBI, and even the NeverTrump conservative media don’t want to be answered. It’s time for Congress and President Trump to push for full transparency. This FISA report should be fully and completely declassified as soon as possible. While some publications like The Weekly Standard want to defend the FISA and FISC abuses, siding with the deep state as it tramples constitutional rights, in our republic, where power flows from the people to their duly elected representatives, the People’s House especially should be even more empowered to bring the deep state to heel.

Enough of the drip drip drip leaking of reports, let’s have this out in the public sphere. DOJ and the FBI are not, of their own volition, fully transparent at the moment, so they must be compelled to do what is right. The 2016 election was a clear referendum on the government elites, the ruling class, that want to manage our lives. They lost. We won. And we want answers.

July 30, 2018 11:14 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

When the World Knows Our ‘Leader’ is an Ignoramus

The leaders of other nations have quickly figured out what anyone who has been paying attention knows, which is that Trump is staggeringly ignorant about virtually everything and simultaneously convinced of his near-omniscience. Also that he has the attention span of a fruit fly. Thus their use of simplistic and colorful cue cards to educate him about trade.

Specifically, the Journal’s sources say that EU representatives made use of “colorful cue cards” that they thought would help keep the president’s attention during meetings. Each card contained what WSJ describes as “simplified explainers” that “had at most three figures about a specific topic, such as trade in cars or standards for medical devices.”

One European official speaking anonymously to WSJ reporters says that they knew they’d have to dumb things down compared to typical meetings they had with world leaders given the president’s penchant for getting distracted during meetings and presentations.

“We knew this wasn’t an academic seminar,” the official says. “It had to be very simple.”

This is, of course, the same thing that the CIA has had to do with the Presidential Daily Briefing, which gives him the latest intelligence on threats facing the country. He is neither interested in or capable of paying attention, so they’ve had to make it so simple that it might as well be a coloring book. But I think this helps explain Trump’s appeal to his followers — finally, they think, someone just like us. Yeah, ignorant and proud of being ignorant. This is not only not a good thing, it’s an incredibly dangerous thing when the ignoramus in question controls thousands of nuclear weapons.

July 30, 2018 1:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

SCOTLAND: Trump Course Destroyed Protected Dunes

Documents show that U.S. President Donald Trump’s family business has “destroyed the vast majority” of an environmentally sensitive area of sand dunes near its golf course north of Aberdeen in Scotland. Scottish Natural Heritage, which is responsible for the management and monitoring of sites of special scientific interest, has found that construction of the golf course has “led to direct loss of” as much as 68 hectares (168 acres) of mobile sand dunes protected under Scottish law.

Trump had personally promised Scottish authorities that he would maintain the protected areas around the course.

Because to Republicans like Trump and Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous the environment, that sustains us all, is the enemy.

July 30, 2018 1:41 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Which is easier to believe:
1) Trump is innocent and there's a massive conspiracy involving nearly every news outlet on the planet, 17 U.S. intel agencies, countless foreign intel groups, and even a few of Trump's appointees.
OR
2) TRUMP IS A CROOK.
------------------------------------

Trump (with the random capitalization and scare quotes of a typical lunatic) : "I would be willing to "shut down" government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the wall!"

Adam Schiff: "Mr. President, we can well understand your desire to fight over your wall. Your tax cut is a flop, the economy you only inherited from Obama, and you have no meaningful legislative achievements to show for your presidency. Stop taking it out on kids and families."
-----------------------------

Slave ownership? Taking women as war trophies? Being required to marry your rapist?

These aren't the dictates of an almighty, all-knowing entity, these are the policies and beliefs of an ancient people (who were primitive even for their era). We've come a long, long way since then.

July 30, 2018 1:42 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

US reputation will take ‘years to recover’ from Trump presidency, warn experts

President Donald Trump returned from a trip to Europe this week in which he insulted key US allies and caused a crisis at a NATO summit in Brussels, was met with nationwide protests in the UK, and sided with Russian president Vladimir Putin over the US intelligence community on the subject of election interference during a now infamous press conference in Helsinki.

Once back in the US, Trump on Tuesday walked back on his statements regarding Russian election meddling, stating he believed the conclusion from US intelligence agencies that the Kremlin interfered in the US presidential election, though he also said it could be “other people also”.

But on Wednesday, Trump claimed Russia is not planning future attacks on US elections, directly contradicting statements made by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats earlier this week.

Americans think Trump is ruining their country’s reputation

In this context, many are concerned Trump is doing immense damage to America’s global standing by pushing away allies and taking the word of foreign adversaries over US intelligence agencies.

A majority of Americans (61 per cent) feel the US is less respected across the globe with Trump in the White House, according to an NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll released on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, experts warn it could take “years” for the world to trust the US again as Trump continues to attack the international institutions it played a fundamental role in building following World War Two, especially the NATO alliance and the United Nations.
‘It will take a long time for the world to trust US stability again’

David Rothkopf, a foreign policy expert noted that Trump does have the capacity to do “long-term damage to our alliances, our crucial international relationships and the international system that has been essential to our peace and stability since World War Two”.

July 30, 2018 1:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

These relationships could recover quickly, Rothkopf said, but “underfunded institutions” may take longer to recover. What will take longest to address is the “degree to which countries like China or groups of countries like the EU take the lead in our absence”.

‘It will be hard to reverse the gains of dictators’

Rothkopf also warned of the broader impact of Trump’s tendency to cosy up to authoritarians such as Putin and his willingness to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

“It will be hard to reverse the gains of dictators and opportunists who take advantage of Trump policies to extend their influence,” Rothkopf said. “And it will take a long time for the world to trust US stability again ... several election cycles for them to tell whether Trump was an aberration or just a symptom of a greater problem with America.”

“No damage is ever irrevocable when it comes to global standing, but it could take years to repair,” Célia Belin, a visiting fellow in the Centre on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution told Business Insider, adding that the US is becoming an “unreliable and untrustworthy actor” under Trump.

Trump has routinely made misleading claims about the way in which NATO functions and financial commitments member states have made, sometimes incorrectly suggesting other member states owe money to the US for protection.

NATO was established upon the notion of collective defence, outlined in Article 5 of the alliance’s founding treaty. But Trump has even called into question whether the US would honour Article 5 under his leadership, suggesting he would be reluctant to deploy the US military to come to the defence of other member states.

Concurrently, critics of Trump have blasted him for UN-related decisions such as pulling out of the landmark Paris climate accord.

As Trump pushes traditional allies away, nations will become “increasingly reluctant” to view it as a reliable partner, Belin said, adding, “Allies and partners will now refuse to trust America blindly.”

July 30, 2018 1:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

“Trump’s damage to US standing will be depend on how long he stays in power, and on how other nations rebalance and diversify away from the US,” Belin said.

“Put simply, we will regress and spend lots of time trying to recover,” Brandon Valeriano, the Donald Bren chair of armed politics at Marine Corps University told Business Insider.

Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, warned the trends of “isolationism, nativism and antisemitism” are currently testing America’s relationship with its traditional allies in a deeply unsettling way. ‘We elected someone who devalues and denigrates our core allies and partners’

Daniel Nexon, an associate professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University, said Americans should be “extremely worried” about Trump’s approach to foreign policy if they truly “care about the core infrastructure of American international leadership”.

Nexon told Business Insider it’s too soon to determine whether Trump has done permanent damage to America’s global standing, but said that in electing him as president, the US essentially demonstrated it’s not capable of choosing “competent” leaders. This sends a troubling message to the wider world and erodes trust in the US as a world power, Nexon said.

“We elected someone who devalues and denigrates our core allies and partners. While other Republican elected officials – and some members of the administration – voice support for American allies and traditional American international values, they certainly aren’t checking Trump in the way that foreign allies and partners hoped,” Nexon said.

With Trump at the helm, Nexon said European and other historic US allies will begin to think, “Even even if we survive his presidency, there’s nothing to stop Americans from electing another person like him.”

July 30, 2018 1:47 PM  
Anonymous dum da dum dum said...

the one slim hope the looney-bird left had of stopping Brett Cavanaugh is gone

"Rand Paul said on Monday he will support Donald Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, after expressing concerns about his position on privacy issues.

"After meeting Judge Kavanaugh and reviewing his record, I have decided to support his nomination," Paul said in a series of Twitter posts explaining his decision.

Kavanaugh, who is now a lock to replace Anthony Kennedy, planned to meet later on Monday with Senator Joe Manchin, who was one of three Democrats to support Trump’s other great nominee to the high court, Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Manchin will be the first Senate Democrat to meet with Kavanaugh, a conservative appeals court judge, since his nomination earlier this month.

"I have expressed my concern over Judge Kavanaugh’s record on warrantless bulk collection of data and how that might apply to very important privacy cases before the Supreme Court," Paul wrote.

After reviewing Kavanaugh's record, Paul said he was confident he would be very open to constitutional Fourth Amendment protections involving digital records and property.

Paul said Kavanaugh has a strong record of property rights and "reining in the administrative state," and has issued strong defenses of the First and Second Amendments involving the rights of free speech and to bear arms.

"My conversation with Judge Kavanaugh reinforces my belief that he will evaluate cases before the Supreme Court from a textual and originalist point of view," Paul wrote.

July 30, 2018 2:13 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

A Neuroscientist Explains How Trump Supporters Are Easily Hoodwinked Because of This One Psychological Problem

Those who score low on political knowledge tend to overestimate their expertise even more when greater emphasis is placed on political affiliation.

In the past, some prominent psychologists have explained President Donald Trump’s unwavering support by alluding to a well-established psychological phenomenon known as the “Dunning-Kruger effect.” The effect is a type of cognitive bias, where people with little expertise or ability assume they have superior expertise or ability. This overestimation occurs as a result of the fact that they don’t have enough knowledge to know they don’t have enough knowledge. Or, stated more harshly, they are “too dumb to know they are dumb.” This simple but loopy concept has been demonstrated dozens of times in well-controlled psychology studies and in a variety of contexts. However, until now, the effect had not been studied in one of the most obvious and important realms—political knowledge.

A new study published in the journal Political Psychology, carried out by the political scientist Ian Anson at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, not only found that the Dunning-Kruger effect applies to politics, it also appears to be exacerbated when partisan identities are made more salient. In other words, those who score low on political knowledge tend to overestimate their expertise even more when greater emphasis is placed on political affiliation.

Anson told PsyPost that he became increasingly interested in the effect after other academics were discussing its potential role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on social media. “I follow a number of political scientists who marveled at the social media pundit class’ seeming display of ‘Dunning-Kruger-ish tendencies’ in their bombastic coverage of the election.” However, speculation by scientists does not always translate into statistically-significant findings, so Anson began thinking of ways to experimentally test what he described as a “very serious accusation.”

In order to have a large representative sample of subjects, Dr. Anson administered online surveys to over 2,600 Americans. The first survey was designed to assess political knowledge, while the second was used to examine how confident they were in their knowledge. Questions quizzed participants on topics like names of cabinet members, the length of term limits for members of Congress, and the names of programs that the U.S. government spends the least on.

July 30, 2018 2:37 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

As predicted, the results showed that those who scored low on political knowledge were also the ones who overestimated their level of knowledge. But that wasn’t all. When participants were given cues that made them engage in partisan thought, the Dunning-Kruger effect was made even stronger. This occurred with both Republicans and Democrats, but only in those who scored low on political knowledge to begin with.

These findings are fascinating but equally troubling. How do you combat ignorance when the ignorant believe themselves to be knowledgeable? Even worse, how do you fight it when America is becoming increasingly polarized, which certainly increases the salience of partisan identities?

While the results of Anson’s study suggest that being uninformed leads to overconfidence across the political spectrum, studies have shown that Democrats now tend to be generally more educated than Republicans, making the latter more vulnerable to the Dunning-Kruger effect. In fact, a Pew Research Center poll released in March of this year found that 54 percent of college graduates identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared to 39 percent who identified or leaned Republican.

Perhaps this helps explain why Trump supporters seem to be so easily tricked into believing obvious falsehoods when their leader delivers his “alternative facts” sprinkled with language designed to activate partisan identities. Because they lack knowledge but are confident that they do not, they are less likely than others to actually fact-check the claims that the President makes.

This speculation is supported by evidence from empirical studies. In 2016, an experiment found that 45 percent of Republicans believed that the Affordable Care Act included “death panels,” and a 2015 study similarly found that 54 percent of Republican primary voters believed then-president Barack Obama to be a Muslim.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is particularly worrisome when considering issues that pose existential threats, like global warming. A 2017 study conducted at the University of New Hampshire found that only 25 percent of self-described Trump supporters believed that human activities contribute to climate change.

July 30, 2018 2:37 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

This quirky cognitive bias could be making it easier for Donald Trump to continuously dupe his more uneducated followers. Not only are they uninformed, they are unlikely to ever try to become more informed on their own. In their minds, they have nothing new to learn.

While such a thought is disturbing, we should not lose all hope in trying to reach the victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect. At least one study found that incompetent students increased their ability to accurately estimate their class rank after being tutored in the skills they lacked. With the right education methods and a willingness to learn, the uninformed on both sides of the political aisle can gain a meta-awareness that can help them perceive themselves more objectively. Unfortunately, Anson’s study shows that getting through to these people becomes more and more difficult as the nation becomes more divided. And with Trump’s fiery rhetoric and fear mongering, that divide appears to always be growing wider, making one wonder whether Trump—through Googling himself—has become aware of the effect and is using it to his advantage. But that assumption might be giving him too much credit, as he is likely as much a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect as his followers.

That's Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous in a nutshell: Too dumb to know they're dumb.

July 30, 2018 2:38 PM  
Anonymous dum da dum dum said...

We're begging you!

Barack Obama emailed.
Nancy Pelosi emailed.
Madeleine Albright emailed.
Adam Schiff emailed.
Paul Begala emailed.
Carole King emailed.

Because we’re 24 hours away from our biggest deadline of the election, and we just got an AWFUL update:

- Mike Pence is raising money in Ohio TODAY.
- Trump is raising money in Florida TOMORROW.
- Kevin McCarthy already raised $5O million, and he’s headlining DOZENS more fundraisers this month.

We’re truly afraid that we won’t be able to match their pace. If we don’t catch up immediately, they’ll destroy our chance to win the House.

That’s why our top Democrats offered to TRIPLE-MATCH every gift until the critical End of Month Deadline in 24 hours.

We still need 17,368 dedicated grassroots supporters to step up in the next 24 hours.

Without you, our chance to win back the House will be CRUSHED.

Will you chip in a triple-matched $1 before the Deadline?

ALL GIFTS TRIPLE-MATCHED

Thank you,

DCCC

July 30, 2018 2:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Left wing: "Us Us Us Us Us Us"
Right wing: "Me Me Me Me Me Me"

NEW: Giuliani just moved the goal posts in 2 big ways on Fox and CNN:

1) He's no longer claiming Trump didn't collude with Russia, He's claiming "collusion is not a crime." - so much for trumps constant "no collusion. no collusion. no collusion" claims.

2)He's not saying Trump didn't know in advance about the 2016 Trump tower meeting discussing Russia helping Trump get elected. He's now saying Trump did not ATTEND it.
---------------------------------
The Presidential Records Act makes clear that White House records, including Brett Kavanaugh's, belong to the American people. Now the National Archives is refusing to provide those Records to Democrats so they can vet his nomination. This has NEVER happened.

Clearly Republicans are hiding things that show Kavanaugh is totally unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice.

Republicans are bringing christian Sharia law to the United States. How do these monsters sleep at night? They sleep because they are sociopaths devoid of empathy for others.

July 30, 2018 2:56 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Get back to work lazy Wyatt.

July 30, 2018 3:00 PM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

"Left wing: "Us Us Us Us Us Us"
Right wing: "Me Me Me Me Me Me""

an ironic statement, considering the combination of votes from 49 states went for the GOP in the last election

the working poor that Woody Guthrie sang about, the heartland of America, rejected Hillaryism

the elitist sexual predators in Hollywood and big banks in Manhattan loved her

"Giuliani just moved the goal posts in 2 big ways on Fox and CNN:

1) He's no longer claiming Trump didn't collude with Russia, He's claiming "collusion is not a crime." - so much for trumps constant "no collusion. no collusion. no collusion" claims."

if you actually watched or read the entire interview, you know that Giuliani said Trump didn't collude with Russia

so, you're lying again

"2)He's not saying Trump didn't know in advance about the 2016 Trump tower meeting discussing Russia helping Trump get elected. He's now saying Trump did not ATTEND it."

Trump could have run the meeting

it doesn't matter

there was nothing wrong with the meeting

"The Presidential Records Act makes clear that White House records, including Brett Kavanaugh's, belong to the American people. Now the National Archives is refusing to provide those Records to Democrats so they can vet his nomination. This has NEVER happened."

oh well

it has now

remember when no candidate stood up to the press and refused to release his personal tax information?

not anymore!

"Clearly Republicans are hiding things that show Kavanaugh is totally unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice."

they can do that

they won the election

remember Merrick Garland??

hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

"Republicans are bringing christian Sharia law to the United States. How do these monsters sleep at night? They sleep because they are sociopaths devoid of empathy for others."

the Supreme Court will be assimilated

resistance is futile

July 30, 2018 4:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I emailed you.
Barack Obama emailed you.
Adam Schiff emailed you.
Madeleine Albright emailed you.
Carole King emailed you.
Paul Begala emailed you.
Now I’m emailing you again.

Because the biggest deadline we’ve ever faced hits in 24 hours, and I still desperately need 16,4O6 Democrats to pitch in $1.

I just received an emergency phone call that made my heart sink.

I was told Trump just informed vulnerable Republicans he’ll PERSONALLY campaign for them every single day of the week until the election. Every single day.

I won't sugarcoat it: The millions Trump will rake in will EVISCERATE our chance to win if we do nothing.

I refuse to give Trump another 2 years with a Republican Majority if it’s the last thing I do. So I’m personally triple-matching gifts until the Deadline.

I need you to pitch in $1 more than do now. Can I count on you?

I’ll personally triple-match your gift until the critical End of Month Deadline in 24 hours.

Thank you,

Nancy Pelosi

July 30, 2018 5:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

NYT Publisher: Trump Boasted About Popularizing “Fake News” Phrase, Cited Countries That Suppress Media

July 30, 2018 Donald Trump, Idiocracy

Yesterday afternoon Trump tweeted about a previously off-the-record meeting with New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, prompting Sulzberger to issue a statement discounting Trump’s account of the meeting. That, of course, sent Glorious Leader into a raging tweetstorm in which he accused the nation’s newspapers of being “unpatriotic.” Today, we have a follow-up.

The New York Times reports:

In a telephone interview, Mr. Sulzberger described the meeting with Mr. Trump, whom he had met only once before, as cordial. But he said he went into the Oval Office determined to make a point about what he views as the dangers of the president’s inflammatory language.

Mr. Sulzberger recalled telling Mr. Trump at one point that newspapers had begun posting armed guards outside their offices because of a rise in threats against journalists. The president, he said, expressed surprise that they did not already have armed guards.

At another point, Mr. Trump expressed pride in popularizing the phrase “fake news,” and said other countries had begun banning it. Mr. Sulzberger responded that those countries were dictatorships and that they were not banning “fake news” but rather independent scrutiny of their actions.
---------------------------

To Trump "scrutiny of his actions" and "fake news" are the same thing.

Trump assumed every newsroom had security guards? What kind of world do you want if security guards at new outlets becomes the new norm?

Welcome to the USA, the land where regime critics are required by presidential decree to fear for their own lives!! Got to get along well with Russia.

July 30, 2018 5:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Lying lazy Wyatt is still pretending to be on vacation. He doesn't post much when he's on his own time, instead preferrring to post when he's at work because he's lazy.

Lazy Wyatt's posting a lot, he's at work and wasting his work day.

Hey Wyatt/Regina: You seemed to enjoy nature when you were on vacation. Maybe you should think about protecting nature as your friend instead of attacking it as your enemy.

Tell all your Republican friends.

July 30, 2018 6:01 PM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

When Bill Clinton challenged incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush, james Carville coined the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" as a reminder to his own candidate and campaign to keep the focus on the one issue that, he believed, could win the White House. Carville was right.

Today, that same mantra will likely help the GOP survive the midterm elections in November, and enable them to maintain control of the House of Representatives. The GOP has good economic news to tout.

The good news for the GOP: The U.S. economy grew 4.1 percent in the second quarter, and the average quarterly GDP growth under Trump so far is about 3 percent. Before the 2016 election, economists on the Left were openly dismissive of the idea the U.S. economy could sustain 3 percent annual growth. If these numbers hold, Trump and this GOP allies will be able to say they proved their opponents wrong YET AGAIN.

But GDP growth is an abstraction. What people actually feel are jobs and "job security." Here, Republicans have an even better argument. Not only is unemployment down to 4 percent, but most Americans believe the U.S. economy is improving. In fact, the job market is so hot that, for the first time ever recorded, there are more job openings than unemployed workers to take them.

That feeling is buoyed by stories about employers dropping requirements for college degrees. According to at least one analysis, the share of job postings requiring a college degree is falling as employers struggle to find workers to fill open jobs. Some businesses are even hiring job seekers who fail the drug test, making drug treatment part of the employee package. That's a job market that's growing, not shrinking.

As President Trump tweeted, "Private business investment has surged from 1.8 percent the year BEFORE I came into office to 9.4 percent this year -- that means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!"

He's right, right, right.

"If it were anybody but Donald J. Trump, the approval numbers would be astronomical," says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart.

The new PBS/Marist poll finds that just over half of registered voters think Trump is moving the economy in a better direction—including a solid majority of independents.

July 30, 2018 6:40 PM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

So how can Carville's theory come to the GOP's rescue? By convincing voters this terrific economy is something they could lose.

It's easy to forget amid the "Must Get Trump" media cycle how anemic the Obama economy was. Despite the stimulus package and cash for clunkers and the rest, The economy averaged just 1.6 percent growth during Obama's term. In his last two years, the numbers were actually worse because the growth rate fell by almost 40 percent from 2015 to 2016. Trump inherited an economy that was going the wrong way, and he turned it around.

As Republican economic advisor Mike Solon writes in the Wall Street Journal:

"In the first five quarters of the Trump presidency, growth has been almost 40 percent higher than the average rate during the Obama years, and per capita growth in gross domestic product has been 63 percent faster."

Plenty of Americans who aren't particularly fond of Trump remember that the bad old days of the Obama doldrums weren't great for many working-class and white-collar Americans.

During the Obama "recovery," it was common for workers to go to bed at night and wonder they'd still have a job in the morning. Now it's employers who are wondering if their workers will be there in the morning, or if they'll have been lured away by better wages somewhere else. How many workers really want to flip that script back?

Remember: Not a single Democrat voted for the tax policy Republicans are touting for helping power the current economy. Prominent Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren are loudly campaigning on repealing those tax cuts and returning the Obama-era economic policies.

If Republicans can convince voters that keeping the economy moving means keeping Republicans governing, they may have a chance. If all the talk of "socialism" and far-Left progressive economics sparks fears that the Obama-era economy might return on the Democrats' watch, even Trump-averse voters might back their local Congressman—or at least stay home.

"It's the economy, stupid" might not be enough by itself to save the GOP, but adding "Don't let how you feel about Trump making you do something stupid" just might do the trick.

July 30, 2018 6:40 PM  
Anonymous it's alarming how charming I feel said...

Scenes of Californians fleeing their homes and Greeks swimming out to sea have fueled alarm about climate change fueling deadly wildfires, but recent studies show that such destructive blazes are on the decline worldwide.

A September 2017 report in the journal Science found that global burned area dropped by about 25 percent over the previous 18 years, a finding consistent with a May 2016 paper published by the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

“Global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago,” said the study by British researchers at Swansea University.

Even in California, which for years has wrestled with fire devastation, a study in the International Journal of Wildland Fire found that the number of wildfires burning more than 300 acres per year has been tailing off since a peak in 1980.

“The claim commonly made in research papers and the media that fire activity is increasing throughout the western USA is certainly an over-statement,” the authors, Jon E. Keeley and Alexandra D. Syphard, said.

July 30, 2018 10:15 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Christian Sharia Law being implemented in USA:

Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a “Religious Liberty Task Force” focused on protecting religious-based discrimination. This task force will be dedicated to implementing his previous directive, which outlined the Trump-Pence administration’s position in support of using religious beliefs as a license to discriminate in employment, housing, business, and health care against LGBTQ people. In response, DNC LGBTQ media director Lucas Acosta issued the following statement:

“From supporting the right to refuse service to same-sex couples to banning military service by transgender individuals to removing mentions of LGBTQ issues from the White House website, Attorney General Sessions’ creation of a Religious Liberty Task Force is just the latest assault in this administration’s continued campaign against LGBTQ people and our civil rights.

“By creating this task force, Sessions is establishing a unit dedicated to undermining LGBTQ rights and giving anti-LGBTQ far-right extremists like task force head Jesse Panuccio a taxpayer-funded platform to push their anti-equality agenda. Rather than ensuring every person has equal protections and opportunities, Sessions is shamefully doubling down on bigotry.

“This action is further proof that Republicans continue to push forward an agenda completely out of step with the American people and our values.

No healthy society supports the mistreatment of people who are not harming anyone. No healthy and just society promotes discrimination against LGBT people.

July 31, 2018 12:31 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Justice Department’s new “Religious Liberty Task Force” highlights the agency's troubling ties to one of the most powerful and extreme anti-LGBTQ groups in the country

The Trump-Pence administration has shown a coziness with extreme anti-LGBTQ groups. Sessions’ DOJ issued an unusual brief on behalf of Phillips before oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop, and ADF alumni and allies have been hired by various agencies and nominated for federal judgeships.

As Media Matters’ recently released research book details, ADF holds dozens of extreme anti-LGBTQ positions on nearly every every aspect of life, including supporting laws that would punish sodomy by imprisonment, writing in favor of Russia’s so-called “gay propaganda” law which denies freedom of speech to LGBT people, and advocating against efforts to protect LGBTQ youth from the harmful and discredited practice of conversion therapy.

July 31, 2018 12:32 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Religion is like a penis.

It's fine to have one.

It's fine to be proud of it.

But please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around.

And PLEASE don't try to shove it down children's throats.

July 31, 2018 12:33 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Koch-backed study finds ‘Medicare for All’ would save U.S. government trillions

An estimated cost of $32.6 trillion over 10 years is less than the US government would spend over the next 10 years under the current system.

July 31, 2018 12:34 AM  
Anonymous toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good this week, life is sooOOooo good!! said...

“By creating this task force, Sessions is establishing a unit dedicated to undermining LGBTQ rights"

and by "rights", they mean having government advocate for homosexuality

that's sick

a libertarian tolerance is one thing and even some compassion for those with same gender attraction type of mental illness is appropriate

but trying to impose the view that homosexuality is normal and should be protected from social consequences is not

no longer will the Federal government sit idly by while backward liberal states force businessmen to facilitate homosexual weddings they consider immoral or tell pastors they can't counsel a repentant homosexual overcome same gender attraction or force public school children to hear homosexual propaganda disguised as health class

"and giving anti-LGBTQ far-right extremists like task force head Jesse Panuccio a taxpayer-funded platform to push their anti-equality agenda"

that's what elections are for

to decide what agenda will be taxpayer-funded

if you don't like it, don't nominate incompetent and dishonest candidates like Hillary Clinton

I warned you guys about that and you didn't listen

"No healthy society supports the mistreatment of people who are not harming anyone"

no healthy society enables people to harm themselves and spread the misery

a healthy society supports families headed by gender diverse marriages

America is becoming a healthy society

again

July 31, 2018 4:58 AM  
Anonymous ready for November yet? said...

"Religion is like a penis.

It's fine to have one.

It's fine to be proud of it.

But please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around"

the personalities in the head of Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll thought they were being clever

but they reveal the lunacy of the new liberal extremism that will be pushed back

the Constitution of the United States guarantees citizens the right to wave their religion around

it doesn't protect gay "pride" parades where homosexuals perform sick acts on floats rolling down city streets

July 31, 2018 5:11 AM  
Anonymous this is gettin' funny, but there ain't nobody laughin', honey said...

President Obama emailed -- for the first time since he left office.
Nancy Pelosi emailed -- three times.
John Kerry emailed.
Carole King emailed.
Madeleine Albright emailed.
Paul Begala emailed.
Adam Schiff emailed.

That’s how important tomorrow’s deadline is!

Right now, Trump’s Republicans have more money than EVER BEFORE IN HISTORY.

If we can’t pick up the pace before the End of Month Deadline in 24 hours, our chance to win the House and protect President Obama’s legacy will take a MASSIVE hit.

That’s why a group of incredible Democrats agreed to TRIPLE-MATCH all gifts to help us close the gap.

Look, this is our biggest deadline of the entire year. We can’t afford to fall short. Will you rush $1 before midnight tomorrow?

Thank you,

DCCC

July 31, 2018 7:18 AM  
Anonymous there's whiskey in the jar! said...

Nancy Pelosi emailed.
Madeleine Albright emailed.
John Kerry emailed.
Adam Schiff emailed.
Paul Begala emailed.
Carole King emailed.

We don’t want to beg, but we have no options left.

Every top Republican is jetting all over the country to line their coffers and DESTROY our Democrats:

- Mike Pence JUST got beaucoups of checks from millionaires in Ohio.
- Trump is jetting down to Florida to rally voters and raise huge amounts of cash.
- Kevin McCarthy is hitting over 3O fundraisers in just the next few weeks.

It’s unreal. If we can’t fight back, we won’t stand a chance to win the House.

To fix this, our best Democrats are TRIPLE-MATCHING your impact, but only until tonight’s midnight deadline.

It will take an OVERWHELMING rush of cash to match their success. That’s why we’re not too proud to beg. This is too important.

Can we count on your triple-matched $1 before the End of Month Deadline in 15 hours?

Thank you,

DCCC

July 31, 2018 9:26 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Why don't these "religious liberty" advocates demand the right to discriminate against divorced and remarried people whom the Jesus they claim to follow called adulterers. Why don't they demand the right to discriminate against adulterers, like Trump, whom the "holy" bible, they carry around, says should be stoned to death. Why don't they demand the right to discriminate against people who worship "false" Gods whom their bible also tells them to kill? The answer is obvious. They are motivated by selective bigotry directed at groups they hate. Sessions' group should be correctly named: The Religious Right To Hate Certain People Task Force."

July 31, 2018 12:44 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

All those in favour of renaming bigotry, prejudice, hate and discrimination "religious freedom" raise your hands

"Their sincerely held religious beliefs" that phrase is total bullshit. When ISIS murders children coming home from a concert it's based on their sincerely held religious beliefs, just because your religion says something and you are stupid enough to believe it does not make it morally acceptable.
-------------------------
Mick Mulvaney, Trump's Director of OMB has recommended that Trump end the practice of withholding money from African nations that arrest, imprison, and/or execute gay people. This is what happens when you put Evangelical Christians in charge of federal agencies and other decision making positions. In a multitude of ways, the Evangelicals that Trump has given jobs to are going after LGBT people.

Remember: A vote for the Gop is a vote for Putin and christian Sharia law.

July 31, 2018 12:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Dear American christian:

There is only one absolute right protected under our Constitution: the freedom of thought. Every other right is limited in some respect. You have free speech, but can't shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre unless there actually is a fire. There is free press, but the media can't publish willful lies that destroy somebodies reputation or child porn. There is freedom of assembly, but you can't trespass on someone's property to exercise that right. You have a right to beart arms, but not to take those guns on planes or into schools.

Except though, every right we have is limited. And that includes the free exercise of religion. Your religion may tell you to pray, but you don't get to use your public office or a public school to impose that prayer on others.

Your religion may tell you that women or people with a different skin colour or our LGBT brothers and sisters are inferior. You're free to believe that bullshit, but that does not mean that your business can discriminate.

Your religion may tell you that marriage is between one man and one woman (though the bible never opposes gay marriage). Fine. Don't marry a man if you're a christian man. But you don't get to impose that backwards belief on others under the guise of religious worship.

Sincerely,
An American fed up with christian privilege.
----------------------------------

Dear American christian,
Your right to believe is unlimited. Your right to act on those beliefs is not. Settle down.

July 31, 2018 12:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

North Korea Now Expanding Long-Range Missile Capacity

After declaring that we would all sleep a lot easier knowing he has personally ended the nuclear threat from North Korea, now comes word that Kim Jong-Un is expanding his long-range missile capacity at one facility to create at least one and perhaps two new ICBMs capable of reaching the United States.

The difference between Trump and the presidents before him is that Trump lives in a fantasy world where everything he says and does is pure genius and he is the hero of every story. He has a crying, desperate need to declare every action a victory unlike anything the world has ever seen, and to tell us how easy it was too. If only we’d elected a genius like him decades ago, there would be no more problems in the world as he would have fixed them all, Nobel Peace Prize in one hand and the vagina of some unsuspecting TV hostess in another.

So where past presidents were careful and measured in their statements, never going beyond cautious optimism, Trump leaves after spending only a few hours with Kim and signing a declaration that did literally nothing whatsoever and declared the problem solved. He’s probably still baffled that we didn’t declare him to be emperor for life on the spot.

July 31, 2018 12:56 PM  
Anonymous Alliance splits said...

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/trump-koch-brothers-tweet-alliance-splits/

July 31, 2018 2:27 PM  
Anonymous Lies, lies and more lies said...

2016 ELECTION

TRUMP: “I did win that women’s vote, didn’t I? Remember, they said, ‘Why would women vote for Trump?’ Well, I don’t know, but I got more than she did. That’s pretty good.” — remarks Thursday in Granite City, Ill.

THE FACTS: No, he didn’t. About 54 percent of women nationally voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to exit polls, compared with Trump’s 41 percent.

___

HEALTH CARE

TRUMP, on a health insurance option for small businesses and self-employed people: “I hear it’s like record business that they’re doing. We just opened about two months ago, and I’m hearing that the numbers are incredible. Numbers of people that are getting really, really good health care instead of Obamacare, which is a disaster.” — remarks Thursday in Peosta, Iowa.

THE FACTS: The Trump administration’s new health insurance option isn’t producing “record business,” because a roll-out of the plans doesn’t begin until September.

Even after the plans take effect, their impact is expected to be somewhat limited.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates a modest impact of 4 million people who will be covered by the association plans within five years. That’s compared with nearly 160 million who are covered by job-based insurance, the 12 million eligible for expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” and the 10 million in the ACA’s private insurance markets.

July 31, 2018 3:28 PM  
Anonymous Lies, lies and more lies said...

TRUMP: “We’re greatly expanding telehealth and walk-in clinics so our veterans can get anywhere, at any time, they can get what they need, they can learn about the problem and they don’t necessarily have to drive long distances and wait. It’s been a very big success.” — remarks Tuesday to Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

THE FACTS: A new benefit that would give the nation’s veterans access to commercially run walk-in clinics is not a success at all, because it hasn’t started.

It won’t begin for another year and the care won’t always be freely provided “anywhere, at any time.” Only veterans who have used VA health care services in the previous two years would be able to get care at the private walk-in clinics. After two visits, veterans could be subject to higher co-payments charged by the VA.

TRUMP: “We passed Veterans Choice, the biggest thing ever. ... It has got to be the biggest improvement you can have. So now if you can’t get the treatment you need in a timely manner, people used to wait two weeks, three weeks, eight weeks, they couldn’t get to a doctor. You will have the right to see a private doctor immediately, and we will pay for it.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The care provided under the Choice program is not as immediate as Trump suggests, nor is it likely to be the “biggest thing” ever. Currently only veterans who endure waits of at least 30 days for an appointment at a VA facility are eligible to receive care immediately from private doctors at government expense, a standard that the VA is frequently unable to meet.

Under a newly expanded Choice program that will take at least a year to implement, veterans will still have to meet certain criteria before they can see a private physician.

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that despite the Choice program’s guarantee of providing an appointment within 30 days, veterans waited an average of 51 to 64 days.

July 31, 2018 3:28 PM  
Anonymous Lies, lies and more lies said...

ECONOMY AND TRADE

TRUMP: “We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.” — remarks Friday on a new economic report.

THE FACTS: That doesn’t square with the record. Trump didn’t inherit a fixer-upper economy.

The U.S. economy just entered its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since 2017 by the Trump administration.

While Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, it exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency. But quarterly figures are volatile and strength in one quarter can be reversed in the next. While Obama never achieved the 3 percent annual growth that Trump hopes to see, he came close. The economy grew 2.9 percent in 2015.

The economy faces two significant structural drags that could keep growth closer to 2 percent than 3 percent: an aging population, which means fewer people are working and more are retired, and weak productivity growth, which means that those who are working aren’t increasing their output as quickly as in the past.

Both of those factors are largely beyond Trump’s control.

TRUMP: “One of the biggest wins in the report, and it is, indeed a big one, is that the trade deficit — very dear to my heart because we’ve been ripped off by the world — has dropped.” — remarks Friday.

THE FACTS: Trump is correct that a lower trade deficit helped growth in the April-June quarter, but it’s not necessarily for a positive reason.

The president has floated plans to impose import taxes on hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign goods, which has led to the risk of retaliatory tariffs by foreign companies on U.S. goods.

This threat of an escalating trade war has led many companies to increase their levels of trade before any tariffs hit, causing the temporary boost in exports being celebrated by Trump.

Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial, said the result is that the gains from trade in the second quarter will not be repeated.

TRUMP: “We’re having the best economy we’ve ever had in the history of our country.” — remarks Thursday in Granite City, Illinois.

THE FACTS: This is not the best the U.S. economy has ever been.

The unemployment rate is near a 40-year low and growth is solid, but by many measures the current economy trails other periods in U.S. history. Average hourly pay, before adjusting for inflation, is rising at about a 2.5 percent annual rate, below the 4 percent level reached in the late 1990s when the unemployment rate was as low as it is now.

Pay was growing even faster in the late 1960s, when the jobless rate remained below 4 percent for nearly four years. And economic growth topped 4 percent for three full years from 1998 through 2000, an annual rate it hasn’t touched since.

July 31, 2018 3:28 PM  
Anonymous Lies, lies and more lies said...

TRUMP: “The Canadians, you have a totally closed market ... they have a 375 percent tax on dairy products, other than that it’s wonderful to deal. And we have a very big deficit with Canada, a trade deficit.” — remarks Thursday in Peosta, Iowa.

THE FACTS: No, it’s not closed. Because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada’s market is almost totally open to the United States. Each country has a few products that are still largely protected, such as dairy in Canada and sugar in the United States.

Trump also repeated his claim that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada, but that is true only in goods. When services are included, such as insurance, tourism, and engineering, the U.S. had a $2.8 billion surplus with Canada last year.

TRUMP: “Veterans’ unemployment has fallen to the lowest level in almost 18 years. ... And I’ll guarantee, within a month or two months, that 18 will be even a much higher number.” — remarks Tuesday at VFW convention.

THE FACTS: This boast is based on outdated numbers.

The veterans’ unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in June, a low rate historically, but that is still above the 2.7 percent rate in October, which was the lowest in nearly 17 years.

Veterans’ unemployment has fallen mostly for the same reasons that joblessness has fallen for everyone else: strong hiring and steady economic growth for the past eight years.

The vets’ unemployment rate peaked at 9.9 percent in January 2011, then fell by more than half to 4.5 percent by the time Trump was inaugurated in January 2017. Since then, it has fallen an additional 1.2 percentage points.

Trump won’t be able to get to a higher number than 18 years, as he promises to do, because the data only go back to 2000.

July 31, 2018 3:28 PM  
Anonymous Lies, lies and more lies said...

NORTH KOREA

TRUMP: “We’re also pursuing the denuclearization of North Korea and a new future of prosperity, security, and peace on the Korean Peninsula and all of Asia. New images, just today, show that North Korea has begun the process of dismantling a key missile site. And we appreciate that. We had a fantastic meeting with Chairman Kim, and it seems to be going very well.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump’s assessment that his administration’s plan to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons is “going very well” is not fully shared by his own secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. In fact, Pompeo acknowledged this past week that the North is still producing fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Trump made his remarks after the North Korea-focused 38 North website released recent satellite imagery that seems to show dismantlement underway at Sohae.

But Pompeo sounded a note of caution. He said that while such a step would be in line with the pledges that Kim made to Trump at the June 12 summit in Singapore, it would have to be confirmed by international inspectors.

Analysts say dismantling a few facilities at the site alone won’t realistically reduce North Korea’s military capability or represent a material step toward denuclearization.

Indeed, at a Senate hearing Wednesday, Pompeo acknowledged that North Korea continues to produce fuel for nuclear weapons despite Kim’s pledge to denuclearize. Pompeo said there was “an awful long way to go” before North Korea could no longer be viewed as a nuclear threat.

___

AMAZON AND MANUFACTURING

TRUMP: “The Amazon Washington Post has gone crazy against me ever since they lost the Internet Tax Case in the U.S. Supreme Court two months ago. Next up is the U.S. Post Office which they use, at a fraction of real cost, as their ‘delivery boy’ for a BIG percentage of their packages...” — tweet July 23.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong to suggest that the U.S. Postal Service delivers packages for Amazon below cost. Federal regulators in fact have reviewed the Amazon contract with the Postal Service each year and determined it to be profitable.

Trump is upset with Amazon because its founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post, which Trump has labeled “fake news” after the newspaper reported unfavorable developments during his campaign and presidency.

While the Postal Service has lost money for 11 years, package delivery, a bright spot, is not the reason.

Boosted by e-commerce, the Postal Service has enjoyed double-digit increases in revenue from delivering packages, but that hasn’t been enough to offset pension and health care costs as well as declines in first-class letters and marketing mail. Together, letters and marketing mail make up more than two-thirds of postal revenue.

Amazon sends packages via the post office, FedEx, UPS and other services, and has taken steps toward becoming more self-reliant in shipping.

TRUMP: “On the South Lawn, you have the space capsule. And every part is made right here, in America.” — remarks July 23 at Made in America event.

THE FACTS: Trump neglects to mention a key detail: NASA’s Orion crew capsule, one of the star products at the White House event celebrating U.S. manufacturing, will ride through space thanks to Europe.

With its four solar-array wings, the European Service Module supplies propulsion, power and the essentials of life for the capsule’s space travels and marks a departure for NASA.

“For the first time,” the agency says, “NASA will use a European-built system as a critical element to power an American spacecraft.” Airbus, Boeing’s prime competitor in commercial air travel, leads an array of European companies that made the service module.

July 31, 2018 3:29 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

No, a Border Wall Won’t Stop Heroin Trafficking

Trump said this weekend in a tweet that he would more than willing to shut down the government if he doesn’t get funding for that border wall that he claimed a million times would be paid for by Mexico. And he’s using the heroin problem to justify it, claiming that 90% of the heroin in the country comes across that border. As usual, he’s wrong about virtually everything.

“Ninety percent of the heroin in America comes from our southern border, where eventually the Democrats will agree with us and build the wall to keep the damn drugs out,” Trump said.

The one thing he has right here is that most of the heroin that enters the United States does come across the Mexican border. But that doesn’t mean a wall would do much, if anything, to keep the heroin out. There are many reasons for this, which The Economist pointed out last year. First, and most obviously, because attacking the supply does no good if you don’t reduce the demand. If the demand remains high, the price goes up and someone will be willing to do whatever it takes to supply it because they get filthy rich doing it. And this is particularly true of heroin, which comes in very tiny packages that are easy to smuggle in through legal border crossings.

Control efforts along the Mexican border appear to be particularly ineffective in dealing with heroin. Michelle Keck and Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera of the University of Texas looked at the number of hours border patrol agents spent patrolling the Mexican border, drug seizures and drug process. They found that more patrolling was associated with no change in the level of heroin seizures.

A wall, furthermore, would largely be an irrelevance to the trade. Most heroin that comes across the Mexican border is transported by vehicle and smuggled through official entry points because it is a low-volume, high-value commodity. The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation estimates that the entire quantity of pure heroin consumed in America each year would take up 633 cubic feet –or about one sixth of the cargo volume of a single eighteen-wheeler truck. By way of comparison, the Department of Transport reports that 327,647 loaded truck containers entered America from Mexico in July 2017 alone. And a 60-pound sack of heroin would be worth many millions of dollars, suggesting it is extremely unlikely that a smuggler would risk launching it over a wall to land on an unsuspecting border patrol officer on the other side.

If they can make millions and millions of dollars, a wall will barely register as an inconvenience to them. They’ll go over it, around it or under it. They’ll drop the shipments at sea rather than crossing a land border. If there is a huge amount of money to be made, focusing on shutting down the supply only increases the profits and thus the incentive to do so. It’s a war that cannot be won on the supply side.

But all of this is just a pretext. Trump couldn’t care less about heroin. His war is not against drugs, it’s against Latino people. But he can’t say that, so he has to use a dog whistle.

July 31, 2018 3:35 PM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

The media and other Trump haters can't seem to let themselves admit it, but President Donald Trump scored a big victory for the American economy on trade last week. Trump and the European Union reached a handshake deal that is designed to lower tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic. They agreed to shoot for zero tariffs. Sounds like freer and fairer trade to me.

The exact details are still a bit murky, but what we do know is that the EU has pledged to lower its tariffs and other trade barriers on American soybeans, oil and gas, pharmaceutical products and certain manufactured goods. Trump promised to suspend some of the auto and aluminum and steel tariffs that he was threatening to whack the eurozone with.

It gets better: The two sides also agreed in principle to find ways to combat "unfair trading practices, including intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, industrial subsidies and distortions created by state owned enterprises," according to a joint statement released by Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

These are the very trade violations that Trump has been railing against. We don't engage in these anti-trade activities; Europe, Japan and China do. Before Trump came on the scene, most nations denied that this cheating and stealing were even happening.

Any progress in ending these unfair trade practices is an indisputable victory for the United States. In 18 months, Trump accomplished something that no previous president of the last 30 years could.

Yet the spin from many of the pundits begins by opining that Trump was the one who blinked here. The Politico story headline was amazing: "Trump backs off new tariffs on EU in retreat from trade war."

Bloomberg also described the agreement as a "Trump retreat" and a "victory for the EU."

Excuse me. Retreating and backing down is how you describe the losers in a fight. Trump won a first-round tko. It's like saying Sonny Liston beat Muhammad Ali even though it was Liston sprawled on the tarp.

We have here more evidence that the American president is the master negotiator. He says he is not a protectionist and he wants more trade but that it has to be fair. The objective of his tactics has always been to use the leverage of punitive tariffs to reverse foreign trade laws that discriminate against American companies and workers.

July 31, 2018 5:25 PM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

This is the key point: Trump's tariffs are meant to force other countries to lower theirs. It's a dangerous game, for sure, because it can risk a trade war escalation -- as we are now seeing with China. But Trump has always believed that the United States has the upper hand because of our massive consumer market, and that our trading partners will be forced to capitulate sooner rather than later.

What is clear is that he has played the Europeans like a fiddle here. His threat of a 20 percent auto tariff scared the daylights out of the Germans. Those levies could cripple their already-struggling economy. The panic in Berlin is what drove the EU to the bargaining table.

Even more masterful was how Trump got the Europeans to agree to buy more American natural gas. At the start of the NATO summit back on July 11, Trump slammed Germany for a gas pipeline deal with Russia. He said this would make Europe "captive" to Moscow. The teetotalers were horrified by Trump's "undiplomatic" outburst aimed at "one of America's closest allies." Yet here we are a few weeks later, and the Europeans have agreed to buy more American gas. Is it that hard to connect these dots?

I often disagree with Trump's saber-rattling trade antics. But it's getting harder all the time to find fault with the results.

We aren't out of the trade-war fires yet -- far from it. But if Trump can solidify this deal with the Germans, the French and the rest of the EU and get a Mexico free-trade deal signed, he can then isolate China as the bad actor on the world stage and force Beijing to stop its half-trillion dollars a year of cheating and stealing.

Do any of these things sound like the results of a president who is "retreating"?

July 31, 2018 5:26 PM  
Anonymous ready for November yet? let's remember to triple match it said...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Dispelling rumors that the Supreme Court Justice could be retiring soon, Ruth Bader Ginsburg told reporters that she is “mentally fit enough to serve through the end of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s term in office.”

She made the comments just after her second morning nap, telling the press “not to worry” about her mental state.

July 31, 2018 5:53 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Fox News Guest: Radical Ideologues Have Infiltrated Elementary Schools To Teach About Inequality

“Increasingly, and this is not only the case of universities, people are being taught by ideologues, not by educators. And ideologues have a very simple way of looking at the world. They reduce it to a few principles like inequality and unfairness and power. Those would be the fundamental principles at the moment that are operating on the radical left...

You've got to be seriously fucked up to think concern over inequality, unfairness, and power are "radical" ideas. It tells you a lot, and none of it good, that conservatives are terrified of equality and fairness. Treating people with fairness, decency and equality is considered "evil" by conservatives.

In conservative states and districts, Republicans have been stacking school boards with radical right wingers, with an eye towards rewriting textbook and educational standards so they are more amendable to the conservative cause.

While conservative attacks on science in classrooms get a lot of attention, the latest trend is, if anything, even more worrisome: Conservative school board officials are quietly trying to rewrite history and social studies curriculum, erasing parts of history they don't like and simply making up history they wish was true.

Students and teachers at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County, Colorado, are fighting back. Conservative school board member Julie Williams proposed a change to the school's history curriculum that appears aimed at replacing education with old-fashioned, Soviet-style propaganda, except in this case in the support of capitalism and American conservatism, instead of communism.

July 31, 2018 9:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Robert Reich with a fun fact: almost 80% of American workers live paycheck to paycheck.

When Republicans delivered their $1.5tn tax cut last December they predicted a big wage boost for American workers. Forget it. Wages actually dropped in the second quarter of this year.

The combination of high corporate profits and growing corporate political power has created a vicious cycle: higher profits have generated more political influence, which has altered the rules of the game through legislative, congressional, and judicial action – enabling corporations to extract even more profit. The biggest losers, from whom most profits have been extracted, have been average workers.

July 31, 2018 9:47 PM  
Anonymous toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good this week, life is sooOOooo good!! said...

"You've got to be seriously fucked up to think concern over inequality, unfairness, and power are "radical" ideas."

either that, or you're a student of history

the idea that all outcomes should be equal and that equality should be imposed by government is called egalitarianism

it's an evil philosophy that has invariably led to suffering

"It tells you a lot, and none of it good, that conservatives are terrified of equality and fairness."

it tells you that they know that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it

get ready for your turn in the guillotine

"Treating people with fairness, decency and equality is considered "evil" by conservatives."

a misleading statement by a foreign troll who would like to promote evil

"In conservative states and districts, Republicans have been stacking school boards with radical right wingers, with an eye towards rewriting textbook and educational standards so they are more amendable to the conservative cause."

this is what liberals have been doing since the sixties

"While conservative attacks on science in classrooms get a lot of attention, the latest trend is, if anything, even more worrisome: Conservative school board officials are quietly trying to rewrite history and social studies curriculum, erasing parts of history they don't like and simply making up history they wish was true."

this is a standard tactic of socialism

examples are rife

liberals constantly try to rewrite history to marginalize the impact of religion

hence, we get crap like the first Thanksgiving was to thank the Indians in Massachusetts

"Students and teachers at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County, Colorado, are fighting back. Conservative school board member Julie Williams proposed a change to the school's history curriculum that appears aimed at replacing education with old-fashioned, Soviet-style propaganda, except in this case in the support of capitalism and American conservatism, instead of communism."

typical of our little foreign troll

just make a generalization without any facts

what change was proposed?

does priya the drooling foreign troll even know?

July 31, 2018 10:35 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

What's Religious Liberty?

Mike Huckabee: "I support the religious liberty of a christian clerk to refuse a marriage license to a gay couple".

The hypocrite wouldn't call it religious liberty if it were a Muslim clerk refusing to issue a driving license to his wife.
-------------------------------

One of the things that is a classic trope of the religious bigot is while they're denying people their rights, they claim that their rights are being denied. While they are persecuting people, they claim to be persecuted. While they are behaving colossally offensively, they claim to be the offended party. Its an upside down world.

July 31, 2018 11:23 PM  
Anonymous henceforth said...

one problem that people like the foreign troll have is they can't distinguish between action and non-action

they think, for example, that not baking a cake is doing something

to them, it's an attack

and, to them, words are the equivalence of violence

once you cross that line, freedom is gone

the government has to stop violent attacks, right?

another problem is that they think people have no right to refuse to support behavior they disagree with

why is that?

because they worry that if people are free to associate and engage with who they want, few would choose to have anything to do with homosexual behavior

if you have such a worry, you might want to go to the doctor and get something to help you sleep at night

freedom is being restored

henceforth, if you think homosexual marriage is wrong, the government won't try to force you to cater one

henceforth, if you think homosexuality is wrong, you'll be free to counsel others in how to overcome such desires

government will no longer be used to advance the viewpoint that homosexuality is normal

August 01, 2018 5:58 AM  
Anonymous It's 90 degrees in the Arctic Circle this week. said...

The Arctic Circle — the realm of polar bears and dwindling sea ice at the top of the world — hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees Celsius, this week.

This was the temperature in Banak, Norway on July 30, though some Norwegian areas even reached a couple degrees warmer, according to the European meteorology site severe-weather.eu. Banak sits atop northern Europe, over 350 miles above the bottom edge of the Arctic Circle.

In the past 40 years, Earth's climate has experienced an accelerated warming trend, which adds an extra level of background warming to hot spells — making heatwaves more extreme, climate scientists have said.

And the heat at the top of the world really drives that home.

A photo of what appears to be Scandinavian folks taking a dip in a river while reindeer — the cold-adapted, antlered, herbivores — cooled off in the water beside them is perhaps the best example of just how hot it is in parts of the Arctic Circle right now.

The "warm season" in Banak is short, lasting around three months, but the very warmest day of the year, around July 23, is usually around 62 degrees Fahrenheit — about 30 degrees cooler than temperatures there now. Overall, temperatures in northern Europe are between 14 to 21 degrees Fahrenheit, 8 to 13 degrees Celsius, above average.

All-time temperature records were set in both Norway and Finland on July 30, including 86 degrees Fahrenheit, 30 degrees Celsius, in Verde, near Banak, though extreme or near-record temperatures blanketed the region.

Persistent heat and dryness this summer have transformed normally verdant European countries into brown and yellow lands, and the continent's extreme heat is expected to persist.

The UK's Met Office and severe-weather.eu both forecast temperatures that might break Europe's all-time heat record of 118.4 degrees Fahrenheit, 48 degrees Celsius, by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, across the planet, extreme heat has enhanced wildfire activity in the western part of the United States, even stoking a rare and imposing fire tornado.

August 01, 2018 7:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

90 degrees in Norway in July?

they'll get used to it

sounds like they already have

August 01, 2018 8:14 AM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

In order to properly understand how Americans feel about abortion, one must take into account that their views are more complex than simple up-or-down polls about the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling suggest. Equating support for abortion rights and Roe, or dividing Americans into two opposing camps, is highly misleading and unhelpful.

Polls that dig a little deeper into Americans’ views show that support for unfettered abortion, which Roe allowed, just isn’t there.

That court ruling legalized overnight abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. It left to the states, however, regulating abortions during the second and third trimesters.

However, polls show that Americans generally do not support the right to abortion later in pregnancy. Marist asked specifically about later abortions and found Americans heavily favor restrictions during the last two trimesters. Seventy-six percent of Americans said they would like to see abortion restricted to the first three months of pregnancy—and even a majority (60 percent) of those who self-identify as pro-choice favor such restrictions. Those numbers have been more or less consistent for the past decade. So, there is in fact a lot more consensus on abortion than what is generally reported.

A recent Gallup poll shows consistency in American attitudes towards limits on abortion. Eighty-one percent of respondents said that abortion should be generally illegal in the third trimester, while 65 percent said it should generally be illegal in the second trimester.

Polls also reveal a majority thought the procedure should be legal only under certain circumstances. The poll asked about several specific circumstances ranging from “when the woman’s life is endangered” to “when the woman does not want the child for any reason.” Gallup found that 77 percent thought abortion in the third trimester for any reason at all should be illegal. Sixty-eight percent thought abortion should be illegal in the third trimester when the child would be born with Down syndrome.

American laws are not just out of step with public opinion on the matter, they are out of step with the rest of the world as well. The United States is just one of seven countries, including China and North Korea, that permit abortion on demand after 20 weeks’ gestation.

If we look closely at polling data, we can find large majorities in agreement. The vast majority of Americans would like to restrict elective abortion. It’s time our laws catch up to the American consensus.

August 01, 2018 8:28 AM  
Anonymous the glimmer twins: FDR & DJT said...

“What a comfort,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt said one day back in 1936, “to get away from the damn newspapers … I wish I had enough money to start a newspaper, confined to news without interpretation, colouration, twisting or downright lying – I think it would be a financial success.”

Recalling Mr. Roosevelt these days is pertinent. Mr. Trump isn’t the only great disruptor to serve in the Oval Office. Mr. Roosevelt threw political conventions overboard. He faced similar obstacles to Mr. Trump and sometimes used similar tactics.

“Everything I learned about economics from Harvard was wrong,” Mr. Roosevelt told friends. He took on society’s overprivileged as opposed to protecting them. The vested interests and big newspaper barons inveighed against him. Like the Twitter-storming Mr. Trump of today, Mr. Roosevelt had a new communications tool to fight them – fireside chats via radio. Chats more than blasts.

Like today’s incumbent, Mr. Roosevelt did things befitting a mad king. One was his court-packing scheme of 1937. At the time, the U.S. Supreme Court was blocking his New Deal legislation, and Mr. Roosevelt moved unsuccessfully to add as many six new liberal members to the bench to overcome it. It was a constitutionally reckless manoeuvre, an undermining of the system. Imagine if Mr. Trump were to try that?

Like today’s President, Mr. Roosevelt went against the grain in seeking warm relations with the Russians. His alleged giveaway of Eastern Europe to Joseph Stalin at Yalta did not win him many converts.

Mr. Roosevelt was accused of being out to overthrow the capitalist system. His wife Eleanor was pilloried as being a Communist. He had major family challenges, serious problems with his children and a difficult marriage hindered by his rumoured romances with others. Unlike today, the press of the time didn’t bother prying.

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Roosevelt liked to spring surprises. Contradictions were common. “Never let your left hand know what your right is doing,” was a guiding principle for him. He was bold enough to take on his own party, attempting at one point to purge several Senate incumbents. He was bold enough to run for three terms, something no other president did.



August 01, 2018 11:12 AM  
Anonymous Blue Wave said...

Today I am excited to share some incredible news with you: This past month was the best online fundraising for July in our organization's history. Grassroots donors across the country stepped up in large numbers to make this happen in order to help candidates up and down the ballot.

The DNC isn't just focused on hitting our own fundraising goals. We're also making an impact where it matters most by providing direct support to candidates across the country.

Since the beginning of 2017, DNC supporters have contributed millions of dollars directly to several progressive candidates and organizations. That is a serious accomplishment that we should all be proud of. Those small-dollar donations are already making a huge impact in this year's midterms by helping Democrats running in key races.

Directly supporting campaigns is just one of the ways this team is doing things differently this election cycle. We're also investing in grassroots organizing like never before through grants and increased monthly investments to every state party. We're fighting in all 50 states because of one simple truth: We can't elect Democrats nationwide unless we compete in every state. Plus we're advancing voter protection efforts to ensure all eligible voters can participate in our elections, including through our full-time voter protection hotline (which, as of last week, is now available via SMS -- just text QUESTION to 43367).

The DNC is no longer in the business of just electing a president every four years. There are critical elections happening every year, and Democratic candidates at all levels of government can't win without our support. It's why we must continue working together to build a strong Democratic Party, and it's why your grassroots donations are so important. Thanks to your contribution this year, you've made it possible for the DNC to make investments in state parties, cybersecurity, and the tools and technology it will take to win. You're helping build this organization from the ground up, and it truly wouldn't happen without your support.

There are two ways we can go about winning elections: organizing our communities and organizing our resources. Right now I'm feeling good about our ability to do both -- and it's all because grassroots Democrats are stepping up in unprecedented ways. As a 2018 donor, you're helping ensure our party mobilizes a record number of voters ahead of this year's midterms.

This year is our chance to regain a Democratic majority in Congress, flip state legislatures, and take back governors' mansions. It's our chance to show the resilience of our movement during this difficult time in our nation's history. We can turn things around. I have no doubt about it -- as long as we all come together in the fight to defend our shared values.

Thank you for being a part of this team.

All my best,

Tom

August 01, 2018 11:26 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

ROBBER BARONS: Trump Administration Mulls $100B Unilateral Capital Gains Tax Cut For The Super Wealthy

Previously undisclosed evidence in the possession of Special Counsel Robert Mueller—including highly confidential White House records and testimony by some of President Trump’s own top aides—provides some of the strongest evidence to date implicating the president of the United States in an obstruction of justice.

Judge Dolly Gee ruled that U.S. government officials must stop giving psychotropic drugs to migrant children they are imprisoning.

At his Nazi rally in Florida Donald Trump demonstrated his brain damage by saying "The time has come for voter ID...if you got and want to buy groceries, you need ID." His cult cheered in acknowledgement of something that doesn't exist. This isn't normal and it's disturbing.

@EdKrassen "The biggest mystery in U.S. history is how a country can go from electing a brilliant, caring, sincere black man as President, and then 4 years later replace him with a stupid, sexist, white supremacist pig. It's almost as if another country sabotaged us.

Michigan's Supreme Court will allow an anti-gerrymandering measure on the ballot. State Republicins and Chamber of Commerce fought hard to keep it off. Because Republicans can't win fair elections where everyone is allowed to vote. GOP got caught bragging about cramming "Dem garbage" into just 5 of 14 House districts and they habitually win legislative majorities despite losing the popular vote. A sad commentary on the American judicial system, 3 of the 7 Supreme court members who supposedly rule on the basis of law sided with Republican cheating.

August 01, 2018 12:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

40% of Republicans are okay with Russia interfereing in the election if it helps them win

“Trumpers have long been edging their way toward a ‘collusion is awesome’ defense for some time,” wrote John Marshall of Talking Points Memo.

Certainly the President’s defense has rapidly become that collusion is entirely legal, even though there absolutely wasn’t any. That argument is borne out by these new numbers from Yahoo.

There has been an effort by House Republicans to make it monumentally easier for Russia to gain influence in 2018 and Facebook announced Tuesday that efforts to interfere in the upcoming midterms are already underway.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when he was director of the CIA, went on the record saying he expected Russian interference in the midterms.

“Frankly, we are under attack,” he said.

And Russia has continued to sow political discord in advance of the election. Just as the intelligence community warned it would.

Russia has made a concerted effort to integrate into Republican causes, as illustrated by Maria Butina, who helped connect the National Rifle Association with Russia in an effort to help Russia shape conservative politics in America.

And Russia has a growing number of rank-and-file Republicans supporting these actions. It seems Butina’s efforts, and the efforts of those like her, are paying off.

Forty percent of Republicans would gladly take the intervention of a foreign adversary in the political system of the United States if it helped them win. Over eighty percent of Democrats wouldn’t. The idea that Russia plays both sides seems to crumble when confronted with what side they’re winning over.

And, as Marshall said, that one side is starting to say collusion is actually a great strategy.

August 01, 2018 12:41 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The top 5 oil producers in the States receive $10-$52 billion per year in taxpayer subsidies and are shoing historic high profits. These ARE the welfare queens!

So, the Russian hacking of the mid-term elections is in full swing with several Democratic candidates being attacked. This is why Trump fired the head of Cyber security and eliminated his job so it wouldn't be refilled and Republicans refuse to spend any money protecting election computer systems.

Chinese workers making Trump 2020 campaign flags #AmericaFirst

Russia says it will know of U.S. military's plans before they happen

Its almost like they feel they have an asset right at the top....

August 01, 2018 12:41 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Willfully stupid Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "90 degrees in Norway in July? they'll get used to it sounds like they already have".

The wildlife that's adapted to a colder world and is going extinct due to global warming won't get used to it.

The people that are dying because of more extreme weather, flooding, wildfires, and droughts won't get used to it.

The people that are being killed and turned into refugees by wars caused partly by droughts caused by global warming won't get used to it.

The millions of people that lose their homes, businesses, and cities due to rising sea levels won't get used to it.

Evil Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous don't care about anyone other then themselves though so everyone and every animal harmed or killed by global warming is a joke to them.

August 01, 2018 1:04 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Actually, that post by the TTF troll is not so much because Wyatt/Regina are willfully stupid, its because they just post stuff like that to antagonize people when they do really know better.

August 01, 2018 1:10 PM  
Anonymous changing climates are more interesting than boring ones said...

"The wildlife that's adapted to a colder world and is going extinct due to global warming won't get used to it."

i thought you believed in evolution

they will adapt, or something stronger will evolve

you have a problem with that?

"The people that are dying because of more extreme weather, flooding, wildfires, and droughts won't get used to it."

more people die on extreme cold than heat

floods, wildfires and droughts have always happened

humans will adapt too

our planet has gone though numerous climate changes in the past

"The people that are being killed and turned into refugees by wars caused partly by droughts caused by global warming won't get used to it."

yeah, "partly"

please

"The millions of people that lose their homes, businesses, and cities due to rising sea levels won't get used to it."

having a home on the water has always entailed risk

if they don't like that, there's a huge continent will load of empty space

"they just post stuff like that to antagonize people when they do really know better"

Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll is antagonized by any heresy from sacred liberal dogma

August 01, 2018 1:37 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Donald Trump, Psychopath

by Andrew Spitznas

My conclusions are my own, but the diagnoses and criteria I use are well-established in my profession.

Last May, I wrote of my fear that our country could cave to an unstable autocrat and degrade into tyranny. Contributing to the effort to see Trump peacefully removed from power given his lack of fitness for duty, I marshalled the evidence that he likely has Antisocial Personality Disorder and suffers from paranoid delusions.

One year later, the downward slide into fascism only accelerates. Trump and his minions strive to place more and more brown people into concentration camps, as the president openly fantasizes about gaining absolute power.

Yet, I have less hope that my words and those of my colleagues in the National Coalition of Concerned Mental Health Professionals and the Duty to Warn movement will sway public policy. One of our political parties is spineless and complicit, the other is impotent.

However, there are reasons besides political policy for telling the truth about Trump’s psyche and the dangers it poses; more about that later. And another year furnishes many more data points, allowing me as a psychiatrist to write with far greater confidence about our president than I could even a year ago.

So today I am certain that our president meets full criteria for both Antisocial and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. However, the psychological construct of Malignant Narcissism, or Psychopathy, describes his psychology and behavior even better than these two diagnoses.

The concept of Malignant Narcissism, essentially synonymous with Psychopathy, was developed by two great mental health thinkers of the 20th Century, psychologist Erich Fromm and psychiatrist Otto Kernberg. (Interestingly, both were refugees from Nazism in the 1930s.) As formulated by them, Psychopathy has four key components: antisocial personality traits, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, paranoia, and sadism. So let me elaborate on how Trump displays all four of these.

August 01, 2018 1:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)

Using the gold standard for American practice, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), a person with ASPD must show compelling evidence of one of the following seven features. Going far beyond that minimum requirement, I’m going to show how Trump displays all seven.

First, a sociopath (the term for someone with ASPD) may engage in unlawful, criminal behavior. Despite Trump’s perseverative tweets of “no collusion” and “witch hunt,” the 20 criminal indictments issued by Mueller against Trump cronies indicate for all but the brainwashed that our president is a crook and traitor. Or look at his real estate dealings, signaling that Russian shell corporations and money laundering have been financing the tacky Trump lifestyle for over a decade. I’d urge you to read Yale historian Timothy Snyder’s essential The Road to Unfreedom, and see if you don’t come away completely convinced that our president is in bed with Putin and his thugocracy.

A sociopath typically lies profusely. Are 3200 falsehoods, by The Washington Post’s last count, enough for you? I’ve made a habit of reading Trump’s tweets daily, and one gets far closer to the truth by adding a “not” to whatever he belches out. Every day is opposite day in Trumplandia.

Impulsivity is another hallmark of the sociopath. Trump lacks coherent policies, as his off-the-cuff remarks take Congressional Republicans and members of his own cabinet by complete surprise. (Remember how Secretary of State Rex Tillerson learned he was out of a job?)

The person with Antisocial Personality Disorder is often irritable and aggressive. Here, we have reliable reports of Trump’s frequent angry outbursts in the White House. The celebrity who bragged of grabbing women by the pussy, and the candidate who urged followers to get violent with protesters, is now the president who posts violent Hillary-themed tweets and engages in phallic nuclear brinksmanship with Kim Jong-un over the size of their buttons.

Speaking of North Korea, Trump’s game-playing in the lead-up to his feckless summit shows another sociopathic symptom, a disregard for the safety of others. The president is also heedless of the consequences of his racist speechifying and its correlation with the rise in hate crimes in our country.

August 01, 2018 1:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Next, sociopaths commonly exhibit irresponsibility in such areas as work obligations. The businessman with 3500 lawsuits for failing to pay contractors and employees is the president who spends more time watching Fox News sycophants than studying security briefings. One of his rare periods of media silence was the weekend Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico, when Trump couldn’t be pulled away from a golf tournament.

Lastly, Trump displays a sociopath’s lack of remorse. Surprise, surprise, the candidate who famously asked Anderson Cooper why he would ever need to repent hasn’t suddenly grown a conscience. No apology ever arrived for saying there were fine people on both sides in Charlottesville. Per his equally nasty spokespeople Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his most offensive statements are just jokes or are willfully misinterpreted by his foes in the “fake news” industry.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

For NPD, we’ll again turn to the DSM-5 to understand Trump’s extreme narcissism. The DSM-5 requires that five of nine criteria must be met to make the diagnosis. I’ll be less exhaustive here than with ASPD, showing how the president meets seven of the criteria.

First, someone with NPD typically has a grandiose sense of self-importance. Evidence for this trait in Trump overflows; let’s just consider how he describes himself as a “very stable genius,” despite an elementary school vocabulary and innumerable typos in his covfefe tweets. Or how about his belief that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, despite manifestly making the world a less safe place?

Trump is also preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited power. How else to explain his admiration for thuggish leaders like Assad and Duterte, or his recent utterance that he’d like to see Americans stand for him as they do for North Korea’s Kim?

The narcissist’s unquenchable desire for unwarranted admiration shone through in the sickening toadying by his cabinet at their televised first gathering. We hear about it in the reports that his advisors highlight flattering news items in his daily briefings. We saw it in the coverage of his whirlwind visit to Puerto Rico last October, when he asked the island’s congressional representative to repeat some of her flattery to him, so all of the media present could hear it again.

August 01, 2018 1:45 PM  
Anonymous FIRST AMENDMENT VS. CONSPIRACY THEORY said...

Hostility toward the media at Trump rallies is nothing new. It infected the presidential campaign and has marred every raucous gathering of supporters since the election.

But on Tuesday night in Tampa, the extreme aggression dropped the basement floor another level.

This was a new low. And a scary one at that.

“I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in someone getting hurt,” CNN’s much-maligned reporter Jim Acosta noted, as he posted video of the scene:

It showed a sea of worked-up Trump supporters screaming curses at him and aggressively gesturing with their middle fingers.

The New York Times’s Katie Rogers agreed, calling it “as hostile as I’ve seen people.”

Making matters worse was a dark novelty: The emergence at the rally of a cultish group called QAnon. These are the deranged devotees of a supposed government agent who they believe is waging war against the “deep state” that threatens the Trump presidency.

Believers were front and center at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall, as The Washington Post reported.

“As the president spoke, a sign rose from the audience. ‘We are Q,’ it read. Another poster displayed text arranged in a ‘Q’ pattern: ‘Where we go one we go all.’ ”

The group, born on Internet message boards such as Reddit and 8Chan, is a close cousin to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led a gunman to open fire in a D.C. restaurant last year.

UNLIKE IQ45, I PREFER THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO DEPLORABLE CONSPIRACY THEORIES

August 01, 2018 1:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump’s sense of entitlement comes through in his hate speech against the mainstream media (“the enemy of the people”), which has the gall to write truthful, negative things about his conduct and its consequences. And how about his outrage towards James Comey, who wouldn’t promise him undiluted loyalty? Our “law and order” president thinks he should be able to pardon himself (not that he’s broken any laws, mind you).

His interpersonal exploitation and lack of empathy are seen in the fact that everyone, including his children, only matter to him as a means to his own betterment, not for any intrinsic worth they have as human beings. Lastly, his envy crystallizes in his fixation on Obama and his hatred of Justin Trudeau, knowing that he will never possess their substantive charisma or earn the affection of good citizens as these two leaders have.

Paranoia and Sadism

After antisocial personality traits and a diagnosis of NPD, the third defining component of the psychopath is paranoia. We observed this early in Trump’s presidency, with his conviction that the popular vote was fraudulently stolen from him, and his assertion that President Obama had wiretapped his NYC residence. It continues with his unilateral initiation of a trade war with allies like Canada and Germany, framed by his assertion that these countries are laughing at us. His choice of media sources also speaks volumes; no investigative journalism for him, but rather the deluded conspiracies of the National Enquirer and Info Wars.

The fourth trait of sadism can fairly be said to define Trump and his presidency. The celebrity who body-shamed Rosie O’Donnell and former beauty pageant contestants, whose catchphrase was a demeaning “you’re fired,” has unsurprisingly carried his misconduct into the Oval Office.

His abusive name-calling (Lying Ted, Crooked Hillary, Crying Chuck Schumer, Liddle Bob Corker, Crazy Mika) shows an immature cruelty that would be unacceptable on a kids’ playground. The continued chants of “lock her up,” egged on by him at his rallies, are unfit for a democracy.

Here again, his admiration of Rodrigo Duterte (and his extrajudicial killings) and Bashar al-Assad (turning his country into a vast killing field) reveals the murderous potential of Trump. His loathsome policy of separating immigrant children from their parents is trauma on a massive scale, which only a man devoid of empathy and reveling in psychological torment could enact.

August 01, 2018 1:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Why Precise Labels Matter

Hopefully, my gathering of the evidence has convinced you that our president is unquestionably a psychopath, a malignant narcissist. My data presentation is hardly exhaustive, so I’m quite sure my readers can come up with many other examples of Trump’s statements and misconduct that could further bolster my case.

It’s now fair to ask why naming our president a psychopath matters, and I can come up with three key reasons. First, in an age of rampant lies, we need to be wholly honest. In the immediate shock of Trump’s election, it was enough to vaguely posit that our new president was dangerous and make a long list of his concerning traits. But now that we’ve had more time to collect our thoughts and far more data, mental health professionals have a public obligation to use our training and knowledge to speak out with clarity.

This frankness will allow all of us to comprehend what we’re dealing with, to understand our societal prognosis, if you will. Knowing that our psychopathic president is in the august company of Muammar Gaddafi, Joseph Stalin, and serial killers, we can dispense with the fantasy that the Oval Office will somehow make him behave presidentially.

Instead, we can accept the truth that the key to managing a psychopath is containment and damage minimization. This is why the mid-term elections are so important, and why the continued protest and light-shining on this administration’s vile policies remain necessary.

Accepting that Trump is a psychopath will also buttress our own mental health. As I wrote last week, it is exhausting and traumatizing to live under the rule of a psychopath. However, just as there is power in a therapist helping a client to realize that her husband is abusive – and to overtly deploy the word abuse – I think there is something paradoxically empowering in acknowledging our current national predicament.

August 01, 2018 1:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Its clear from reading this that Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous also have anti-social personality disorder - they are sociopaths. They're sadistic, they have no empathy for others, they commonly exhibit irresponsibility in such areas as work obligations (posting here from work instead of doing their jobs), exhibit a lack of remorse for things like falsely accusing a transwoman of being a sexual predator, lying profusely, etc.

August 01, 2018 1:47 PM  
Anonymous afternoon fun times said...

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/01/watch_live_wh_briefing_with_press_secretary_sarah_sanders.html

August 01, 2018 1:49 PM  
Anonymous Gay Valedictorian Rejected By Parents Gets Over $80,000 In Donations To Go To College: Seth Owen, who endured gay conversion therapy, will be attending Georgetown University this fall thanks to a GoFundMe campaign. said...

A high school valedictorian who says his Southern Baptist parents ostracized him because of his sexuality is fulfilling his dream of going to college thanks to a generous GoFundMe campaign.

Seth Owen, who identifies as gay, graduated from First Coast High School in Jacksonville, Florida, with a 4.16 GPA, NBC News reports.

The 18-year-old self-described “nerd” planned on attending Georgetown University in the fall, but was unable to afford the tuition and said he couldn’t count on his parents for financial support.

So Jane Martin, Owen’s former biology teacher and mentor, created a GoFundMe page to raise the $20,000 he would need to order to enroll.

As of this posting, the online campaign has raised over $81,000 and counting.

According to Martin’s GoFundMe description, after Owen endured a year of gay conversion therapy — a “harmful” practice the American Medical Association has found to have a “lack scientific credibility” — his parents eventually gave him an ultimatum. The teen was told that would have to continue attending his family’s church that outwardly attacked his sexual orientation and the LGBTQ community or move out.

Owen made the heartbreaking decision to leave.

“The worst part was I was packing my bags, and I was walking out the door, and I was hoping that my mom would stand in my way,” Owen told NBC. “I was hoping that she would say, ‘I love my child more than I love my religion.’”

He was living on friends’ couches when he received his financial aid package from Georgetown.

Martin wrote on her campaign page that the university created the package based on the assumption that his parents would foot the rest of the bill. Owen tried to appeal it, sending letters from mental health professionals, community organizations and school employees, but the university wouldn’t budge.

That’s when Martin stepped in.

“After we had hit $2,000, Seth was just like, ‘I’m so surprised that people, like, actually care about me,’” Martin recalled to NBC.

A spokesperson for Georgetown told the news outlet that it “admits and enrolls students without regard to their financial circumstances” but also noted that although they cannot comment on this particular case, they do work with students whose financial situations have changed since admission.

Owen and Martin said if Georgetown does amend the financial aid package, they will use the funds from the campaign to set up a scholarship for other teens in Owen’s situation.

In a video posted to Martin’s GoFundMe page, Owen says that each donation sends the message “that you believe in me and you believe in my potential.”

“And it’s encouragement like this that sustains me and reminds me in difficult times that goals are attainable,” he said.

August 01, 2018 2:09 PM  
Anonymous Lush fertilizer for my vegetable garden said...

"https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/01/watch_live_wh_briefing_with_press_secretary_sarah_sanders.html"

August 01, 2018 3:06 PM  
Anonymous save your fertilizer, America's growing great! ...again!! said...

President Donald Trump made an unscheduled appearance on the White House South Lawn Friday morning, exactly one hour and 13 minutes after the Commerce Department announced the U.S. economy grew at the impressive rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter.

“These are great numbers,” he said. “We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.”

Some of this was Trumpian hyperbole. But it’s a show he can take on the road to help preserve Republicans majorities in the House and the Senate this November. Because there’s enough substance in the numbers and in the nearly 3 percent growth rate for the five complete quarters he’s been president that a salesman as good as Trump can sell the success.

Democrats were left to grumble about the rich benefiting most, and the mainstream press pointed to farmers hurrying silos of soybeans to China ahead of looming tariffs. But others recognized the seriousness of 4.1 percent growth. The Twitter feeds of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and potential presidential candidates like Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), were silent on the numbers — apparently operating under the theory that if you don’t have something mean to say, don’t say anything at all.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Jason Furman, a Democrat whose business isn’t politics, chose not to deny the facts. He tweeted: “Big surprise: the underlying data for Q2 is even better than the headline 4.1% annual GDP growth rate.”

The president can help elect Republicans with the economic numbers because the 2018 midterms are going to be all about Trump. Just like the 2010 midterms, during which Obama admitted Democratic candidates experienced a “shellacking,” was all about him.

Trump dominates the news through his daily tweets, outrageous statements and personal charisma. Whether you think the Trump presidency is a 14-car pileup or the Fourth of July fireworks on the National Mall, you simply can’t take your eyes off it.

This means Trump will effectively be on the ballot in every congressional district and in every state where there’s a Senate race — and as long as he keeps talking about the economy, it’s a good place for him to be

August 01, 2018 4:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

More Lies from Trump’s Fact-Free Fantasy World

Another week, another long list of lies from the mouth and thumbs of Donald Trump. As I said before, his Twitter account — and his ego-boosting campaign-style rallies — are like the mirror into Wonderland. Step through it and you’ll find a magical place where up is down, black is white and truth is non-existent. AP factchecks several of his claims, like this one:

TRUMP: “I did win that women’s vote, didn’t I? Remember, they said, ‘Why would women vote for Trump?’ Well, I don’t know, but I got more than she did. That’s pretty good.” — remarks Thursday in Granite City, Ill.

THE FACTS: No, he didn’t. About 54 percent of women nationally voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to exit polls, compared with Trump’s 41 percent.

Fake news! He polled all of the women in his own family and the ones who work for him and he clearly won their vote, but the lying news media — the enemy of the people — are trying to hide the truth. Every other woman in the country who voted did so illegally, so they don’t count. Welcome to Wonderland.

TRUMP: “We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.” — remarks Friday on a new economic report.

THE FACTS: That doesn’t square with the record. Trump didn’t inherit a fixer-upper economy.

The U.S. economy just entered its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since 2017 by the Trump administration.

While Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, it exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency. But quarterly figures are volatile and strength in one quarter can be reversed in the next.

Trump’s book really should have been called The Art of the Wild Exaggeration. Accuse him of anything and not only is he not that, he’s the single most sterling example of the opposite of that the world has ever seen. He isn’t just not a racist, he’s the least racist person you’ve ever seen. He not only is not a sexist, no one in history has ever respected women as much as him. And he isn’t just the beneficiary of a long, steady recovery, but “We’re having the best economy we’ve ever had in the history of our country.” Uh no, Donald. We’re not. Not even close.

And no, Donald, it isn’t true that “we have a very big deficit with Canada, a trade deficit.” We have a trade surplus with Canada. Nor is it true that Canada has a “totally closed market” to the United States. In fact, NAFTA eliminated nearly all trade barriers. A few remain in small niche areas, like dairy, which he loves to harp on. You know how much of our trade with Canada involves dairy products? Less than 2/10ths of a percent. Welcome to Trump’s Wonderland, where lies are the only currency and Trump would never devalue them by being honest about anything, ever.

August 01, 2018 5:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Trump didn’t inherit a fixer-upper economy"

all the liberals, and the foreign troll that comments here, would have you believe that Trump is simply riding some wave that Obama the Worst created

the rely on simplistic measures of GDP growth, but ignore a deeper dive into the numbers

Trump has averaged about 3% over the last year

Obama the Worst averaged 1.9% over his two terms

but the bigger difference is the quality of the economic improvement

labor participation is up, growth is up over a wide spectrum, minority unemployment is the lowest

most significant is that Obama the Worst had to rely on near-zero interest and borrowing more money than all other Presidents combined to prop up his moribund economy

and he was still the only President ever to not have 3% growth in any year

pathetic

after a year and a half of Trump is returning to normal for America....Great!!

August 01, 2018 11:24 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Glorious Leader Melts Down Over Robert Mueller

Glorious Leader is clearly increasingly anxious as Paul Manafort’s federal trial enters its second day in Virginia.

Former senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg says there is enough information on public record to suspect that President Trump or those close to him will inevitably be charged with conspiring to work together with Russia.

When asked if there’s enough evidence to bring charges of collusion forward, Rosenberg guessed that the answer was yes since the timing of Trump’s call for Russian assistance in finding Hillary Clinton‘s emails was too suspicious for Robert Mueller to not act upon.

@RepAdamSchiff "The president of the United States just called on his Attorney General to put an end to an investigation in which the President, his family and campaign may be implicated. This is an attempt to obstruct justice hiding in plain sight. America must never accept it.

@RealDonaldTrump "This is a terrible situation and Attorney Genereal Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA! [Actually almost all of Mueller's team, including Mueller, are Republicans]

Remember when folks' biggest excuse against a woman being President was that women are too emotional?

Wonder what the new excuse will be, now that they've elected a huge manbaby to office.

Desperation is a stinky cologne. Squirm donnie. squirm. I can only hope the anxiety gets you before Mueller does.

August 01, 2018 11:36 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Founder Of Nation’s Largest Christian Festival Gets 18 Years In Prison For Molesting Multiple Preteen Girls

Just like the research shows, people deep into christianity assume being a christian alone makes them good people so they engage in bad behavior and it never occurs to them they are behaving immorally because they think themselves "good" regardless of how they behave - Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous are the epitome of that.
-----------------------------
If a Muslim tried to do this, everybody would scream and cry and say they were implementing Sharia Law in the U.S.

But because its a white christian, a "Religious Liberty Task Force" is okay, and its okay to impose your religion on other people.

Hypocrisy at its finest.
---------------------------
Commander Jonathan White of HHS just admitted he warned Trump and Sessions about "significant risk of harm" and "psychological injury as a consequence of their zero tolerance policy on asylum seekers and their children and he was ignored:

Think about this for a second. They were warned that they would cause severe harm to children and went ahead anyway.

August 01, 2018 11:37 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Prescription drug prices are skyrocketing. Gas prices continue to rise. Health care costs and premiums are through the roof (directly caused by Trump). Wages are stagnant. What is the solution Trump and the Republicans in Washington propose?

More tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.

You can't make this stuff up.

August 01, 2018 11:47 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Recession warning signs are here

1. Home sales have declined in four of the past five months as housing prices have grown -- but paychecks have remained stagnant. Many people can't afford to buy homes, and those who can are taking on a lot of debt to get into them.

2. With two more interest rate hikes planned, the Fed could boost short-term rates higher than long-term ones, inverting the so-called yield curve. An inverted yield curve has preceded every recession in modern history.

Trump brags about the 4.1% quarterly GDP growth but that's due to companies rushing out exports to beat the consequences of his trade war.

And Obama had several quarters of 4.1% growth. Quarterly growth is volatile and means very little.

August 01, 2018 11:57 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Millions of Black Voters Are Being Purged From Voter Rolls, Often Illegally:Report

Republicans can't win a fair and honest election where everyone eligible is allowed to vote.

August 02, 2018 12:02 AM  
Anonymous toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good this week, life is sooOOooo good!! said...

"Former senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg"

after the antics of Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and Page, this credential no longer has much gravitas

"says there is enough information on public record to suspect that President Trump or those close to him will inevitably be charged with conspiring to work together with Russia."

if so, what's the wait about? go ahead and charge them

btw, "conspiring to work together with Russia" is not a crime unless it was a conspiracy to do something illegal

we are not at war with Russia

they are a third rate economic power who may be useful in countering the real threat to our interests, China

"When asked if there’s enough evidence to bring charges of collusion forward, Rosenberg guessed that the answer was yes since the timing of Trump’s call for Russian assistance in finding Hillary Clinton‘s emails was too suspicious for Robert Mueller to not act upon."

I think this statement makes clear what kind of moron this "former senior FBI official" is

anyone who thinks Russia did not engage in spying and propaganda before Trump gave them permission is a special kind of stupid

you know, like Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll

"@RepAdamSchiff "The president of the United States just called on his Attorney General to put an end to an investigation in which the President, his family and campaign may be implicated. This is an attempt to obstruct justice hiding in plain sight. America must never accept it."

opinions about what attorney generals should do don't meet the definition of obstruction of justice

if they did, Adam Schiff's efforts to impede the investigation into Obama spying on the Trump campaign would also be obstruction of justice

"Remember when folks' biggest excuse against a woman being President was that women are too emotional?"

actually, no

can you give us some examples?

no, you can't

you're lying

"Just like the research shows, people deep into christianity assume being a christian alone makes them good people"

that's some pretty bad research since a basic tenet of Christianity is that no one is "good people"

but, of course, Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll thinks there is research supporting every ignorant opinion

"If a Muslim tried to do this, everybody would scream and cry and say they were implementing Sharia Law in the U.S.

But because its a white christian, a "Religious Liberty Task Force" is okay, and its okay to impose your religion on other people."

again we see the confusion and inability to discern between imposition and freedom

if a Christian baker chooses not to be part of an immoral gay "wedding", they've made no imposition on anybody

August 02, 2018 5:18 AM  
Anonymous toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good this week, life is sooOOooo good!! said...

"Commander Jonathan White of HHS just admitted he warned Trump and Sessions about "significant risk of harm" and "psychological injury as a consequence of their zero tolerance policy on asylum seekers and their children and he was ignored:

Think about this for a second. They were warned that they would cause severe harm to children and went ahead anyway."

or maybe they weighed that against the harm that unfettered illegal immigration is doing to America

or maybe they thought Commander Jonathan White was a space cadet

"Prescription drug prices are skyrocketing. Gas prices continue to rise. Health care costs and premiums are through the roof (directly caused by Trump). Wages are stagnant. What is the solution Trump and the Republicans in Washington propose?

More tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy."

maybe the Dems should run on that!

hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

"You can't make this stuff up."

you don't seem to have any trouble making stuff up!!

"Recession warning signs are here"

this should be fun

"1. Home sales have declined in four of the past five months as housing prices have grown -- but paychecks have remained stagnant. Many people can't afford to buy homes, and those who can are taking on a lot of debt to get into them."

actually, home ownership rates, which were in free fall during the term of Obama the Worst are coming back under Trump

"2. With two more interest rate hikes planned, the Fed could boost short-term rates higher than long-term ones, inverting the so-called yield curve. An inverted yield curve has preceded every recession in modern history."

the near zero interest rates of the Obama years severely hurt older people who rely on interest income

even with two more interest rate hikes planned, interest rates will remain historically low

just like the IQ of Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll

"Trump brags about the 4.1% quarterly GDP growth but that's due to companies rushing out exports to beat the consequences of his trade war."

latest liberal rationalization

"And Obama had several quarters of 4.1% growth. Quarterly growth is volatile and means very little."

that's why you should look at averages

Trump has averaged 3%

Obama averaged 1.9%

that differences means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

Dems are screwed

"Republicans can't win a fair and honest election where everyone eligible is allowed to vote."

funny how concerned Dems are that Russia interfered with the election

and yet they think any effort to fight voter fraud is racist

Hypocrisy at its finest.

August 02, 2018 5:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

President Trump has been criticized for politicizing the intelligence community by threatening to strip the security clearances of former top officials including John Brennan and James Clapper. But numerous past and present senior intelligence officials say the Obama administration started that politicization -- and revoking the clearances of those who abuse the privilege for partisan purposes may help right the ship.

“As is often the case with the Trump administration, the rollout of the policy is bad, but the idea driving the policy is sound,” said one senior intelligence official who, like others, spoke only on condition of anonymity. “Under some Obama-era intelligence chiefs, intelligence was used as a political weapon. We need to root that out, not reward it.”

August 02, 2018 12:11 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

White Americans support welfare programs — but only for themselves, says new research

[much more at the link]

New study shows white Americans love government support programs — that is, if they’re the beneficiaries

Donald Trump's administration recently decided to give $12 billion to farmers hurt by the president's trade war against the European Union, China and various other countries. These monies can be considered a form of welfare for white people in red state America who are among his most loyal supporters. Moreover, the racial disparity is made even clearer by the way that African-American and other nonwhite farmers have been victims of systemic discrimination by the United States Department of Agriculture. In 2010, the USDA and the Justice Department reached a $1.25 billion settlement with black farmers over a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in USDA farm loan programs.

Welfare for white Americans is nothing new. In many ways, the United States was built on white welfare.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, free land was given to European settlers as the intended result of genocide and ethnic cleansing against Native Americans. As part of this same racist project, the stolen labor and lives of black human property is estimated to have been worth trillions of dollars. In essence, black pain and black suffering was a de facto intergenerational welfare payment to White America, one that fueled the country's rise to global power and created income and other life opportunities for white people, both native- born and immigrants.

African-Americans and other nonwhites were prohibited both by law and social convention from taking advantage of land grants and other opportunities made available by the Homestead Act and related 19th-century legislation which conservative estimates value at hundreds of billions of dollars.

The American middle class (predominantly white by definition) was created after World War II by way of federal programs like the VA, the FHA home programs and the G.I. Bill. This example of white welfare was one of the largest wealth-creation and intergenerational wealth-transfer programs in history. Again, African-Americans and other nonwhites were, for the most part, denied access to those opportunities. Today's extreme racial wealth gap is the most obvious result.

August 02, 2018 1:14 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

What economists and other social scientists describe as "the submerged state" -- government programs such as mortgage interest deductions, capital gains and other tax credits and cuts, and financial subsidies for entire industries — is another example of white welfare. Whites are disproportionately overrepresented as beneficiaries of the submerged state. Moreover, the submerged state is a central means through which the racial wealth gap is maintained in so-called "post racial" "colorblind" America.

There is a complication. New research by Robb Willer, professor of sociology at Stanford University, and Rachel Wetts, a researcher at the University of California, demonstrates that despite all the ways that the government provided welfare programs to help them, white Americans are willing to cut such programs if they believe that African-Americans and other nonwhites may benefit.

This dynamic is made worse when white Americans are made to feel that their place at the top of America's social hierarchy is challenged. Lyndon Johnson's insight has been proven true over and over: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

A new article, "Privilege on the Precipice: Perceived Racial Status Threats Lead White Americans to Oppose Welfare Programs," published in the May 2018 issue of the journal Social Forces, explores this issue, finding that "white Americans’ welfare attitudes are shaped by concerns about the status of their racial group in American society":

[W]e found that white Americans who saw a demographic report emphasizing the decline of the white majority tended thereafter to voice greater opposition to welfare, and this effect was partially mediated by increased racial resentment. In our final study, we found that information threatening the white economic advantage resulted in increased opposition to welfare programs when whites perceived those programs to primarily benefit minorities, but did not affect support for programs portrayed as benefiting whites. These findings implicate racial status threats as a causal factor shaping whites’ opposition to welfare.

[A]ny progress toward equality may provoke resentment on the part of dominant group members, who may react politically in ways that undermine or even reverse progress to racial equality. In the case of American social welfare programs, this further implies that evidence of increased racial equality could exacerbate overall economic inequality. As whites attempt to undermine racial progress they see as threatening their group’s status, they increase opposition to programs intended to benefit poorer members of all racial groups.

August 02, 2018 1:15 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

We find evidence that welfare backlash among white Americans is driven in part by feelings that the status of whites in America is under threat. These threats trigger heightened levels of racial resentment among whites, and in turn, heightened opposition to welfare programs that whites tend to perceive as mostly benefiting racial minorities.

This research shows us when and why whites support cuts to social safety net programs that benefit poorer members of all racial groups. While we don’t directly look at the processes that lead whites to perceive welfare programs as primarily benefiting minorities rather than whites, other research discusses how these programs become racialized. For example, through media depictions that disproportionately portray welfare recipients as black (see work by Martin Gilens), or through racialized rhetoric of political elites that connects these policies to negative stereotypes of minorities (examples: Tali Mendelberg or Ian Haney López’s work on "dog whistle politics").

White Americans on average have much higher incomes, wealth and representation in government than African-Americans, Latinos and other nonwhite groups. Given those facts, why would whites fear their racial group is losing status?

Perceptions don’t always match reality. And members of the media and politicians sometimes frame or highlight social trends and events in ways that might make them seem more threatening to whites’ status than they actually are. For example, research finds that people in many countries, including the United States, strongly overestimate what percentage of the population is made up of immigrants.

We find that a variety of forms of perceived threats to the standing of whites in America lead them to withdraw support for welfare programs. These include perceived threats to whites' political power, majority status and economic advantage. For example, we find that whites’ racial resentment rose in 2008, the same year of the Great Recession and election of Barack Obama, suggesting that perceptions of increased political power among minorities were leading whites to sense a threat to their group’s status. In another study, we found that when whites saw a threat to their economic advantage over minorities, they were more likely to want to cut social safety net programs, but only if those programs were portrayed as primarily benefiting minorities. Not if they were portrayed as benefiting whites.

The Trump administration has recently made several moves to cut the social safety net, such as cutting housing subsidies and proposing work requirements to receive food stamps. So, in this context, it’s important to understand the dynamics that drive welfare backlash. This research suggests that white voters may be supportive of measures to roll back social safety net programs — even when these programs could benefit them — as a response to feelings of threatened racial status and racial resentment.

August 02, 2018 1:16 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

So, once again we see most people voted for Trump because they're racists and they resent minorities being treated as their equals.

August 02, 2018 1:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Religious Freedom: A term used by those who are upset that the Constitution is preventing them from being allowed to force their religious views on others.

August 02, 2018 1:20 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Hee Hee Hee!


Scott Pruitt

August 02, 2018 2:26 PM  
Anonymous Dems are so screwed... said...

look at averages

Trump has averaged 3%

Obama averaged 1.9%

that differences means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

Dems are screwed

August 02, 2018 3:44 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump is scripting his own defeat in November
Rick Newman
Senior Columnist
Yahoo FinanceAugust 2, 2018

President Trump isn’t afraid to make enemies. Since he took down the Bush and Clinton dynasties—and many other opponents—in his upstart bid for the presidency in 2016, he seems to think there’s no foe able to derail his crusade.

But other Republicans aren’t as slippery, and Trump is making enemies on their behalf that could doom his own party dearly in the November midterm elections. Trump recently took aim at the huge political operation built by Charles and David Koch, the libertarian billionaires who flood millions of dollars into Republican election efforts. The Kochs are strong free-trade supporters, and Trump chided them for opposing his tariffs and other protectionist measures. “Total joke,” Trump tweeted on July 31. “I don’t need their money or bad ideas. Their network is overrated.”

Trump may not need Koch money, but a lot of other Republicans do. The Kochs didn’t support Trump in the 2016 election, but they didn’t oppose him either. And their network of donor organizations, including Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners, spent nearly $250 million politicking for other candidates who support their agenda, almost all of them Republicans. That spending undoubtedly helped push some Republican Congressional candidates over the top in tight races, solidifying GOP control of Congress and allowing the Trump tax cuts and other legislation to get through.

Dependent on the Koch network

Republicans need more help in 2018 than they did in 2016—and the Kochs are signaling they’re not likely to support Trump bandwagoners who back trade protectionism, tough restrictions on legal immigration and increased deficit spending. The group recently indicated it wouldn’t back Republican Senate candidates in North Dakota, Indiana and Nevada, all of which political analyst Larry Sabato rates as toss-ups that could potentially swing control of the Senate to Democrats.

If Trump further antagonizes the Koch network, their lack of support could be decisive in November. “The Republican party has grown to be dependent on the Koch donor network for hundreds of millions of dollars in election support,” says Robert Maguire of the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign-finance watchdog. “It’s hard to downplay the impact their pullback would have on Republicans’ ability to make the case for their candidates in one of the most important midterms in a generation.”

Republicans hold the House by 23 seats, and there’s a good chance they could lose that many, or more, in the midterms, allowing Democrats to take control of at least one chamber. The Senate is a tougher prize for the Dems, but controlling the House would be enough to block most Republican legislation, mount aggressive investigations into Trump controversies, and possibly vote to impeach Trump.

August 02, 2018 4:06 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Kochs aren’t kingmakers, as Trump’s victory in 2016 proves. Their favorites for president included Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. Trump trounced them all. But the Koch network can target large sums of money in tight House or Senate races where a flurry of negative ads against an opponent might provide a crucial edge in the waning days of the campaign. Since most of the Koch spending takes place through so-called super PACs, there’s no limit on how much they can spend. And some of that spending is by groups that don’t have to report who the donors are.

Democrats’ advantage

Does Trump have a plan to provide an alternate source of funding for Republicans shunned by the Koch network? Not clear. There are super PACs that support Trump’s agenda, such as America First, Great America and 45Committee. But they seem unlikely to raise as much money as the Kochs, who have a base group of 700 wealthy activists committed to donating a minimum of $100,000 each. The pro-Trump groups may not be as willing to share the bounty with other Republicans, and they may not be as nimble at the Congressional level as the Koch operations.

Trump may also think his Twitter endorsement for favored candidates is the equivalent of a big, costly ad blitz – but that hasn’t proven out in general elections, so far. Trump endorsed Republican candidates who ended up losing in an Alabama Senate race last December and a Pennsylvania House race in March. He has endorsed other Republicans who won, but by smaller margins than in prior elections, suggesting the Trump stamp of approval may not stop a surge of Democratic voters.

Trump seems to be giving Democrats another advantage by intensifying his trade protectionism, even as stories mount of Americans hurt by those policies. The latest tightening of the screw is a plan to raise the possible tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10% to 25%. Trump has already imposed tariffs on $91 billion of imports, which has triggered retaliatory tariffs of similar magnitude on U.S. exports. About 20% of all U.S. agricultural exports are now subject to higher tariffs, which is hurting farm income along with Trump’s popularity in farm states.

Trump seems to be ratcheting up the pressure on China in the hope they’ll blink and give him a deal he can call a victory before the November midterms. But the Chinese could have another plan: They might stall until November, leaving Trump’s tariffs in place along with various retaliations aimed at Americans. That way, they’d be giving American voters the chance to punish Trump for his tariffs, which would weaken Trump’s hand in negotiations, while strengthening China’s. Trump’s enemies have many targets, and if they hurt Trump’s enablers they will hurt Trump himself.

August 02, 2018 4:06 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Donald Trump answers the question: What is 2+2?

"I have to say a lot of people have been asking this question. No, really. A lot of people come up to me and they ask me. They say "What's 2+2?" And I tell them look, we know what 2+2 is. We've had almost eight years of the worst kind of math you can imagine. Oh my God, I can't believe it. Addition and subtraction of the 1s the 2s and the 3s. Its terrible. It's just terrible. Look, if you want to know what 2+2 is, do you want to know what 2+2 is? I'll tell you. First of all the number 2, by the way, I love the number 2. It's probably my favourite number, no it is my favourite number. You know what, its probably more like the number two but with a lot of zeros behind it. A lot. If I'm being honest, I mean, if I'm being honest. I like a lot of zeros. Except for Marco Rubio, now he's a zero that I don't like. Though Iprobably shouldn't say that. He's a nice guy but he's like "10101000101", and on and on, like that. He's like a computer! You know what I mean? He's like a computer. I don't know. I mean, you know. So, we have all these numbers, and we can add them and subtract them and add them. TIMES them even. Did you kow that? We can times them OR divide them, they don't tell you that, and I'll tell you, no one is better at the order of operations than me. You wouldn't believe it. So, we're gonna be the best on 2+2, believe me."

August 02, 2018 7:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hee hee hee

Merrick Garland

hee hee hee

Hillary Clinton

Trump has averaged 3%

Obama averaged 1.9%

that differences means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

Dems are screwed

August 02, 2018 9:07 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump Giving Mueller Evidence of Obstruction of Justice

We know that one of the crimes Robert Mueller is investigating is obstruction of justice by Trump, who seems to be absolutely determined to duck into the punch and hand him evidence for that charge. The latest example is a tweet in which he demands that Attorney General Jeff Sessions un-recuse himself and do away with the entire investigation.

Let’s again note the ridiculous double standard that Trump is using on the matter of recusal. He thinks Sessions was totally out of line to recuse himself from an investigation in which he was both a potential witness and a potential target, but thinks Mueller should have recused himself because he once resigned his membership in a Trump golf resort due to high fees. No rational person could find that anything but laughable, but his target audience with that argument is not made up of rational people but of simpleminded tribalists, the kind of people who would allow him to shoot someone on Park Avenue and find a way to excuse it.

Trump’s attorneys obviously recognized the potential danger of this tweet in showing a pattern of corrupt intent to obstruct justice. Jay Sekulow made a point of saying that Trump “has issued no order or direction to the Department of Justice on this.” But bringing pressure to bear like this still shows his intent. The key to building a case for obstruction of justice is to show a pattern, which is quite easy to do with Trump because his verbal diarrhea makes it very easy. Whenever he gets frustrated about it, he fires off a tweet about how the investigation must be ended. He made clear in an interview that he fired Comey to end the investigation, then lied about it. He told the Russian Ambassador and Foreign Minister that firing Comey had freed him from the investigation. He has publicly mused about pardons, a clear message to influence those who could turn on him.

At every step, he acts like a guilty man trying to cover his tracks, not an innocent man who isn’t afraid because he hasn’t done anything wrong.

August 02, 2018 9:12 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

It's so clear that the popular vote losing admitted sexual predator knows his "presidency" is illegitimate. He can only focus on crowd size at his pointless rallies. Why, after almost two years since this election, does he still talk about Hillary so much? Because he knows he lost to her and he Just. Can't. F*ing. Stand. It.

August 03, 2018 2:43 AM  
Anonymous the sad land of Canada said...

"At every step, he acts like a guilty man trying to cover his tracks, not an innocent man who isn’t afraid because he hasn’t done anything wrong"

that's a matter of opinion but "acting like a guilty man" is only illegal in countries like North Korea and Canada

so, now the Dems have conceded there is no substance to the Russia collusion hoax and the new strategy to overturn the election, that they lost by a wide margin, is an extremely loose interpretation of "obstruction of justice"

Trump has cooperated in every way with the investigation, turning over truckloads of documents and directing his staff to voluntarily submit to interrogation by Mueller's biased team

but tweeting his opinion is "obstruction of justice"?

find us another case where someone has been convicted of "obstruction of justice" for expressing an opinion a prosecutor doesn't like

further, there is no crime being investigated

unless Trump had actually helped Russia do something illegal, nothing alleged was criminal

"colluding" with Russia didn't happen

but neither is it a crime

it also isn't illegal for Russia to try to influence our election but it would be nice to know about their activities, so Mueller's investigation is more of an intelligence operation

and why is Mueller prosecuting Manafort?

his crimes had nothing to do with the campaign and Session wouldn't need to recuse himself from that case

"It's so clear that the popular vote losing admitted sexual predator knows his "presidency" is illegitimate. He can only focus on crowd size at his pointless rallies. Why, after almost two years since this election, does he still talk about Hillary so much? Because he knows he lost to her and he Just. Can't. F*ing. Stand. It."

oh, I think he's handled his enormous victory very well

people across a vast swath of the country supported him while Hillary's support was isolated to urban pockets

he brings Hillary up because it's always good politics

the American people detest Hillary and so it's a good way to connect with the crowds

hee hee hee

Merrick Garland

hee hee hee

Hillary Clinton

Trump has averaged 3%

Obama averaged 1.9%

that differences means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

Dems are screwed

August 03, 2018 6:33 AM  
Anonymous Sieg Heil said...

Donald Trump Jr. Says Democrats Are More Like Nazis Than Republicans Are

What he didn’t mention was the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who support his father.

Donald Trump Jr. said Thursday that the platform of the Democratic National Committee is “awfully similar” to the Nazi Party’s.

Trump, President Donald Trump’s eldest son and head of the Trump Organization, made the remark during an interview with One America News Network while attending a premiere for Dinesh D’Souza’s film “Death of a Nation,” which also attempts to frame similarities between Democrats and Germany’s Nazi Party.

“I’ve been hearing the left talking about these things ― fascism, Nazism on the right — and when you look at the actual history of how these things evolved, and you actually look at that platform versus the platform of the modern left, you say, ‘Wait a minute, those two are very heavily aligned and, frankly, contrary to the right,’” Trump told the conservative cable news channel.

While promoting D’Souza’s film, Trump also suggested that people shouldn’t trust what they learned in a history class because “academia has been so wrongly influenced by the left.”

“You see the Nazi platform in the early 1930s and what was actually put out there, and you look at it compared to, like, the DNC platform of today, and you’re saying, ‘Man, those things are awfully similar,’ to the point where it’s actually scary,” Trump added. “To me, that was one of the most striking things I took from the movie because it’s the exact opposite that you’ve been told.”

Trump’s comments mirrored D’Souza’s film and accompanying book, Death of a Nation: Plantation Politics and the Making of the Democratic Party. It compares Trump to President Abraham Lincoln and argues that Adolf Hitler was a progressive liberal, according to reviews.

D’Souza, a conservative commentator who leans to the far-right, is also a good friend of the Trump family. In May, President Trump pardoned D’Souza, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to violating campaign finance laws with an illegal donation to a GOP Senate candidate.

While Trump spoke positively of the arguments D’Souza makes in his film, he did not discuss with One America his father’s supporters who identify as white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

Also missing from the conversation was his father’s infamous remarks about the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, which turned deadly when a white supremacist rammed his car into counterprotesters.

Instead of condemning the white supremacist rally altogether, President Trump placed the blame on both sides of the conflict and argued that there were “some very fine people on both sides.”

August 03, 2018 8:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the Nazis were actually leftists

they advocated a classless society much like the Dems today who advocate government programs and taxation policies to fight income inequality

of course, they added a twist to socialism with a nationalist perspective

they only thought Germans should partake of the socialist utopia

August 03, 2018 11:52 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Sarah Huckabee Sanders Repeatedly Refuses To Say Journalists Are Not “The Enemy Of The People” [VIDEO]

On Thursday afternoon during a White House briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders refused to respond when reporters asked if “the press was the enemy of the people.” According to Aaron Blake, senior political reporter for The Washington Post, Sanders was asked three separate times if she thought the press was the enemy of the people, and she declined to answer all three times.


This is how badly Trump has screwed up the brains of his followers - he's made evil such a normal part of his administration that his employees won't even stand up against it under any circumstances.

August 03, 2018 1:31 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

When Obama Wanted to Negotiate with Iran

Donald Trump says he’d be happy to sit down face to face with the leaders in Iran. Remember what the right said when Obama said he’d be willing to do so? Media Matters does. The same people now praising Trump for his willingness to negotiate were savaging Obama as weak and naive.

But here’s the real difference between the two situations: Obama actually accomplished something, without holding a summit with the Iranian leadership. He ended the Iranian nuclear program through years of careful, detailed, diplomatic, multi-national negotiations by experienced professionals. Trump think he can walk in to a room with them, throw around some of that charm he’s so famous for inside his own head, and declare the problem solved. He’ll walk out, hold a press conference and tell the world that he has personally and singlehandedly created a lasting peace in the Middle East without any actual negotiating or any deal made, then waltz on to the next thing on which he’ll declare himself to be the savior. But Obama was the weak and naive one, right?

August 03, 2018 1:32 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump Tax Cuts Help CEOs Make Huge Bonuses But Don't Help Workers

After the Republicans passed their big tax cut, they publicized every anecdote about a company paying out bonuses — a thousand dollars here, a thousand dollars there — to show that it was really helping workers. The reality, though, was that it was always going to be used primarily to buy back stock to benefit rich investors and executives. And that’s exactly what has happened.

A POLITICO review of data disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings shows the executives, who often receive most of their compensation in stock, have been profiting handsomely by selling shares since Trump signed the law on Dec. 22 and slashed corporate tax rates to 21 percent. That trend is likely to increase, as Wall Street analysts expect buyback activity to accelerate in the coming weeks.

“It is going to be a parade of eye-popping numbers,” said Pat McGurn, the head of strategic research and analysis at Institutional Shareholder Services, a shareholder advisory firm.

That could undercut the political messaging value of the tax cuts in the Republican campaign to maintain control of Congress in the midterm elections.

Since the tax cuts were enacted, Oracle Corp. CEO Safra Catz has sold $250 million worth of shares in her company — the largest executive payday this year. Product development head Thomas Kurian sold $85 million. The sales came after the company announced a $12 billion share repurchase.

Stock buybacks boost the value of the stock by limiting supply. They also further consolidate corporate ownership. The argument the Republicans used was dishonest from the start. They said companies would use the tax breaks to invest in new production capacity, which would create jobs. But access to capital has not only not been a problem in many years, it is about as cheap and easy to get now as it has ever been (interest rates have gone up a bit over the last year or so, but they’re still near historic lows). And corporations have bigger cash holdings now than they’ve ever had. If a company wanted to build new capacity, there was not only nothing preventing them from doing so, it was an ideal time to do so long before that tax cut. There was just one problem: No demand. Companies aren’t going to build new factories if they can’t sell the product profitably, no matter how cheaply they can do so.

August 03, 2018 1:33 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

@RealDonaldTrump: "Obama was President up to, and beyond, the 2016 Election. So why didn't he do something about Russian meddling?"

Obama sanctioned four Russian individuals, five entities, expelled thirty-five Russian diplomats and closed two Russian compounds.

Obama met with Mitch McConnel about issuing a joint statement on Russian election attacks - McConnel refused.

Russia responded to the punishment by expelling U.S. Diplomats and Trump thanked them.

Trump publicly encouraged Russia to interfere witht he 2016 election and now refuses to impose Russian sanctions and has tried to give back the Russian compounds Obama closed.
-------------------------------------

@realDonaldTrump "Collusion is not a crime. but that doesn't matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!" [If there was any evidence of collusion between Hillary and Russia Trump could release it. He doesn't because there is no such evidence]

@tedlieu "Collusion is another way of saying conspiracy. And conspiracy is a felony. What's remarkable is Trump now has to resort to this desperate defence, that its okay to conspire with Russia to interfere in U.S. elections. It's not okay because its a crime.
--------------------------------------

Companies have overwhelmingly used their tax cuts to buyback stocks that benefit the rich. Trump lied when he said that money would go to employees. Only 4% of employees have received any sort of raise and those that got them got very tiny raises. With the money it has spend on stock buybacks, McDonalds could have given all of its 2 million employees a $4,000 raise. CVS could have given its employees $18,000 each.
-------------------------------------

This is an example of the insanity that is Trump and his administration. They're making the claim that increasing gas mileage standards on vehicle will cause people to drive more and get in more wrecks. Therefore, increasing the gas milage standards is bad for the American people. Seriously. Trump and his administration is "Idiocracy" come to real life.
---------------------------------------

During the 2016 election Trump repeatedly insisted that because the FBI was investigating Hillary she was corrupt. Now that the FBI is investigating Trump he says the FBI is corrupt.

August 03, 2018 1:34 PM  
Anonymous Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q Q said...

On Thursday, the usually even-keeled Mike Allen published a piece in Axios titled, “The case for extreme worry,” about how those close to Trump are panicked by his erraticism. The president’s whims and resentments have led to stock market convulsions and may soon result in painful tariffs that affect American farmers, an important part of his base. Mueller’s special counsel investigation continues to close in. Republicans have lost special election seats in red-leaning areas all over the country. But QAnon offers assurance that everything is under control.

You don’t create a wild fantasy about your leader being a covert genius unless you understand that to most people, he looks like something quite different. You don’t need an occult story about how your side is secretly winning if it’s actually winning. Publicly, many right-wing politicians and pundits disdain the Mueller investigation and pretend to believe that Trump’s ties to Russia are negligible. But among part of the Trump base, the effort to explain them away appears to be creating psychic strain.

“You cannot possibly imagine the size of this,” said a Q dispatch last month. “Trust the plan. Trust there are more good than bad.” Q almost certainly doesn’t know any state secrets, but he, she, or they understand that some fervent Trump supporters require more reassurance than they’re willing to admit. Their desperate conviction that they will be proven right about Trump betrays a secret fear that they will be proven wrong.

The length to which people have to go to convince themselves that Trump is the stable genius he says he is is getting more and more complicated every day. They can't just take it at face value because it's absurd on its face. So many of them are having to buy into a ludicrous conspiracy theory that says Trump and Robert Mueller and the military are secretly working together to prove that Clinton, Obama, Pelosi and all the other people they hate are really evil pedophiles.

And frankly, even the ones who aren't buying into this specific conspiracy theory are buying into a fantasy as well: they are convinced that this cretinous moron is actually competent at the job.

For the first time I'm feeling a little bit of pity for these folks. They have emotional, psychological and intellectual issues that are far more serious than I realized.

August 03, 2018 1:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looks like Obama is at it again!!

hahahahahahaaaahaha!!!

hohohohohohohohohohohohoho!

heeheeheeheeheeheeheehee!

The U.S. economy added 157,000 jobs in July, as the job market remained strong amid a tightening labor market.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.9 from 4 percent in June, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

The labor markets also produced 59,000 more jobs than previously reported in May and June.

Employers added 268,000 jobs in May and 248,000 in June.

Whoa, nelly!!

"Job growth in July followed two straight months of very strong gains, and the job market is in great shape in the middle of 2018," said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC.

After revisions, job gains have averaged 224,000 a month over the past three months, a sign of continued strength.

Jobs growth has averaged 215,000 a month so far this year, above last year’s pace of 182,000, when the economy was struggling to recover from the Obama era.

"this solid jobs report continues the longest streak of job growth on record," said Martha Gimbel, director of economic research at Indeed.

"Average job growth so far this year is higher than in 2016 and 2017, which is astonishing at this point in a recovery," Gimbel said.

The labor market is expected to produce steady jobs growth through this year and into 2019 as concerns ramp up about the ability for employers to find qualified workers.

Economists are forecasting that the jobless rate could eventually hit a historic low in the mid-3 percent range.

"The unemployment rate will fall to about 3.5 percent by the beginning of next year, although job growth will slow somewhat as businesses find it more and more difficult to hire," Faucher said.

The Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates at its next meeting in September to 2.25 percent from 2 percent, in an effort to keep the labor market from reaching a boiling point.

August 03, 2018 1:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hee hee hee

Merrick Garland

hee hee hee

Hillary Clinton

Trump has averaged 3%

Obama averaged 1.9%

that differences means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

Dems are so screwed

August 03, 2018 1:59 PM  
Anonymous Captain Carnival said...

I don’t much like Donald Trump and didn’t vote for him (or Hillary) in 2016, but I’ve been feeling sorry for him for about 18 months now. It feels strange feeling sorry for someone who’s a boor, a narcissist, an egomaniac, and a serial philanderer, plus the 37 other negative traits usually used to describe him. But it has something to do with the fact that he has been treated in a grossly unfair manner by the mainstream media and the political and cultural left, on a scale we’ve never seen before.

One story of the last two years is how this most alpha of alpha males has become an underdog of sorts in American politics today. Of course, you won’t find this narrative in any of the mainstream media outlets. This narrative merely exists in the minds of millions of voters who are outside the core Democratic base: those of us who are Republicans, moderates, independents, former Democrats like myself. We’ve been silently watching, listening, observing the opposition to Trump in the last eighteen months, and it’s been the most sickening thing to see, more appalling than what the right did to President Obama.

As one voter put it in an article I read a while ago, the hatred shown toward Trump has been “un-American.” I agree with that sentiment, even as I simultaneously hold the thought that Trump is not someone whose character needs defending.

Memo to the left: Know why Trump’s poll numbers have been steady or rising slightly in spite of the invective you’ve been pouring on him every minute of every day? It’s because the economy is booming, and also because most Americans are fair-minded and think that even a flawed sinner like Trump doesn’t deserve to be figuratively kicked every day in a manner that’s often dishonest, exaggerated or out-of-context.

Trump ran as the most anti- of anti-establishment candidates in 2016, and almost everything the political and media establishments have done since then have confirmed what millions of voters have realized: these establishments are out-of-control, they want presidential candidates and presidents they can control, and they won’t abide a true outsider.

In effect, their post-election behavior has confirmed that a President Trump was necessary for this time in American politics. The reality is, there was no peaceful transition of power on Jan. 20, 2017. From the time Trump won the Republican nomination, there has been a concerted effort from different quarters – the press, Hollywood, academia, the Democratic Party – to smear and undermine him.

Some of this was legitimate and what naturally happens in an election. But a lot of the opposition to him was breathtaking and unprecedented, and we’ve been learning more as time passes by. The highest levels of the FBI secretly spied on his campaign, and they did it by misleading the FISA court and using an unverified dossier paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

And the unprecedented opposition continued with a fake Russia collusion narrative and a dubious special counsel investigation to undermine and possibly remove a duly elected president elected by the masses whom the establishment happens not to like. If they are successful, we don’t have a constitutional republic anymore, folks. It’s that simple.

August 03, 2018 3:23 PM  
Anonymous sick of the Dems and the medai 9 I apologize for the redundancy) said...

I was a long-time Democrat who “walked away” from the party because I couldn’t stomach the Democrats’ anti-democratic antics. Post-2017, it is like the mask has been ripped off. It has become apparent that the Democratic Party and its media supporters seem to have a problem with representative democracy and how it works. They lost an election they thought they’d handily win, and their reaction to it has been to have a long, screeching public tantrum.

Bill Maher and other liberal commentators have openly talked about the urgent necessity to “remove” Trump. Remove Trump? Are they serious? I thought the way it works if you lose an election is you try to present a better argument before the electorate the next time and win the next election, and not simply try to get rid of the election-winner.

In the last eighteen months, the left, the so-called deep state and their media enablers have tried their damnedest to get rid of Trump even if it meant trampling over the rule of law and the Constitution. That is why those who used to care deeply about civil liberties have been mum when the civil liberties of Trump, Carter Page and others have been violated.

That is why one of the only principled liberal, Prof. Alan Dershowitz, who has been arguing about and defending the civil liberties of the Trump team, has been getting grief and facing ostracism from the left. That is why the mainstream media has not only derelicted its investigative duties, but has been shamelessly spinning one of the biggest stories of our time — how the FBI abused its power to spy on an American political campaign.

The striking thing is, the side that has been accusing Trump of subverting democracy has been guilty of it themselves. In America, even a serial killer has rights and deserves due process. But in the eyes of the left, Trump deserves neither.

But the public isn’t dumb. Those of us who aren’t hardcore Democrats recognize what’s going on and have come to see something that seems counter-intuitive: This loud, brash president is actually a victim and an underdog in American politics today, and he hasn’t been getting a fair shake since he won the election, or been given a proper chance to lead the country.

And so we feel sorry for him, and angry and repulsed by his opposition.

August 03, 2018 3:25 PM  
Anonymous Trump panel found no voter fraud, ex-member says said...

"Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, one of the 11 members of the commission formed by President Trump to investigate supposed voter fraud, issued a scathing rebuke of the disbanded panel on Friday, accusing Vice Chair Kris Kobach and the White House of making false statements and saying that he had concluded that the panel had been set up to try to validate the president’s baseless claims about fraudulent votes in the 2016 election.

Dunlap, one of four Democrats on the panel, made the statements in a report he sent to the commission’s two leaders — Vice President Pence and Kobach, who is Kansas’s secretary of state — after reviewing more than 8,000 documents from the group’s work, which he acquired only after a legal fight despite his participation on the panel.

Before it was disbanded by Trump in January, the panel had never presented any findings or evidence of widespread voter fraud. But the White House claimed at the time that it had shut down the commission despite “substantial evidence of voter fraud,” due to the mounting legal challenges it faced from states. Kobach, too, spoke around that time about how “some people on the left were getting uncomfortable about how much we were finding out.”

Dunlap said that the commission’s documents that were turned over to him underscore the hollowness of those claims: “they do not contain evidence of widespread voter fraud,” he said in his report, adding that some of the documentation seemed to indicate that the commission was predicting it would find evidence of fraud, evincing “a troubling bias.”

In particular, Dunlap pointed to an outline for a report the commission was working on that circulated in November 2017. The outline included sections for “Improper voter registration practices,” and “Instances of fraudulent or improper voting,” though the sections themselves were blank as they awaited evidence, speaking to what Dunlap said indicated a push for preordained conclusions.

“After reading this,” Dunlap said of the more than 8,000 pages of documents in an interview with The Washington Post, “I see that it wasn’t just a matter of investigating President Trump’s claims that three to five million people voted illegally, but the goal of the commission seems to have been to validate those claims.”

After a career of more than 20 years that has included stints as a state representative and the chairmanship of a committee on fisheries and wildlife, Dunlap said that his time on the panel was “the most bizarre thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

“We had more transparency on a deer task force than I had on a presidential commission,” he said. “We had probably a dozen meetings. They were all public. We published everything we did in the newspaper and published results, including information we got from the public.”

In contrast, the voter-integrity panel was marked by obfuscation, secrecy and confusion related to the work the panel was engaged in...."


Well lookie there, tRump's lying liars tried to justify the big voter fraud lie but came up empty.

August 04, 2018 7:55 AM  
Anonymous TTF afraid of scientific facts said...

the commission disbanded and presented no findings

so what is this moron Dem whining about?

You’ve probably heard the line that abortion is safer than childbirth. It’s a common talking point designed to justify abortion with seemingly scientific findings. But in fact, it’s an impossible claim to make. That's why Planned Parenthood (PP) is taking Idaho to court, to prevent anyone finding out the truth about how little we actually know about abortion in the United States.

Recently PP of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands filed suit in Idaho's U.S. District Court to stop a law calling for required reporting on abortion complications to know when women suffered harm.

PP routinely opposes such measures. Consider the words of PP lesbian President Cecile Richards: “The science says abortion is safe, but time and time again elected officials are ignoring the facts and jamming through abortion restrictions under a false guise of ‘safety’.”

One wonders what science she is referring to, as the pro-abortion think tank The Guttmacher Institute acknowledges that that states are not required to submit abortion data to the CDC. Added to the CDC data pool is information voluntarily offered to Guttmacher, which issues its own separate estimates of abortion and its impact, also without data from all 50 states.

This kind of jerry-built system results in differences between the data pools and the actual findings, determined an analysis of the issues in a Vanderbilt University report, “The Need for a National Abortion Reporting Requirement: Why Both Sides Should Be in Support of Better Data.”

So all that we really know about the number and negative impacts of abortion in America comes to us from the abortion industry itself, which tells us to trust but never verify its reports. The report adds that “because Guttmacher does not inquire about abortion complications, the information is lacking on how women are affected by both surgical and medical abortions.”

That’s not the way the CDC wishes that abortion were tracked. In a recent report on abortion statistics, the CDC analyzed the shortcomings in its data poll, including the fact that “the level of detail received on the characteristics of women obtaining abortions varies considerably from year to year and by reporting area.”

August 04, 2018 9:42 AM  
Anonymous TTF afraid of scientific facts said...

In its Abortion Surveillance report, the CDC wished for a better system, writing: “To encourage more uniform collection of these details, CDC has collaborated with the National Association of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems to develop reporting standards and provide technical guidance for vital statistics personnel who collect and summarize abortion data within the United States. However, because the collection and reporting of abortion data are not federally mandated, many reporting areas have developed their own data collection forms and therefore do not collect or provide all the information or level of detail included in this report.”

Imagine if all that we knew about bank safety came from the financial industry’s own press releases or if we relied on a restaurant owner’s assertion about what could be found in a private inspection of the kitchen. All kinds of industries are evaluated and monitored to ensure that people experience as few negative outcomes as possible.

In fact, we know more about negative outcomes of pregnancy because we actually check.

Attorney Clarke Forsythe and Dr. John Thorp discussed the difference between how pregnancy and abortion are tracked, observing: “Most states link birth and death certificates, which means that childbirth deaths are more accurately monitored. The count of abortion deaths only includes direct deaths, while the count of childbirth deaths includes direct and indirect deaths (like homicides and suicides while pregnant), thereby inflating the childbirth death count. The national system for counting childbirth deaths is thorough and long-standing, while there is no national system for counting abortion deaths based on legally mandated reporting.”

Yet in protesting a requirement for reporting, abortion advocates routinely complain that they burden abortionists and are unnecessary.

Funny, that’s not what they said when lobbying for the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which, when combined with the 2009 HITECH Act, created a whole new world of mandatory electronic reporting requirements. Richards talked openly about the role she and PP played in achieving passage of the law, which included the reporting requirements that have changed the ways many doctors are practicing medicine.

Why is it that professional reporting requirements were no problem for PP when applied to medical professionals but somehow become an issue when the abortion industry itself is asked to keep records and track outcomes?

America needs a National Abortion Reporting law, ensuring that abortion is as safe as Planned Parenthood and company claim it to be.

An abortion industry that insists its deadly product is safe for women should have no objections to the rest of us being able to verify that math. What is it trying to hide?

August 04, 2018 9:45 AM  
Anonymous you can't handle the truth! said...

Democrats have tried to block the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of the FBI and its probe of the Trump presidential campaign. They have failed. And the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating the actions of the FBI on its own.

Democrats made a fatal mistake. In their eagerness to quash scrutiny of the FBI, they embraced a dossier of unverified claims about President Trump put together by British ex-spy Christopher Steele. It blew up in their laps—and in the FBI’s even more so—after it was used improperly to justify the wiretap of a minor Trump adviser, Carter Page. It was a partisan document, having been financed by Democrats.

The dossier was heavily relied on in the FBI’s wiretap application. Only a part of that application has been released publicly, the rest redacted. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House committee, has asked the Justice Department to unmask the redacted sections, or at least two dozen specific pages.

There are bigger questions that the full application cannot answer. Yet these are on the minds of Nunes and other Republicans on both committees. Who in the Obama administration authorized the request for the wiretap during the final months of the 2016 campaign? (It was approved on October 21.) Which officials were involved? How did they intend to use the material they might obtain? What laws might have been violated?

At a committee meeting on March 17, 2017, ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), cited the dossier as if it were unquestionably true. He described Steele as “a former British intelligence officer who is reportedly held in high regard by U.S intelligence.”

Steele’s tales about Page were from Russian sources who had not been vetted. In other words, the items had not been checked out, which a thorough investigation would have required. “Steele has not been in Russia since his cover as a British spy was blown nearly 20 years ago,” according to Andy McCarthy of National Review. The FBI later cut its ties with Steele for leaking information to reporters. Nonetheless, Democrats treated him as Mr. Reliable.

Once it turned its focus on the FBI, the Nunes committee was a target for Democrats and the media. The Senate Intelligence Committee and other Republicans were less interested in the FBI wiretap. So until the Senate Judiciary Committee jumped in, Nunes was alone. And the Judiciary Committee’s conclusions were often ignored by the media when they were much like the House committee’s.

For instance, last winter when Nunes put out a memo that said the wiretap application had depended on the Steele dossier, he was pilloried. The Judiciary Committee agreed, but it got the cold shoulder. It was cost-free to attack Nunes. It was risky to clash with Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), both political big boys.

It takes strenuous effort for a dissenting idea—like clashing with the FBI—to get traction. With Grassley and Graham on the same side as Nunes, the task got easier—three leaders rather than one. Ideas fade without leaders. Graham has been especially valuable. He’s an engaging figure who’s taken seriously by reporters and never hides from the press.

August 04, 2018 9:54 AM  
Anonymous you can't handle the truth! said...

Nor can an idea emerge in a press blackout. That came close to happening. Next to Trump, Nunes is probably the most disliked Republican in Washington by the elite media and their hangers-on. While the mainstreamers echoed each other, there were five journalists who broke with the accepted narrative.

Without the many stories they broke, the idea that the FBI might have been involved in skulduggery could have vanished. Nunes would be a pariah. And congressional committees would be back to looking for Trump-Russia collusion, duplicating Robert Mueller’s efforts. For the FBI story, there’s no special prosecutor.

The five journalists are Byron York of the Washington Examiner, Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist, Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, and McCarthy of National Review.

McCarthy wonders what the reaction would be if a Republican administration had used a “suspect agent” and a court to spy on the candidate of the other party. “It would be covered as the greatest political scandal of the century,” he says.

I couldn’t have put it better.

August 04, 2018 9:54 AM  
Anonymous for the sake of decency said...

I was one of a group of black faith leaders from inner cities who attended a meeting with President Trump at the White House Wednesday to talk about the importance of the church in building community – especially in the area of prison reform and workforce development for former prisoners.

Unfortunately, the political and cultural climate in our country has plummeted to such a petty and disturbing place that I fully expected I might be attacked afterwards. Nevertheless, I accepted the invitation. I believe that the ability to help others who are marginalized, disenfranchised and voiceless is an important pursuit, and I remain committed to the cause of Christ beyond pettiness and politics.

Sadly, my fears were realized when I and some of the other leaders were attacked after this meeting – both in our churches, our local communities and from others nationally. Our statements, and even the opening prayer, came under intense scrutiny and our remarks were also taken out of context in order to generate click-bait headlines.

Much has been made about my thanking President Trump for “caring for all people.” Some individuals have misconstrued that statement to conclude I was giving a blanket endorsement of everything the president has done. That was not the intent of my statement.

The president expressed to us that he is concerned about the incredible challenges our prisoners and former prisoners face under the current system. He said his administration is currently working on prison reform legislation to help.

I thanked President Trump for this and for “caring for all people,” meaning I am encouraged and hopeful about his desire for prison reform, his wish to help the formerly incarcerated, and his determination to partner with the faith-based community on important issues affecting the community.

On other issues, I am on record as disagreeing with President Trump, including on aspects of his immigration policy. However, I would happily hop on a plane to Washington again if I were invited to sit down and talk through other issues that will help the disenfranchised, marginalized and voiceless, like I did on at our meeting this week.

But what is most disturbing about the reaction to Wednesday’s meeting is that it shows the vitriol and contempt that is present even when President Trump’s efforts are positive and will clearly help those who need it most (his First Step Act prison reform legislation has strong bipartisan support).

My prayer is that we no longer sacrifice the people who need help the most on the altar of our egos and political ideology. We don’t have to agree on all things – in fact we might only agree on a few things – but I still believe we can work together for the betterment of this country, its citizens and our communities.

As a Christian, my ultimate example is Jesus, and in the spirit of the popular bracelets from years ago I think we have to ask the question: “What would Jesus do?” This answer is simple. He would work to make a difference in the lives of people, regardless of who is in the White House. I pray that we do likewise

August 04, 2018 9:58 AM  
Anonymous a little trip down memory lane said...

On February 11, 2003, Mueller testified before Congress:

“Baghdad has failed to disarm its weapons of mass destruction, willfully attempting to evade and deceive the international community.”

August 04, 2018 4:47 PM  
Anonymous a little trip down memory lane said...

back when Trump became President, he had the slimy Chinese dictator to Mar-a-lago and buttered him up, calling him great and brilliant and a good man

the Chinese government-controlled media went wild, idolizing Trump

now, with Trump playing hardball to force the Chinese to stop stealing our technology and to stop unfair trade practices that have decimated American industry, the Chinese are going crazy trying to stop the decline of their economy and the collapse of their stock market

remember that next time you criticize how Trump's handling Putin and Kim Dumb Fat

he's playing them like he does everyone

August 04, 2018 5:34 PM  
Anonymous Who could have predicted this? said...

A summer heatwave in the Arctic circle has claimed a victim in Sweden’s highest point, a glacier on Kebnekaise mountain in the north of the country.

Melting fueled by the heat has caused the peak to lose 13 feet in height. Scientists say this means another peak on the same mountain – one made of rock, not ice – is now higher than the glacier’s tip.

Just a month ago, the glacier reached 6,893 feet above sea level. At the latest measurement on Tuesday, it was just 6,879 feet high – less than eight inches higher than the rocky peak. Scientists say that based on the melt-rate so far this summer, it is now no longer the highest point in the country.

“We know that it has melted because it is very hot,” Professor Gunhild Rosqvist, a climate scientist working near the mountain, told the New York Times. “We are going to measure again later this summer when the melting stops. In a month, we’ll know how bad it is.”

Northern Europe has been sweltering in a heatwave that scientists fear is a result of climate change. Banak in Norway, over 350 miles into the Arctic Circle, reached 90 degrees on Monday.

90 degrees -- 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Think about that for a while.

August 04, 2018 11:43 PM  
Anonymous Who could have predicted this? said...

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), announced early Wednesday that he is leaving the Republican Party, which he decried as “fully the party of Trump” and “a danger to our democracy and values.”

In early-morning tweets, Schmidt, a vocal Trump critic, urged voters to elect Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections and harshly criticized the administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S. border, describing the government-run detention centers as “internment camps for babies.”

“29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life,” Schmidt wrote. “Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump.”

After Trump’s contentious appearance at the Group of Seven summit in Canada this month, Schmidt condemned Republican Party leaders for not being more critical of the president. On Wednesday, Schmidt doubled down on that criticism, saying that with the exception of Republican governors Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Larry Hogan of Maryland and John Kasich of Ohio, the Republican Party is “filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party’s greatest leaders.”

“This child separation policy is connected to the worst abuses of humanity in our history,” Schmidt wrote. “It is connected by the same evil that separated families during slavery and dislocated tribes and broke up Native American families. It is immoral and must be repudiated. Our country is in trouble. Our politics are badly broken.”

“The first step to a season of renewal in our land is the absolute and utter repudiation of Trump and his vile enablers in the 2018 election by electing Democratic majorities,” Schmidt added.

Trump may be the best thing to happen to democrats since FDR! Can't wait 'til November!

August 04, 2018 11:50 PM  
Anonymous George F. Will, conservative columnist said...

Amid the carnage of Republican misrule in Washington, there is this glimmer of good news: The family-shredding policy along the southern border, the most telegenic recent example of misrule, clarified something. Occurring less than 140 days before elections that can reshape Congress, the policy has given independents and temperate Republicans — these are probably expanding and contracting cohorts, respectively — fresh if redundant evidence for the principle by which they should vote.

The principle: The congressional Republican caucuses must be substantially reduced. So substantially that their remnants, reduced to minorities, will be stripped of the Constitution’s Article I powers that they have been too invertebrate to use against the current wielder of Article II powers. They will then have leisure time to wonder why they worked so hard to achieve membership in a legislature whose unexercised muscles have atrophied because of people like them.

Consider the melancholy example of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), who wagered his dignity on the patently false proposition that it is possible to have sustained transactions with today’s president, this Vesuvius of mendacities, without being degraded. In Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for All Seasons,” Thomas More, having angered Henry VIII, is on trial for his life. When Richard Rich, whom More had once mentored, commits perjury against More in exchange for the office of attorney general for Wales, More says: “Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales!” Ryan traded his political soul for . . . a tax cut. He who formerly spoke truths about the accelerating crisis of the entitlement system lost everything in the service of a president pledged to preserve the unsustainable status quo.

Ryan and many other Republicans have become the president’s poodles, not because James Madison’s system has failed but because today’s abject careerists have failed to be worthy of it. As explained in Federalist 51: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Congressional Republicans (congressional Democrats are equally supine toward Democratic presidents) have no higher ambition than to placate this president. By leaving dormant the powers inherent in their institution, they vitiate the Constitution’s vital principle: the separation of powers.

August 04, 2018 11:57 PM  
Anonymous George F. Will, conservative columnist said...

Recently Sen. Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is retiring , became an exception that illuminates the depressing rule. He proposed a measure by which Congress could retrieve a small portion of the policymaking power that it has, over many decades and under both parties, improvidently delegated to presidents. Congress has done this out of sloth and timidity — to duck hard work and risky choices. Corker’s measure would have required Congress to vote to approve any trade restrictions imposed in the name of “national security.” All Senate Republicans worthy of the conservative label that all Senate Republicans flaunt would privately admit that this is conducive to sound governance and true to the Constitution’s structure. But the Senate would not vote on it — would not allow it to become just the second amendment voted on this year .

This is because the amendment would have peeved the easily peeved president. The Republican-controlled Congress, which waited for Trump to undo by unilateral decree the border folly they could have prevented by actually legislating, is an advertisement for the unimportance of Republican control.

The Trump whisperer regarding immigration is Stephen Miller, 32, whose ascent to eminence began when he became the Savonarola of Santa Monica High School . Corey Lewandowski, a Trump campaign official who fell from the king’s grace but is crawling back (he works for Vice President Pence’s political action committee), recently responded on Fox News to the story of a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome taken from her parents at the border. Lewandowski replied: “Wah, wah.” Meaningless noise is this administration’s appropriate libretto because, just as a magnet attracts iron filings, Trump attracts, and is attracted to, louts.

In today’s GOP, which is the president’s plaything, he is the mainstream. So, to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him. A Democratic-controlled Congress would be a basket of deplorables, but there would be enough Republicans to gum up the Senate’s machinery, keeping the institution as peripheral as it has been under their control and asphyxiating mischief from a Democratic House. And to those who say, “But the judges, the judges!” the answer is: Article III institutions are not more important than those of Articles I and II combined.

August 05, 2018 12:00 AM  
Anonymous JENNIFER RUBIN said...

"It should be self-evident why I, and I think any reasonable person, can no longer identify with the Republican party. That parade of lies and racism tells you that the Republican Party has now been reduced to a single issue, which is race and xenophobia. I think it just shows the face of the Republican Party to the American people. And I think it has gotten to the point where, if you are supporting these people, and you are enabling them, then you have to take ownership of their racism."

August 05, 2018 12:06 AM  
Anonymous Susan Bevan and Susan Cullman said...

When the obituary for the Republican Party is written, the year 1980 will be cited as the beginning of the end. Reaganism was in full flower, but the big tent was already folding. Republican leaders endorsed a constitutional ban on abortion at the convention that summer, ending the party’s historic commitment to women’s rights and personal freedom.

“We are about to bury the rights of over 100 million American women under a heap of platitudes,” protested Mary Dent Crisp, the co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Her colleagues assured her that the platform was nonbinding and that reproductive health services were not in danger.

But she was prescient. As pro-choice Republicans, we refuse to support a party that has rightly earned the labels anti-woman and anti-common sense. Our organization, the Republican Majority for Choice, the organization founded by Ms. Crisp in 1988, is shutting its doors. The big tent has collapsed for good.

As Republicans, we spent four decades working inside the party to produce effective policies helping women and families. Despite growing malice from an anti-choice faction, we kept our disagreements within the family. We redoubled our efforts to find common ground, rather than simply walk away.

At its peak in the 1990s, our group had an annual budget of as much as $1 million and a political action committee that gave away about $200,000 per year. Close to 20 state chapters provided support to candidates and lobbied state legislatures. The committee supported Republicans who believed freedom from government intervention extended to a person’s bedroom and doctor’s office: senators like Alan Simpson of Wyoming, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine; House members like Connie Morella of Maryland, Mike Castle of Delaware, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania; and governors including William Weld of Massachusetts, Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and George Pataki of New York. In Congress and the courts we pushed for teen pregnancy prevention, stem cell research, emergency contraception and clinic access.

But these successes were dismissed by party leaders who became increasingly beholden to the social extremists who were winning primaries in our broken, gerrymandered electoral system.

Our argument was simple: True fiscal conservatives should embrace family planning because it reduces poverty, increases educational attainment and work force competitiveness, improves health and provides people the opportunity to make educated moral choices. We incorrectly assumed that our fellow fiscal conservatives would join us in applauding the reduction in the number of unintended pregnancies, which saved taxpayers billions of dollars spent on the welfare state.

Instead, the policies and programs that led to these outcomes came under constant fire. The far right was more interested in conflating abortion and birth control for political purposes. It is fiscally disingenuous to deny birth control coverage and then bemoan unintended pregnancies and abortion.

August 05, 2018 12:18 AM  
Anonymous Susan Bevan and Susan Cullman said...

Lifelong Republicans were booed out of state and local committee meetings for just raising abortion rights and family planning ideas. The nastiness escalated to personal attacks on men and women who had dedicated countless hours and dollars to the party.

We don’t have the space to outline President Trump’s transgressions, but it is important to understand that his rise is an inevitable result of the hostility to women within the Republican culture. Women’s reproductive freedom has shifted with the wind: Remember that Ronald Reagan once supported abortion rights, as did George H. W. Bush, Mitt Romney and Mr. Trump himself.

We can no longer support a Republican Party that is shutting down low-cost health care clinics offering cancer screenings, basic health services and much-needed family planning services. It has become a party that wants to punish pregnant women by limiting their economic choices, that wants to reduce access to sex education programs that prevent unintended pregnancy and disease.

It is no wonder that women are voting with their feet. According to a recent analysis by the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of women identify as or lean toward Democrats. The gap is even wider among college graduates and minority voters. The party should take note that 70 percent of millennial women have either registered as Democrats or lean Democratic. We will no longer be available to help the Republicans appeal to these changing demographic realities.

For years we have debated whether to close our doors. Our founding principle had been that proponents of abortion rights should be comfortable in both major parties. But we have to face reality: There probably will not be a single pro-choice Republican member of the House after the fall election, and only two in the Senate — Ms. Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

It has become taboo within the party to even say “pro-choice.” Most of our supporters gave up on the party as it moved to the extremes not just on abortion but also on other social and fiscal issues.

This Republican Party is no family of ours. And so we say goodbye.

August 05, 2018 12:20 AM  
Anonymous ready, steady.....GO!! said...

"Think about that for a while."

OK, I thought about it

now what?

just think, if Dems had not nominated a corrupt and incompetent Hillary Clinton for President, that glacier would not be just like everything under Frosty's hat

think about that for a while

just think what Bernie Sanders could have done if Hillary hadn't colluded with the DNC to fix the primary election

he could have:

-invaded China and forced them to stop polluting

-built hundreds of carbon-free nuclear plants across America

-funded the Peace Corps with hundreds of billions to plant trees around the world

-start a program to blow deserted islands to smithereens, kicking up dust to block the sun

-fully fund efforts to terraform Mars, just in case we need to find another planet

well, 2020 is just around the corner

ready, steady....GO!!

August 05, 2018 9:26 AM  
Anonymous Bring out the Borscht! said...

Just think what Republicans could have done if they had picked someone... oh, perhaps competent, or even literate in their primary.

You keep trying to blame Hillary and Democrats for Trump "winning," but everyone knows that's not how elections work. Democrats simply aren't responsible for keeping Republicans and the rest of the country from doing totally stupid stuff.

The fault for this lies with Republican voters and the Russians.

Time to own up to it comrade.

August 05, 2018 2:22 PM  
Anonymous toes, water, ass, sand, no worries, cold beer, life goOOod said...

"Just think what Republicans could have done if they had picked someone... oh, perhaps competent, or even literate in their primary."

could have done?

Trump has cut taxes, reduced regulations, nominated originalist judges, cancelled the Iran deal, spurred an enormous uptick in growth and employment

pretty much what any Republican would have

he's also done things all candidates, of both parties promised- move the embassy to Jerusalem, demand Europeans increase their efforts to counter Russian aggression, hold China accountable for unfair trade practices, arm the Ukrainians, punish Assad for using chemical weapons

"You keep trying to blame Hillary and Democrats for Trump "winning,""

Trump WON the election held, which was held state by state

if the rules had been changed to a national popular vote, he'd likely have won that too

we'll never know

"but everyone knows that's not how elections work."

what isn't?

polls show Hillary was completely unacceptable to large swaths of the population

she had no political skills

those types don't win elections

that's how elections work

"Democrats simply aren't responsible for keeping Republicans and the rest of the country from doing totally stupid stuff."

America should have two reasonable choices available

Hillary wasn't a reasonable choice

"The fault for this lies with Republican voters and the Russians.

Time to own up to it comrade."

not only is there no evidence that Russia's usual behavior during elections affected this one, there's no circumstantial evidence that Trump has helped the Russians in any way

he's been a thorn in their side

let me know if you need examples

August 05, 2018 5:13 PM  
Anonymous Bring out the Borscht! said...

Job growth has slowed under the Rumpster:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/job-growth-slows-under-trump.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/12/14/comparing-the-trump-economy-to-the-obama-economy/?utm_term=.8626a9356f20

Obama put 11.6 million people back to work after the worst global recession since WWII, and it looks like 45 will be luck to hit 4 million after his first two years with an economy that had finally recovered, thanks to Obama.

Here's some other Obama accomplishments:

Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 4.0 percent after inflation. The gain was 3.7 percent for just production and non-supervisory employees.

After-tax corporate profits also set records, as did stock prices. The S&P 500 index rose 166 percent.

The number of people lacking health insurance dropped by 15 million. Premiums rose, but more slowly than before.

Illegal immigration declined: The Border Patrol caught 35 percent fewer people trying to get into the U.S. from Mexico.

Wind and solar power increased 369 percent. Coal production declined 38 percent. Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel dropped 11 percent.
Production of handguns rose 192 percent, to a record level.

The murder rate dropped to the lowest on record in 2014, then rose and finished at about the same rate as when Obama took office.

"Trump has cut taxes, reduced regulations, nominated originalist judges, cancelled the Iran deal, spurred an enormous uptick in growth and employment"

Trump cancelled a deal that our allies did a good job of slowing down Iran's race to nuclear weapons and replaced with... NOTHING.

Any 2 year old can tear up an agreement. That is not something that requires what we call "skill."

Unemployment hit 9.6% at the worst of the great recession, and Obama got it down to 4.8% by the time he left office - a 50% reduction.

The July unemployment rate was 3.9%; an 18.75% reduction since the Bankruptcy King took office, and he was dealing with a world economy that was steaming forward again.

PeeWee Herman probably could have a better job.

Trump wasn't a reasonable choice either, but keep ignoring the obvious.

Part of what made the Russian ads so convincing is that they looked just like all the propaganda the Republican party has been putting out for the past few decades. There was really no way for the average voter to know where those ads were coming from unless they knew how to track down IP addresses. The KGB knows just how Republicans think and the best ways to manipulate them.

I don't blame the Russians for not wanting Hillary in office. There were a number of dictatorial regimes that fell to public pressure while she ran the state department, and that's just not the type of thing Putin wants happening all around his country - the Russians just might have some ideas of their own!

Putin doesn't have to worry about that now though, everyone saw how Hair Hitler likes to bully everyone (including our long-term allies!) except for the guy who butters his toast.

Putin got just what he wanted. He and Trump made Hillary and the press the enemy, and those who love to hate followed their every move.

Congratulations on being a right-wing pawn.

August 05, 2018 6:18 PM  
Anonymous toes on the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, cold beer in my hand, life is good said...

"Part of what made the Russian ads so convincing"

who says they were "convincing"?

I don't think I've heard an expert or study that says they were

"is that they looked just like all the propaganda the Republican party has been putting out for the past few decades."

in that case, weren't they irrelevant?

I mean, since all the "propaganda" was already out there?

why would Republicans need Russians to run a handful of ads?

the GOP had plenty of funds

the whole Dem narrative makes no sense to any honest person

"There was really no way for the average voter to know where those ads were coming from unless they knew how to track down IP addresses."

so what?

what difference does that make?

no one knows where your comment comes from either

we don't need to know that

your ignorance is obvious, regardless of sourve

better than Republican political analysts and advisors?

this whole fantasy Dems have created is a gargantuan non sequitur

in typical cult-like groupthink, you can't even have a rational discussion

any inconsistency in their scenario that is pointed out leads the Dems to plug their ears and rant "borscht" "comrade"

historian will look back and laugh at the mass hysteria

August 05, 2018 7:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Conservatives' religious liberty con

The battle over religious liberty — fought, in recent years, over issues like contraception mandates and gay wedding cakes — is about to reach a fever pitch.

Too bad it's based on such a big con job.

Let's start with the flashpoint: President Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. While the tug-and-pull between secularism and religiosity in American society is an ever-present theme in the Court's jurisprudence — and, indeed, the culture wars could barely exist without it — the topic seems likely to be particularly salient during the confirmation debate.
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Already, conservatives and liberals are laying down their markers. National Review called Kavanaugh a "warrior" for religious liberty — although some conservatives worry he's not committed enough — while Vox warned that on religious liberty, like other topics, he will "will move the Court sharply to the right."

What does that mean?

The term "religious liberties" sounds anodyne enough: The First Amendment guarantees that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of faith. And conservatives frame the recent debates with a libertarian gloss: Government shouldn't make religious folks violate their faith-informed consciences to provide contraception to employees or make wedding cakes for gay couples. On the surface the message is: "Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone." What could be more American?

But that message isn't honest.

Unless you're a Christian — and let's be honest, unless you're a conservative Christian — conservative advocacy of religious liberties is a big con, a consolidation of rights and privileges not meant to be shared with Muslims, atheists, or other religious minorities.

August 05, 2018 7:24 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

You don't have to reach far for examples.

Just last week, the House Appropriations Committee passed an amendment that would let faith-based adoption agencies — such as Catholic Charities — refuse to serve gay couples, based on the religious beliefs of those agencies. That follows the passage of similar laws in states like Kansas and Oklahoma earlier this year. And yes: Those laws were characterized as "religious liberty" bills.

Understand: Those agencies aren't just doing charitable work — they're providing state services, paid for by state and federal dollars. Which means that religious liberty isn't just a right to be left alone: Republicans also view it as a right to receive tax-subsidized government contracts, and to discriminate against a portion of the public. That's an unusual interpretation, to say the least.

Can you imagine Republicans voting to let Muslims use tax dollars to discriminate against would-be Christian adoptive parents? It would never happen.

Around the same time the House committee voted, news emerged that Sam Brownback — the former Kansas governor serving as President Trump's "ambassador for international religious freedom" — had pressed the U.K. government to release Tommy Robinson from imprisonment. It's not immediately clear what religious freedom has to do with the case of Robinson, who was jailed for disrupting a trial, unless you consider this: Robinson was a founder of the English Defense League — an anti-Islam group — and has won American fans in recent years for his campaigns against Islamic extremism.

In this case, it sure looks like Brownback was advocating for the right to discriminate against Islam. Which is arguably part of religious freedom, except for this: Can you imagine him — or any Trumpist representative — being similarly protective of a Muslim's right to discriminate against Christians? (Before you answer, remember that as governor, Brownback led the campaign for a law banning Kansas courts from using Islamic law in their jurisprudence — saving the state from a problem that never existed.)

August 05, 2018 7:25 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Again: It would never happen.

These are just examples from the last week, but the double-standard has been around forever. Many of the same people who want to defend Christian bakers from serving gay couples with wedding cakes were outraged, a decade ago, when Minnesota cab drivers, citing their own religious requirements, asked to refuse service to customers traveling with alcohol.

Conservatives were unimpressed with that argument then, labeling it a sign of the "Islamist threat" to American liberties. Some commentators even expressed concern that cab drivers might refuse service to … gay couples.

Times change, huh?

It's with Muslims, particularly after 9/11, that GOP hypocrisy on religious liberties becomes most manifest. For nearly two decades, it's been Republicans who have proposed burqa bans, fought the construction of mosques, and passed the aforementioned bans on Islamic law. The intended effect, clearly, is to limit the ability of Muslims — both individually and collectively — from expressing and developing their faith. Some conservatives are open about their discrimination: Islam, they say, isn't a religion but a political movement acting under the guise of faith. That's both tremendously lacking in self-awareness and astonishingly bigoted.

Meanwhile, American Christians can barely abide the Constitution's restrictions on their ability to impose their faith on the community at large. It's been more than 50 years since the Supreme Court struck down compulsory school prayer, yet efforts to reimpose it pop up in legislatures all the time — almost always using the language of oppression and liberty. "I believe there's discrimination involved, yes I do, against individuals who would like to express some value to their faith," one Florida state senator said in 2014.

Unfortunately, the debates over religious liberties will probably be with us awhile yet. Evangelical support for Trump can be largely traced back to this issue, along with abortion: The president is not personally pious, but he knows his authority depends in part on reassuring conservative Christian groups they still have influence over the direction of American life.

The Trumpist attitude, then, appears to be: “Religious liberties for us, not for them.” That means their argument isn't really about freedom. Like so much else in this presidency, it's a con designed to return power to the people who have always held it — and still think they are entitled to it.

August 05, 2018 7:26 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

About the ‘Collusion is Not a Crime’ Excuse

Trump didn’t do anything. He didn’t even know about it. Okay, he knew about it, but he didn’t do it. Okay, so he did it, but you can’t prove that. And if he did it, it’s not a crime anyway, so this is all a witch hunt hoax. That’s the latest line being trotted out by Trump’s lawyers, who are obsessively focused on the word “collusion.” It’s all nonsense.

President Trump’s defender-in-chief, Rudolph W. Giuliani, departed from his client’s usual mantra of “no collusion” on Monday by arguing that even if the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, that is not a crime. On Tuesday, Trump repeated on Twitter that “collusion is not a crime.” While he and Giuliani are technically correct, that’s only because collusion is a rubric that in fact encompasses many crimes. As criminal law experts with a collective century of experience prosecuting and defending criminal charges, we believe the sudden pivot to this baseless legal defense signals concern among Trump and his attorneys about emerging evidence that will show collusion.

That term has come to be shorthand for the possibility that the Trump campaign, its advisers or the president himself coordinated with Russia, a hostile foreign power, to help Trump win the election. The argument that such coordination would be lawful is striking, including the fact that it follows 191 charges against 35 individuals and companies brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, which have yielded five guilty pleas. Taken together, that work spells out the many crimes Russia committed to attempt to affect the outcome of the 2016 election.

The term “collusion” is totally irrelevant. No, that word does not appear in the law. You know where else it doesn’t appear? In the authorization for the Mueller investigation. That authorization allows him to look for “links and cooperation” between the Trump campaign and the Russian effort to manipulate our elections. Even more importantly, it allows him to look into any possible crime that arises out of that investigation, which is a very broad mandate that basically means they can prosecute anything they come across in the course of the investigation that is illegal, regardless of whether it relates directly to Russia or not.

And they’re absolutely right that Trump and those around him are in a panic, which is why they’re ratcheting up the pressure on Mueller, Rosenstein and Sessions, and why Trump is just freaking out about it all on Twitter. He knows he has all kinds of skeletons in his closet that could land him in legal trouble and he knows that Mueller can basically look into any of it. And the only thing he understands is attack, attack, attack. That’s always worked for him, but he’s playing a whole different game now. Mueller isn’t going to be intimidated or charmed, he’s just going to do his job until it’s done. And that’s what has Trump so terrified.

August 05, 2018 7:26 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

A vote for Republicans is a vote for Putin and christian Sharia law.

August 05, 2018 7:27 PM  
Anonymous ridin' along, singing the same old cowboy song said...

"A vote for Republicans is a vote for Putin and christian Sharia law"

much like Putin, Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll (PTDFT) has no vote

so posting lies on American blogs is the only hope that Putin or Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll has to influence the selection of the holder of the most powerful office in the world (don't believe me? ask the Chinese)

btw, if anyone has read scripture, they would know there is no such thing as Christian "law"

August 05, 2018 8:39 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous have no reason for living other than trolling people who believe in fairness and equality.

August 05, 2018 8:45 PM  
Anonymous i can see clearly now said...

Putin and Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll

they have a lot in common, as anyone can clearly see

August 05, 2018 8:51 PM  
Anonymous tony the tigger said...

there's a reason that Putin and Priya the Drooling Foreign Troll choose to troll American websites

America is the only country that matters!

and it's grrrrrrrrreat again!!!!!

August 05, 2018 8:54 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Donald Trump, champion and avatar of the shallow state, has won power because his supporters are threatened by what they don't understand, and what they don't understand is almost everything. Indeed from evolution to data about our economy to science of faccines to the threats we face in the world, they reject vast subjects rooted in fact in order to have reality conform to their worldviews. They don't dig for truth; they skim the media for anything that makes them feel better about themselves. To many of them, knowledge is not a useful tool but a cunning barrier elites have created to keep power from the average man and woman.
-----------------------
The Trump tower meeting where Trump campaign staff met with Russian government representatives who stole information to help Trump get elected was so innocent Trump and his people lied about it repeatedly during the campaign and again during the transition and then when they were caugt lied about then lied about who dictated the lie.

All just a big nothing burger.

August 05, 2018 8:56 PM  
Anonymous The facts are out there said...

"who says they were "convincing"?

I don't think I've heard an expert or study that says they were"

It doesn't take an expert Sherlock.

Republican propaganda was good enough to send a guy with a rifle to shoot up a pizza parlor because he really thought Hillary was running some kind of child sex ring there, when there was no actual evidence of this at all.

Republicans really believed Hussein had an active WMD program when Bush said it justified his invasion, even though experts who had been searching all over that country said he didn't have them. Bush's "evidence" came from some college student's theoretical paper.

Republicans believe so many conspiracy theories that Alex Jones has a full time job just making new one up.

You believe that a vast cabal of liberal scientists from all over the planet have made up a giant global warming hoax, for no solid rational reason or motive you can explain, and no actual evidence to support the conspiracy theory.

Then of course there were the theories that Obama was born in Kenya, and that if you kept investing Benghazi over and over again, you'd find something you could hang someone for - preferably Hillary. And yet there wasn't a single indictment to come out of that. The only thing the Benghazi hearings did was damage Hillary's reputation, but that was just what Republicans had designed it to do. The fact that they couldn't find any crimes was just an unfortunate circumstance they wouldn't allow to get in the way of their character assassination.

How many people has Mueller indicted so far? How many have pleaded guilty? And you still call it a witch hunt. No. Benghazi was the real witch hunt.

You guys will believe anything if you think it will provide means to your ends.

Even Republicans don't like Trump and many are leaving the party - disgusted by what he and others have turned it into over the years.

Trump's performance in Helsinki was so bad even Republicans were left shaking their heads. If Trump had kissed Putin's @$$ any more, it would have been the world's first X-rated press conference.

And yet, Trump still has a hard core cult of followers that follow the group-think, no matter how many facts get in the way.

When historians look back on this time they will wonder why we didn't do more to stop him.

August 05, 2018 9:08 PM  
Anonymous Hmmmm said...

Anyone appreciate the delicious irony of loading Nazis into their own special trains, and then directing them to . . . who knows where?

August 05, 2018 9:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Forty times President Donald Trump has posted statements on Twitter asserting “NO COLLUSION” with Russia during the 2016 election. He made the claim standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last month, and then a day later during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

Sunday, he negated all of that by admitting that his campaign had tried to collude with Russia to win the presidency, after all.

Trump wrote in an 8:35 a.m. post on Twitter that the purpose of a June 9, 2016, gathering at Trump Tower was “to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics ― and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”

That new admission, however, is completely at odds with the statement Trump crafted for use in the July 2017 news story that first reported the Trump Tower meeting. In that statement, he falsely claimed that the session attended by his eldest son and other high-ranking campaign aides was “primarily” about the adoption of Russian children.

“Donald Trump is every attorney’s worst nightmare,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican political consultant and prominent Trump critic. “He combines a complete lack of personal discipline with an impulse to place himself at ever greater risk of prosecution. He’s the ‘Bad Idea Jeans’ of presidents.”

Just a half hour after Trump’s new tweet, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow admitted that he had put out falsehoods last year when he also claimed that the meeting was about adoption.

August 05, 2018 9:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It doesn't take an expert Sherlock."

you're right

it doesn't

it's obvious the Russian internet propaganda was ineffective

August 05, 2018 9:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Sunday, he negated all of that by admitting that his campaign had tried to collude with Russia to win the presidency, after all."

receiving information is not collusion, you fool

his tweet did not expand what was formerly know about the meeting

it was set up by some Russians, not Russian officials, to offer the Trump campaign information about Hillary's connection to the Russians

when they got there, the Trump guys found themselves being lobbied about Russian adoption

that doesn't constitute anything illegal, immoral or fattening - and was not collusion, at least not using dictionaries in the English language

August 05, 2018 9:40 PM  

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