Saturday, April 27, 2019

Sumpn Sumpn the Rule of Law

It is too complicated for me to figure out everybody's motives in Trump's government. People are trying to keep their jobs, keep Trump from doing nutty stuff, they are responding to the atmosphere around them, to bribery and financial opportunities. So for instance, it is impossible to understand what Rod Rosenstein is doing. He gave a talk to an Armenian group recently where he spoke in Armenian and said how much he loves Armenians, and all the Armenian friends he has... okay, maybe that's what you do.

But he tossed in a comment (in English) that stood out. He said: As President Trump pointed out, “we govern ourselves in accordance with the rule of law rather [than] … the whims of an elite few or the dictates of collective will.”

So, look, what is the chance that President Trump would ever have said such a thing? It might have appeared in a press release or some mission statement on a web site, but can you imagine for a minute that Donald Trump opened his mouth and uttered those words? (I see, it was from a "proclamation" on Law Day, a year ago. I doubt the President even read it.)

It is not complicated to figure out Trump's motives, which are to make money and aggrandize himself relative to others. The "rule of law" is really no part of it. Not a concept he is familiar with.

Now he is refusing to cooperate with any subpoenas. A court or legislative body may request the appearance of a witness, in which case the witness has a choice and may decline the invitation. Or they can subpoena the witness, which gives them the choice of complying or paying a penalty, often jail time -- commonly IRL noncompliant individuals are imprisoned until their time to testify.

Trump has declared that he will "fight all the subpoenas." And as investigations pile up, there could be a bunch of them.

I'm losing track. Trump is suing House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) to block a subpoena requesting financial records from his accountant. John Gore, the principal deputy attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, refused a subpoena to appear for a deposition before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that was scheduled for Thursday, and the administration had convinced Carl Kline, the former director of White House personnel security, not to testify about granting security clearances, but they announced late Friday that they will allow Kline to record an interview for the House Oversight Committee. Meanwhile some Democrats are threatening fines or jail time if Trump officials refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas.

By the time I post this there will be more.

Congress is assigned the responsibility under the Constitution to provide oversight of the executive branch, and the executive branch is required to cooperate. That's how the separation of powers work, that is one way the Founders arranged to prevent tyranny. It is hard to take over the government when two other branches of it can checkmate you at any move.

According to news reports, the Trump administration will lose these challenges in court, but they hope to drag it out until after the 2020 elections, so Americans will not know for sure if they are voting for a bunch of criminals. Well, they'll know, they just won't have the documentation in front of them.

And of course, if the House decides to initiate impeachment proceedings, the foot-dragging becomes irrelevant. It is distinctly possible that Trump & Co. are going to bring that on themselves, if that's what it takes to get witnesses to testify.

And Rosenstein quotes Trump saying we need to govern ourselves in accordance with the rule of law. Hoo boy.

Here's a reminder of what "scandal" used to mean.

217 Comments:

Blogger Priya Lynn said...

In the previous thread Wyatt/Regina tried to label Rosenstein a "liberal saint". I pointed out that his actions have been a mixed bag of morality at best, on one hand tearfully assuring the Trump administration he is on the Trump team to avoid getting fired in the days after Trump fired Comey, telling Trump "I can land the plane" about the Mueller investigation.

"Land the plane"? What does that mean in terms of Rosenstein handling the Mueller investigation? That he's going to give Trump the outcome he wants?

Then later Rosenstein does stand up to Trump and protect the Mueller investigation. And then when Barr in a bizarre breach with FBI normal procedures holds a press conference before releasing the highly redacted (but still damning) Mueller Report where Barr grotesquely misrepresents the Mueller Report and Rosenstein sits there stoney faced behind Barr and letting all Barr's lies go unchallenged.

So, you never know what you're going to get with Rosenstein.

April 27, 2019 6:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The House should cut off funding for any office inside any government agency that refuses to cooperate with their subpoenas.

April 28, 2019 7:42 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"The House should cut off funding for any office inside any government agency that refuses to cooperate with their subpoenas."

I wish they'd get on it already. There's no point in waiting, Trump and his lackeys have made it abundantly clear Trump won't a allow Congress to carry out its consituttionally mandated duty to oversight of the president.

April 28, 2019 12:31 PM  
Anonymous Today, in "Quotes that don't age well" said...

Back in the day, when Bill Clinton was in office, senator Lindsay Graham once argued that impeaching a president and removing him from office didn’t require a criminal conviction. As pressure mounts against President Donald Trump, those words are being resurrected by those calling for Republican lawmakers to consider proceedings against him.

In archival video, Graham, then a House of Representatives member, argued that a president can be removed “if this body [Congress] determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role . . . because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”

April 28, 2019 1:00 PM  
Anonymous Rep. Tom Malinowski D-NJ said...

The Mueller Report is not just a story about what happened in 2016. It’s a warning about what could happen again, and thus a call to action to protect our democracy. The report tells us Trump wasn’t working for Russia (thankfully), but also that he wasn’t, and isn’t, working for America. He’s interested only in protecting himself, as DHS Secretary Nielsen found out when she urged action to secure the 2020 election.

This means it’s up to Congress to act. Here are some ideas.

First, we need to provide funding to secure the machinery of our elections. New Jersey, for example, is struggling to upgrade machines that leave no paper record of votes, and to harden our systems against hacking. We need more federal help.

Second, it’s illegal for political candidates to share things like polling data and campaign strategy with independent political action groups (IEs) in the US. Yet apparently it’s perfectly legal to share that info with Russian spies to help them target our voters. The rules that prohibit coordination between political candidates and IEs should also apply to coordination with a foreign government or agent of a foreign government. At the very least!

Third, political candidates should have an affirmative legal duty to report to law enforcement any offer of help coming from a foreign government or that might be illegal, like offers of hacked emails. Just as banks are required to report suspicious transactions.

Finally, Mueller concluded that “Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.” I read that not just as an invitation to hold Trump accountable, but to legislate.

We should consider how to define more clearly that actions by presidents to influence or shut down investigations in which they have a personal interest — as Trump repeatedly and blatantly tried to do — are illegal and prosecutable.

April 28, 2019 3:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Qasim Rashid"

"Fox News invites a Jewish guest who attends Pittsburgh Tree of Live Synagogue and asks him why there's a spike in anti-Semitism.

He responds by condemning Trump's anti-Semitism.

Fox immediately cuts to commercial

This is what State TV looks like."

April 28, 2019 9:54 PM  
Anonymous I reeeeeally like our current Supreme Court said...

You'd think no one would enjoy getting ­impeached.

On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine any potential target of impeachment in Anglo-American history relishing the fight more than Trump would. There is no one better suited to being at the center of a harshly partisan, deeply personal political and legal donnybrook that will ultimately be just for show.

Trump famously told top aides at the beginning of his administration that he wanted them to view each day as a TV episode. ­Impeachment would be a helluva season, matching a momentous process of American government with political melodrama.

This may feel like a devolution from the buttoned-up Mueller probe, but the House should have been the locus of the Trump ­investigation in the first place.

Because Justice Department policy says a president can’t be ­indicted, special counsel Robert Mueller was never going to reach a legal conclusion about alleged obstruction. The question was whether the president’s conduct constituted an abuse of power that Congress would deem impeachable; in other words, it was a political question.

Congress, then, was always the most appropriate venue for the investigation and disposition of this matter, not the office of the special counsel.

But our habit of transmuting broad political questions into narrow legal ones and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s panicked appointment of Mueller — after the firing of FBI Director James Comey that he participated in — ensconced the probe within the Department of Justice.

Instead of being out in the open, it was behind closed doors. ­Instead of being nakedly political, it was clothed in thick legal analysis. ­Instead of being a struggle ­between the branches, it was a struggle within the executive branch.

Trump was deeply conflicted. He hated the investigation and came up with schemes to crimp it, all of which came to nothing. At the same time, the White House cooperated with Mueller. It was a twilight struggle between the president and the special counsel, with Trump not able to fully fight what was, in effect, an impeachment inquiry because any wrong move would be interpreted as yet another alleged act of obstruction.

Now, the battle is truly joined. The body that is going to make the ultimate decision of what to do about Trump’s conduct, if anything, is on the hook. It has to decide what goes too far and not far enough. Should it subpoena Trump’s children? How much time should it devote to investigations as opposed to its policy agenda? And, of course, should it impeach?

For his part, Trump is liberated to fight like a once-caged animal, now freed, asserting executive prerogatives vis-a-vis the legislature and engaging in flat-out partisan combat.

Trump would prefer a world in which he is universally praised, but short of that, this is his element. Despite all the media coverage over the past two years saying he is on the verge of some sort of breakdown, he has handled every controversy or fight — no matter how personal or treacherous — with the same straight-ahead aggression.

Trump is almost certainly better prepared and temperamentally suited for thermonuclear war with a Democratic House than he was to get substantive achievements out of a Republican House. He obviously hadn’t thought through an actionable populist-conservative policy synthesis, but he has a lifetime’s experience ­resisting and belittling ­enemies and extemporizing his way from one crisis to the next.

It may be impossible for him to stop impeachment, certainly not if Nancy Pelosi supports it. But he will be the focus of a historic drama that will be remembered and analyzed for a very long time.

He will have succeeded in making the Democratic House majority all about him, and if not getting convicted by the Senate counts as a victory, winning in the end.

The post-trial tweet-storm will be something to behold.

April 29, 2019 11:01 AM  
Anonymous Joe Biden....LOL said...

Former vice president Joe Biden repeatedly said on The View that he believed Anita Hill's\ tale of sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas. But he previously told Sen. Arlen Specter that it was clear her testimony before the Senate included lies.

“I believed her from the beginning.” Biden told “The View’s” Joy Behar.

But in 1998, Biden admitted to Specter that “It was clear to me from the way she was answering the questions, she was lying.”

The issue is important, as the media and other partisans rewrite the historical record about Hill and her accusations. The widely watched hearings revealed inaccuracies in Hill’s various versions of events and ended with 58 percent of Americans believing Thomas and only 24 percent believing Hill. There was no gap between the sexes in the results. In the intervening years, activists have relentlessly attempted to change the narrative, writing fan fiction about Hill, bestowing honors on her, and asserting that her disputed allegations were credible.

On “The View,” Biden claimed, “If you go back and look at what I said and didn’t say, I don’t think I treated her badly.”

Prominent media partisans attacked Specter for asking tough questions of Hill. Or really, just for asking simple questions she struggled to answer. He began by noting that many people had reported Hill had praised Thomas and his nomination to the Supreme Court. These included a former colleague at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where both Hill and Thomas had worked years prior. Another person corroborated the colleague’s claim.

Hill disputed their claims. She also disputed the former dean of her law school, who said she had praised Thomas as a “fine man and an excellent legal scholar.” Then she claimed she didn’t know a woman named Phyllis Barry, who had told The New York Times that Hill’s allegations “were the result of Ms. Hill’s disappointment and frustration that Mr. Thomas did not show any sexual interest in her.”

Under questioning from Specter, in which he mentioned that two colleagues had provided statements attesting that she knew Barry, Hill was forced to concede that she knew her and had worked with her at the EEOC.

Specter then asked about the major contradictions between her testimony to the Senate and her interviews with the FBI. Her testimony with the Senate was much more colorful and descriptive even though it took place just days after her FBI interviews.

Finally he asked Hill about a USA Today article that claimed, “Anita Hill was told by Senate staffers her signed affidavit alleging sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas would be the instrument that ‘quietly and behind the scenes’ would force him to withdraw his name.”

Specter asked her if this was true, attempting to find out what Senate Democrats had arranged with Hill. Nine times she denied the claim, demurred, or otherwise attempted to get away from the question. She said she could vividly remember events related to Thomas from many years prior, but couldn’t quite remember this conversation from weeks prior. Specter described the scene in the book, and even interviewed Biden about it:

After this exchange Biden recessed the committee. Biden told Specter, ‘It was clear to me from the way she was answering the questions, she was lying.’

Biden, as the committee’s chairman and top Democrat, would have carried great sway if he had suggested publicly that Hill was lying when she repeatedly answered questions about Thomas’s potential withdrawal by saying she didn’t remember.

Now that he’s running for president again, Biden may be trying to avoid the reality of Hill’s weak testimony or his role in encouraging her to answer the question forthrightly. But in 1991, when Hill came back from lunch, her story had changed

April 29, 2019 1:43 PM  
Anonymous Racists come to Politics and Prose said...

When after the 2017 Charlottesville attacks by white nationalists who chanted "Jews will not replace us," the sitting president knew to keep them in his camp by claiming there were “very fine people on both sides.” Responding to Joe Biden's presidential launch addressing that the incident, Donald Trump has not backed away from his statement. He now claims "very fine people" referred to those opposed to the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Within 24 hours, a gunman entered a synagogue Saturday in Poway, California and opened fire, killing one person and injuring three others. In response, Trump denounced anti-Semitism at the beginning of his Green Bay, Wisconsin rally Saturday night.

Sunday afternoon in Washington, D.C., white nationalists with a bullhorn disrupted a bookstore talk by Jonathan Metzl, author of "Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland." They chanted, "This land is our land" as well as "AIM," a reference to the American Identity Movement, a rebranding of the white supremacist Identity Evropa.

Catherine Wigginton
@cewigginton

So this bullshit just went down today at Politics & Prose. White nationalists disrupting @JonathanMetzl talk on his book Dying of Whiteness. Point made. @PM_Learn

5:46 PM - Apr 27, 2019


The Washington Post reports:
According to the most recent annual report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has long tracked extremist activity, 39 of the 50 extremist-related murders tallied by the group in 2018 were committed by white supremacists, up from 2017, when white supremacists were responsible for 18 of 34 such crimes.

Trump has previously played down the threat posed by white nationalism. After a gunman last month killed 49 Muslims in two consecutive mosque attacks in New Zealand, Trump was asked by a reporter whether he thought white nationalists were a growing threat around the world. “I don’t, really,” Trump replied. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
“All white supremacy, all neo-Nazis, all anti-Christianity, all ­anti-Semitism, all anti-Muslim activity should be condemned,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Mehdi Hasan, columnist for The Intercept and Al Jazeera English presenter, told MSNBC's AM Joy there is a global "epidemic of white nationalist terror" and a national security threat the U.S. president does not take seriously [timestamp 6:50]:

"This month alone ... in the United States, in real life, a guy burned down three black churches in Louisiana. Another guy tried to run over an interracial couple in New Orleans. Another guy was sentenced to prison in Oregon for running over and murdering a young black man. In California, a man drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians because he thought they were Muslim — put a teenage girl in a coma. And yesterday we saw this man, this alleged killer, 19-year-old, walking into a synagogue and opening fire, killing one person, injuring three."

Not only will Trump not acknowledge the threat, and in fact minimizes it, says Hasan, "He's providing the mood music for it."

Refusing to walk back describing neo-Nazis as "very fine people" is Trumpish alpha dog behavior. Never exhibit weakness. Keep the rest subservient or one of the other dogs might think you ripe for deposing. As much credit as the right gets for strategy, it is often no more sophisticated than that. It is a feral instinct for survival. Weaker members of the pack seek out the alpha's favor for protection. Without them, he is in charge of nothing.

April 29, 2019 1:46 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Washington Post: Trump Has Lied 10,111 Times In 828 Days

It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day.

But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period....

Trump's lying has greatly accelerated as the Mueller Investigation started to bring a lot of stuff to court and win. The only reason Trump hasn't been indicted several times is that he is the president, any other American citizen would be in jail without bail awaiting their court date.

Trump has announced he will give nothing of the normal oversight documents the executive branch is constitutionally obligated to produce for the legislative branch. He has announced he will break the law and refuse to respond to congressional subpoenas to get to the bottom of the 244 pages of Trump Administration collusion with the Russians the Mueller Report outlined. If Trump is re-elected in 2020 his dictatorial control of your country will be impossible to reverse for the forseeable future.

And Wyatt and Regina Hardiman are dutifully lying their asses off to support Trump's attempt to seize dictatorial powers and destroy American Democracy.

April 29, 2019 1:52 PM  
Anonymous slash the deficit: build the wall to cut costs of caring for illegals, ban transexuals from military, study global warming to stop alarmism waste said...

It’s far too early to predict which party will win next year’s election, but not too early to announce the national media as a clear loser in terms of national influence and prestige.

Pew reports that millennials have become as negative about major media as older generations, their rate approval dropping from 40% in 2010 to 27% today. Gallup tracks a similar pattern, finding 70% losing trust in the media, including nearly half of Democrats.

The Mueller report undermined the supposedly rock solid case for “collusion.” A solid majority of Americans believe the Russiagate brouhaha was politically motivated. Some progressives, like Rolling Stone’s contributing editor Matt Taibbi, believe Mueller represents “a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media.”

Ironically, Trump, the man the media wanted to bring down, was largely their creation. At a party in 2016, attendees were regaled by a CNN account executive crowing about the company’s strategy of using Trump rallies, at the exclusion of others, to boost ratings. Once having created President Frankenstein, CNN then tried to keep up the ratings by chronicling his disposal — this worked for MSNBC which, unlike CNN, never much pretended to be an objective network. Today, CNN’s audience share has fallen below not only leader Fox, but MSNBC, Home and Garden, Discovery and Food networks.

April 29, 2019 1:55 PM  
Anonymous the most lying institution in America: mainstream press said...

the media has been exposed as liars:

"after the 2017 Charlottesville attacks by white nationalists who chanted "Jews will not replace us," the sitting president knew to keep them in his camp by claiming there were “very fine people on both sides.”"

After the clash in Charlottesville, where protests against the taking down of an historical statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee morphed into an alt-right rally, Trump held a press conference.

Out of more than 15 minutes of questions and answers, the press glommed onto the three seconds where Trump said “You also had people that were very fine people on both sides.”

It was made to look as though Trump had equated white supremacists who hijacked the event and liberals who were there to counterprotest.

This is precisely the opposite of what Trump said.

Trump made clear several times during the conference that he was referring specifically to those who had showed up to demonstrate against the statue’s removal and that he otherwise condemned the white supremacists.

What Trump said:

“I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of the people at the rally were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee.”

A reporter yelled out, “Both sides, sir?”

Referring to the so-called “antifa,” which was also present at the rally wearing masks, throwing paint and spraying urine, Trump said, “Well, I do think there's blame — yes, I think there's blame on both sides.”

But Trump also said, “You have some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

He again specified that he was not referring to white supremacists, saying, “You had people, and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists”

Later, he said, “If you look, they were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I'm sure in that group there were some bad ones.”

April 29, 2019 1:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump, the vast majority of the Republican party, and their Right Wing Authoritarian followers are doing everything they can in a massive campaign of lies to gaslight their fellow citizens.

April 29, 2019 2:10 PM  
Anonymous Not feeling sorry for the supremacists said...

“I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of the people at the rally were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch."

Alright Rumpster, after all the lies you've told during this administration, why should we "believe" anything you say, Cadet Bone Spurs?

And while you're at it, how do you know that some of the people on that "side" weren't neo-Nazis and / or white supremacists? Did you interview them? Do you have an attendee list? Or did you just not recognize some of the people in the crowd from your regular meetings? Did you see the guest list?

Were those the "good people?"

You're not a "very stable genius." Believe me.

April 29, 2019 3:51 PM  
Anonymous to the TTFster said...

"Alright Rumpster, after all the lies you've told during this administration, why should we "believe" anything you say, Cadet Bone Spurs?"

no one is asking to believe anything he says

you've said that he said something he didn't

I've provided the details showing that you clearly quoted him out of context

so the apropos question is: why anyone should believe anything a lying asshole like you says?

April 29, 2019 4:33 PM  
Anonymous Racist tЯump plays down white nationalist threat said...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump appears to be oblivious to the threat of white nationalism.

Following a deadly mosque shooting in New Zealand, he said white supremacy isn’t a rising danger.

But data — including from his own Justice Department — point to rising hate group activity while he’s been in office.

WHITE NATIONALISM

TRUMP, when asked if he views white nationalism as a rising threat worldwide: “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. I guess if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet. They’re just learning about the person and the people involved. But it’s certainly a terrible thing.” — remarks Friday in Oval Office.

THE FACTS: Both data and many experts who track violent extremists point to white nationalism as a rising threat in the U.S. and abroad.

According to data released this month by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League, for instance, white supremacist propaganda efforts nearly tripled last year from 2017. Reports of the propaganda — which can include fliers, stickers, banners and posters that promote hateful ideology — rose 182 percent to 1,187 cases. That’s up from the 421 reported in 2017.

The number of racist rallies and demonstrations also rose last year, according to the group. At least 91 white supremacist rallies or other public events attended by white supremacists were held in 2018, up from 76 the previous year.

The Anti-Defamation League in January said domestic extremists killed at least 50 people in the U.S. in 2018, up from 37 in 2017, and noted that “white supremacists were responsible for the great majority of the killings, which is typically the case.”

Separately, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported the U.S. had more hate groups last year than at any point in at least the past two decades. The organization, which tracks white supremacists and other far-right extremists, said the 1,020 groups it counted in 2018 amounted to the highest number since the center broadened its survey of such groups in the 1990s.

The center said it was the fourth straight year of hate group growth, representing a 30 percent increase roughly coinciding with Trump’s campaign and presidency. That came following three straight years of decline near the end of the Obama administration.

And the Justice Department reported in November that hate crimes across the U.S. spiked 17 percent in 2017 — marking a rise for the third straight year. There were 7,175 reported hate crimes that year, up from 6,121 in 2016, according to the FBI report. More than half of the crimes were motivated by bias against a person’s race or ethnicity. Anti-Semitic hate crimes increased 37 percent.

Among the episodes in the last few years: a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 after which Trump blamed “both sides” for violence, and last October’s shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in which the gunman accused of killing 11 people allegedly drew inspiration from white nationalism. Authorities last month arrested a Coast Guard lieutenant, an alleged white supremacist who appeared interested in attacking top Democrats and network TV journalists.

April 29, 2019 4:45 PM  
Anonymous Racists do racism, which is racist said...

"I've provided the details showing that you clearly quoted him out of context"

Anyone who believes one person attended that rally in Charlottesville came to voice their view statues should remain up is racist liar just like Rump.

Unite the Right was explicitly organized and branded as a far-right, racist, and white supremacist event by far-right racist white supremacists. This was clear for months before the march actually occurred. So by casting the rally instead as a sort of spontaneous outpouring from Confederate statue enthusiasts, Trump is rewriting history.

The Unite the Right rally, which was scheduled to take place on August 12, 2017, was the most visible display of white nationalist and white supremacist hate en masse in the United States in years. And it was branded as such long before it took place.

The Unite the Right rally was the third such event in Charlottesville in 2017 — and each of these rallies was led and supported by self-proclaimed white nationalists and racists, apparently invigorated by an April 2017 decision by the Charlottesville City Council to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from Lee Park.

At the time, Confederate statues and monuments across the country were under increased scrutiny, especially following the murder of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, by an avowed racist who enjoyed Confederate symbology.

In May 2017, white nationalist Richard Spencer led a rally and torchlit parade through Lee Park, where attendees chanted “You will not replace us” and “Blood and soil.” In response, the chair of the Charlottesville Republican Party released a statement saying, “Whoever these people were, the intolerance and hatred they seek to promote is utterly disgusting and disturbing beyond words.”

In July 2017, members of Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan also protested against the removal of the Lee statue in Charlottesville, with one member telling USA Today that he was protesting the “cultural genocide” of white people he believed was behind the call for the statue’s removal.

So by August 2017, when the Unite the Right rally was scheduled to take place, it was fairly clear that the organizers behind the rallies on behalf of keeping the Lee statue in place had a very specific ideological bent. That was clear in a police affidavit detailing who was expected at Unite the Right — including roughly 250 to 500 Klansmen and more than 150 “Alt-Knights,” the military division of the Proud Boys.

The affiliations of the organizers were also clear. Jason Kessler, a “pro-white” activist, filed the permits for the rally.

On a radio show before the event, Kessler said, “the number one thing is I want to destigmatize Pro-White advocacy. … I want a huge, huge crowd, and that’s what we’re going to have, to come out and support not just the Lee monument but also white people in general, because it is our race which is under attack.”

In fact, going back through the promotional materials for Unite the Right, it is fascinating just how little the statue of Lee, or honoring Confederate veterans, seemed to matter to the organizers and attendees of Unite the Right, an event that, despite its name, had nothing to do with conservatism writ large.

April 29, 2019 5:29 PM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

"I've provided the details showing that you clearly quoted him out of context"

I'm not the one that posted the original quote. I was responding to the Rumpster's comment about "believe me." Which should have been obvious because I started my comment with that specific quote.

"so the apropos question is: why anyone should believe anything a lying asshole like you says?"

So the more apropos question is "Why do have these obsessive compulsive urges to insult people and harass them for things they didn't do?"

Is that how Christians are taught to behave?

April 29, 2019 5:54 PM  
Anonymous August 11, 2017, the night before said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KYifYzjKlc

You can believe your own eyes and ears.

Let us know if you hear any "Save the Statues" chants.

April 29, 2019 6:25 PM  
Anonymous Merrick Garland ... LOL said...

there aren't enough white nationalists in America to account for the protesters that night

the white nationalists publicized a rally to save the Robert E Lee statue to jack up numbers

I remember hearing the media publicizing it that way

in the very press conference where you took the out-of-context quote from, he made clear that when he said good people on both sides, he meant conservatives that wanted to save the statue and liberals who wanted to get rid of it

he didn't mean extremists on either side

as for hate crimes being up, this is largely the fault of the media who created an impression that these fringe groups are growing which emboldened the nuts

while we have freedom of the press in America, the mainstream media is irresponsible

the people should put them out of business

sounds like that's the way CNN and the Post are headed

April 29, 2019 7:05 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"The center said it was the fourth straight year of hate group growth, representing a 30 percent increase roughly coinciding with Trump’s campaign and presidency. That came following three straight years of decline near the end of the Obama administration."

April 29, 2019 7:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

REPORT: Five Of 37 Men Beheaded By Saudi Arabia Were Gay, According To “Confession” Under Torture


Britain’s Metro newspaper reports:

Five of the 37 men beheaded by Saudi Arabia were gay, according to a confession heard by the Sharia law court. The country sparked outrage several days ago for the mass execution of the men, who were mainly minority Shia Muslims. Human rights groups have complained that confessions of terrorism and spying for Iran were obtained through torture.

Now it has emerged that one of the men allegedly admitted to having sex with four of his co-accused ‘terrorists.’ Homosexuality is punishable by death in the Gulf State, ruled over by King Salman. The deaths were said to act as a warning to others and also a political move to impress the USA.

April 29, 2019 8:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"there aren't enough white nationalists in America to account for the protesters that night"

Oh, I see. So it was just regular right-wingers carrying most of those tiki torches.

Thanks for clearing that up.

April 29, 2019 9:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina said "there aren't enough white nationalists in America to account for the protesters that night"


"Oh, I see. So it was just regular right-wingers carrying most of those tiki torches."

There's all manner of video from the neo-nazi rally in Charlotte that night. The vast procession of torch carrying marchers chanting the Nazi slogan "blood and soil" and every single marcher present chanting "Jews will not replace us!". Everyone of those people was a "white nationalists" aka neo-nazi, aka white supremacist.

April 29, 2019 10:02 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

President Trump said some of those "don't remove the statue protesters" who were chanting "Jews will not replace us!" and the Nazi slogan "Blood and Soil!" in Charlotte were "very fine people". That tells you where Trump stands.

April 29, 2019 10:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

So the guy who made all the planned parenthood videos that were deceptively edited to create the false impression they were selling baby parts, is back at it again.

Now he's been exposed trying to get young conservative leaning gay men to make a false claim that rising star Pete Buttigieg raped them.

This is your standard Republican gaslighting of American.

April 30, 2019 12:44 AM  
Anonymous Joe Cool said...

The last thing we expect mid-spring is snow. Yet that’s just what we have. As the Weather Channel reports, “It may be late April, but Winter Storm Xyler will make you forget that it is spring in the Midwest this weekend as it is expected to bring some unusually heavy late season snowfall.”

Snow is heading to New York as well, despite the state’s all-out effort to combat global warming by attempting to ban plastic straws and now hot dogs. From the New York Post, “Upstate NY may get up to 3 inches of snow this weekend.”

Across the country in Denver, the weather won’t be much different, as The Denver Channel reports, “Mild through the weekend, cold, rain and snow next week!” What’s going on? I thought the planet was heating up, with melting icecaps, rising sea levels, and less than 12 years before the earth burns to a crisp?

We have been hearing this song and dance for several decades now. The global warming chicken littles keep telling us that snow is a thing of the past and we had better get used to it, along with a warming planet.

In 2000, British newspaper The Independent ran this headline, “Snowfalls are just a thing of the past.” In 2014, The New York Times ran a sequel headline, “The end of snow?”

Yet here we are, at the end of April, planting our gardens and facing snow in much of the country. If this is evidence of global warming, then Bernie Sanders’s popularity is evidence that the Democrat Party has shifted to the right. Good luck selling that.

One important factor always neglected by the climate warriors is the Sun, a ball of fire a million times larger than the Earth, the source of life on Earth, as well as destruction if the fires ever were extinguished, or expanded. If we were a few million miles closer to or further from the Sun, life on Earth would cease to exist. Just look at Venus and Mars, neighboring planets either too hot or too cold, respectively, for life as we know it.

Even the Earth’s tilt toward or away from the Sun is enough to cause our seasons, with large temperature variations and the difference between food production or not. Yet climate warriors ignore the Sun, instead focusing on human activity, driving SUV’s, flying in airplanes, and running our air conditioners.

April 30, 2019 8:20 AM  
Anonymous Joe Cool said...

Sunspots, according to the National Weather Service, “Are areas where the magnetic field is about 2,500 times stronger than Earth's, much higher than anywhere else on the Sun.” Sunspots are quite large, about the size of the Earth, and are several thousand degrees cooler than the surrounding Sun surface.

Sunspots lead to solar flares, surface explosions which “release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.” These flares emit x-rays and magnetic fields which blast the Earth as geomagnetic storms, disrupting power grids and satellites, and warming the Earth.

Sunspots are not random but instead follow an 11-year cycle, from a minimum to a maximum. Sometimes the cycles last longer, for unknown reasons, with a 70-year period of near zero sunspot activity from 1645 to 1715, called the Maunder Minimum, or Little Ice Age. Enough of science class, how is this relevant now?

As reported by the Express, we are now entering one of these 11 year cycles as the Sun enters a solar minimum. As they report,

During a solar maximum, the Sun gives off more heat and is littered with sunspots. Less heat in a solar minimum is due to a decrease in magnetic waves.

Fewer magnetic waves equates to the Sun being slightly cooler, and experts are expecting the solar minimum to deepen even further before it gets warmer.

With less magnetic waves coming from the Sun, cosmic rays find it easier to penetrate Earth’s atmosphere and are more noticeable to scientists.

While cosmic rays have little effect on our planet, one of the reasons scientists monitor them is to see when the Sun has entered a solar minimum.

Now, with cosmic rays at an all-time high, scientists know the Sun is about to enter a prolonged cooling period.

The bottom line is that decreasing sunspot activity translates to a cooling planet, contrary to the doomsday non-scientific pronouncements of Al Gore and Alexandria Occasional-Cortex. Sunspot activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, but as noted above, there may be other perhaps longer cycles as occurred in the 1600s leading to a 70-year mini ice age.

Then there are even longer climatic cycles, with real ice ages occurring every 100,000 years. These glaciations end with a 10,000 year inter-glacial warming period, the current such warming period soon ending, according to distinguished scientist S. Fred Singer.

April 30, 2019 8:23 AM  
Anonymous Joe Cool said...

Clearly there are factors at play in climate cycles that we barely understand and certainly cannot control. Some play out in shorter time spans, which we as humans can observe directly. Others are on a far longer and grander scale than human existence, much less our individual life spans, which are merely the blink of an eye by comparison.

Aside from solar activity and sunspots, there are volcanic eruptions emitting more greenhouse gas per eruption than years of worldwide human activity. What other forces are at play? That’s for scientists to discover. Our solar system is a mere speck in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is another speck in the vast universe.

It’s the ultimate in hubris to believe climate revolves solely around human activity. Yet politicians, rather admitting the obvious, that we don’t know far more than we do know, blame an ever-changing climate on everything from flatulent cows to processed meats.

Much like the Russian collusion hoax, the left creates a narrative to fit their agenda, putting conclusions before research and discovery. Instead they would be better served by applying the scientific method of observing, formulating a hypothesis, testing it against observations, modifying and refining the hypothesis, until after extensive testing it accurately predicts future events.

Otherwise it’s just more blather and fear mongering, just as we heard for over two years with Russian collusion fantasies that turned out to be nothing. Just as late April snow, in the eyes of the left, is further evidence of a warming planet

April 30, 2019 8:24 AM  
Anonymous it was just their imagination, once again, running away with them said...

Since the release of the Mueller report, with each passing day comes a new and increasingly strident demand to impeach Donald Trump. The New York Times, Washington Post, and various prestige magazines are cluttered with such demands, casting impeachment as an imperative for the survival of American democracy. Mueller might have affirmatively concluded that no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia ever came close to being established, but that hasn’t stopped Democrats and their journalist allies from barreling full-steam ahead down this rabbit hole.

In a healthy media environment, the key finding from the report ought to have been that the ‘collusion’ hypothesis which dominated American political consciousness for nearly three years was exhaustively and resolutely debunked – but instead there has been a concerted move to deflect and change the subject.

One tactic employed to this end by Democrats and likeminded pundits has been to re-focus collective attention on Attorney General William Barr, whom they insist maliciously misrepresented Mueller’s findings in order to protect Trump. But their criticisms on this score never made any sense. Barr was clearly obliged to expeditiously relay the top-line findings of the report once it was submitted on March 22. And so by March 24, Barr issued a letter stating, accurately, that Mueller had not established ‘conspiracy or coordination’ between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, i.e. the core crux of the entire ‘collusion’ narrative. Hence the New York Times’s blaring front-page headline the following day, which also proved 100 percent accurate: MUELLER FINDS NO TRUMP-RUSSIA CONSPIRACY.

Neither did Barr materially misrepresent Mueller’s findings on obstruction. As the report lays out in comprehensive detail, Mueller weighed competing facts and legal arguments in relation to all the allegedly obstructive acts committed by Trump and made no definitive determinations about the prosecutability of any of them. That is exactly what Barr said in the March 24 letter, in which he wrote that ‘while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’

But whipping up an ancillary and specious controversy about Barr, Democrats are merely attempting to prolong the fantasy that Mueller somehow indicted Trump, rather than meticulously examined every conceivable aspect of the purported Trump-Russia conspiracy, and rendered as affirmative a judgment as any prosecutor in Mueller’s position could ever proffer: that there was no such conspiracy. It’s game over.

April 30, 2019 8:59 AM  
Anonymous it was just their imagination, once again, running away with them said...

Collusion true-believers and dead-enders are using the Barr ‘side-bar’ to fuel the storyline that impeachment is the only viable response to the Mueller report, lest the entire American system of government crumble. Democrats calling for impeachment are generally assumed to be members of Congress representing the ‘left-wing’ flank of the party – Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and others – but increasingly there has been a move among more putatively ‘moderate’ members to hop aboard the pro-impeachment train as well. Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a former head of the Congressional Black Caucus and one of the most important early endorsers of Joe Biden’s nascent presidential campaign, proclaimed Sunday on Face the Nation that impeachment is the ‘best way’ to proceed. Seth Moulton, the ‘moderate’ member of Congress from Massachusetts and another newly-declared presidential candidate, also avowed his support for impeachment last week at a speech in New Hampshire. This is significant because it reflects impeachment gaining steam across disparate factions of the party; no longer can it be said to be confined exclusively to any particular ideological element.

Either way, it’s a fallacy to presume that there’s anything inherently ‘progressive’ or ‘left-wing’ about advocating to impeach the president on the basis of a debunked international espionage conspiracy theory that has its genesis in the FBI and CIA (both of which employed all manner of extraordinarily invasive surveillance tactics and extra-legal measures to impede the democratically-elected head of state) – and which had the practical impact of effectively criminalizing foreign policy heterodoxies. According to former Trump lawyer John Dowd, as well as conversations between Trump and administration officials relayed by Mueller in the report, the investigation hobbled Trump’s ability to conduct foreign affairs throughout his first term, and negated the possibility of any ‘détente’ with Russia to the point that relations between these two nuclear-armed states have soured to a dangerous nadir. Indeed, Mueller himself identifies a rationale for Trump’s behavior in ridiculing the Special Counsel investigation that would actually exculpate him in terms of obstruction, because it would bear on Trump’s Article II powers under the Constitution: ‘The president’s decision to curtail a law-enforcement investigation to avoid international friction would not implicate the obstruction-of-justice statutes,’ Mueller writes.

Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Jerrold Nadler, and the rest of the House Democratic leadership might be relatively cautious in terms of how far they are willing to go on impeachment, but it’s difficult to imagine how they can resist the omni-directional pressure being heaped on them for very long. Tom Steyer, the mega-billionaire who toyed with a presidential run, has mounted an aggressive initiative through his activist organization ‘Need to Impeach,’ whereby constituents are showing up at Democratic congressional offices and flooding their representatives with calls and emails to demand that they take up the impeachment mantle. Especially with forthcoming congressional testimonies by Barr, Mueller, and other players in the Trump-Russia saga, this issue will simply not be going away any time soon. Democrats can try all they want to convince themselves that impeaching Trump on grounds of ‘obstruction’ rather than collusion is a tenable course, but politically speaking these two subjects are wholly inseparable. ‘Obstruction’ only ever arose as a live issue due to a collusion investigation which we now know was predicated on a complete fiction – or a ‘hoax,’ as Trump correctly observed on many occasions. If they really want to oust Trump on the basis of a discredited militaristic conspiracy theory that was generated by the most retrograde elements of the American national security state, fine: but at least be honest about it.

April 30, 2019 8:59 AM  
Anonymous The science is out there, if you bother to look said...

"Clearly there are factors at play in climate cycles that we barely understand and certainly cannot control. Some play out in shorter time spans, which we as humans can observe directly. Others are on a far longer and grander scale than human existence, much less our individual life spans, which are merely the blink of an eye by comparison."

Clearly, there is science out there that right-wing pundits never bother to read.

Scientists now have a model that explains CO2 levels and ice ages quite well over the last 3 million years:

"Mid-Pleistocene transition in glacial cycles explained by declining CO2 and regolith removal" by M. Willeit, A. Ganopolski1, R. Calov1 and V. Brovkin.

The full article is here:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav7337

The Abstract:

"Variations in Earth’s orbit pace the glacial-interglacial cycles of the Quaternary, but the mechanisms that transform regional and seasonal variations in solar insolation into glacial-interglacial cycles are still elusive. Here, we present transient simulations of coevolution of climate, ice sheets, and carbon cycle over the past 3 million years. We show that a gradual lowering of atmospheric CO2 and regolith removal are essential to reproduce the evolution of climate variability over the Quaternary. The long-term CO2 decrease leads to the initiation of Northern Hemisphere glaciation and an increase in the amplitude of glacial-interglacial variations, while the combined effect of CO2 decline and regolith removal controls the timing of the transition from a 41,000- to 100,000-year world. Our results suggest that the current CO2 concentration is unprecedented over the past 3 million years and that global temperature never exceeded the preindustrial value by more than 2°C during the Quaternary."

Just because right-wingers have "barely understood" what's happening with the climate, doesn't mean that scientist suffer the same lack of knowledge and comprehension.

From the Discussion section:

"Our transient modeling results demonstrate that both previously proposed mechanisms—regolith removal and gradual lowering of CO2—are essential to reproduce the realistic evolution of climate variability during the Quaternary, and their combination controls the timing of regime changes of climate variability. Note that a gradual change of the regolith cover causes a rather rapid (few hundred thousand years) transition from the 41- to 100-ka world, n good agreement with observational data. Simulated glacial cycles only weakly depend on initial conditions and therefore represent a quasi-deterministic response of the Earth system to orbital forcing. Our results also support the notion that the current CO2 concentration of more than 400 ppm is unprecedented over at least the past 3 Ma and that global temperature did not exceed the preindustrial value by more than 2°C during the Quaternary. In the context of future climate change, this implies that a failure in substantially reducing CO2 emissions to comply with the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming well below 2°C will not only bring Earth’s climate away from Holocene-like conditions but also push it beyond climatic conditions experienced during the entire current geological period."

April 30, 2019 10:22 AM  
Anonymous Joe Biden wants America straight again said...

"Just because right-wingers have "barely understood" what's happening with the climate, doesn't mean that scientist suffer the same lack of knowledge and comprehension"

I didn't think that's why. I believe it is social and political pressure.

Joe Biden wants to make America straight again. “America’s coming back like we used to be,” the former vice-president told reporters in Delaware on Thursday. “Ethical, straight, telling the truth … All those good things.”

It was unfortunate phrasing, but what else would you expect from a man whose foot always seems to be hovering somewhere near his mouth? Gaffes are part of Biden’s brand and, we will, no doubt see a lot more of them in the coming months.

We can also expect to see a lot more lofty promises about turning the clock back on Trumpism, and returning America to the (entirely mythical) days when the country was a bastion of morality. While it’s still early in the 2020 race, Biden has focused his campaign directly around Trump’s character, or lack thereof, in a way no other Democratic candidate has.

There is a reason that the other Democratic candidates didn’t launch their campaigns with attacks on Trump’s character: that strategy was tried, tested and proved an abysmal failure by Hillary Clinton. You don’t get Trump supporters to see the error of their ways by calling them “a basket of deplorables”; you simply fuel a culture war. (Not to mention, when you have a history of implementing racist legislation like the 1994 Crime Act, a key driver in the mass incarceration of African American men, you set yourself up to be called a hypocrite.)

One of the many reasons the Clinton campaign failed was that it spent more time and energy criticizing Trump than interrogating the underlying reasons why he was popular. Clinton parroted the idea that “America is already great!” to people whose lives were anything but. She offered business as usual to people who desperately wanted change. Now we’ve got Biden, another establishment Democrat, doing exactly the same thing.

Biden’s answer to Trump isn’t systemic change that will make America a more equitable place. His is the vaguest and most centrist of battle cries: let’s go back to, you know, “all those good things”. Let’s go back to a time where racism was a little more polite and white people could pretend America was a post-racial society. Let's go back to when everyone seemed straight and gays weren't out in the open. Let’s fight for the soul of America by pretending that Trump is the problem, not just a symptom of the problem. Let’s rewind the clock a few years to when everything was just fine and dandy.

What’s really frustrating about Biden is the fact that, even though he is another version of Clinton, and seems to be getting set to run a carbon copy of Clinton’s campaign, we’re going to be told ad nauseum that he’s our best bet at beating Trump. We’re going to be told that he’s the only Democrat that can win the white working class over – forget the fact that Sanders is currently the candidate best connecting with that demographic, gaining cheers and enthusiasm at a Fox town hall with his vision for universal healthcare. We’re going to be told that candidates offering real change, like Sanders and Warren, are too progressive for America. That they’re not “electable”. We’re going to be told that we should repeat the mistakes of 2016 all over again. We’re going to be told that it will work out this time.

April 30, 2019 10:40 AM  
Anonymous virgil, quick come see, there goes Robert E Lee said...

A Charlottesville, Va., judge has ruled that two statues of Confederate generals that sparked a violent protest in 2017 cannot be removed under state law.

Circuit Judge Richard Moore said in a letter dated April 25 that it was clear that the statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson were created to be war memorials. He said that the Charlottesville city council violated state law in 2016 when it voted to remove them.

The Unite the Right rally in August 2017 was organized because of the effort to remove the statues in light of a wider movement to take down or move Confederate statues and monuments around the country. That rally turned violent with one counter-protester dying after she and others were hit by a vehicle driven by a white supremacist.

April 30, 2019 11:04 AM  
Anonymous help, no one is giving me money!! said...

Fellow Democrat, here is a number that should worry you:

Donald Trump’s campaign raised over $30 million since the beginning of the year!

If we are going to elect me, we must catch up. And that starts by hitting tomorrow’s end-of-month fundraising goal.

But with less than 24 hours to go, we are still $100,732 short.

Will you give $5 right now to help us hit our end-of-month goal?

This is our campaign’s first fundraising deadline. Whether or not we can hit this goal will be a real test of our strength moving forward, and it's not going well.

So we are really counting on folks like you to support me. We hope you’ll make a donation today.

You can use the link below:

https://act.joebiden.com/Donate

Thanks for your help,

Joe Biden

April 30, 2019 11:09 AM  
Anonymous biden in 2020......NOT!!!!!! said...

Jill Biden says she's been the target of men invading her personal space — as women have cited her husband, Joe Biden, for doing.

And she says the former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate "is going to have to be a better judge" of when to touch women.

April 30, 2019 11:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The news from just 4 days ago:

"Former Vice President Joe Biden raked in 6.3 million in 24 hours — making it the largest first-day haul of any 2020 candidate in the 20 person field.

Biden's donations came from 96,926 individual donations in all 50 states. Previously, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke had the largest first-day fundraising haul at $6.1 million."

"Donald Trump’s campaign raised over $30 million since the beginning of the year!"

So what you're telling me is that Biden has raised nearly as much money in less than a week as Rump has in 4 months.

Maybe Rump shouldn't spend so much time at Mar-a-Lago.

April 30, 2019 11:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"And she says the former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate "is going to have to be a better judge" of when to touch women."

Why?

Republicans have shown they prefer men who grab pussies - maybe because they know they're not gay then.

April 30, 2019 12:21 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If over 97% of tens of thousands of climate scientists are wrong that humans are causing global warming, what could possibly explain tha the earth warmed 50 times faster over the last 100 years than the climate changed over the previous 11000 years?

April 30, 2019 12:47 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Present CO2 levels in the atmosphere are 43% higher than they were in pre-industrial times a few hundred years earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere

If climate scientists were wrong that the 43% increase in atmospheric CO2 over pre-industrial times has caused the 1.3 degrees global warming in the last 100 years...there must be some other plausible explanation for why the earth is warming 50 times faster now than the termperature changed over the previous 11,000 years.

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/173739884/since-end-of-last-ice-age-rates-of-global-warming-amazing-and-atypical


That alternative scientific theory should be fairly obvious because some alternative explanation for this global warming would much better fit the existing data if almost all climatoligists were making it up.


If climate scientists are making it up then Wyatt/Regina should easily have an althernative explanation that far, far better fits the data. That they don't have such an explanation is additional very strong evidence that burning fossil fuels causes global warming.

Natural causes alone cannot explain the recent 50-fold increase in the rate at which the global climate is changing.

Wyatt/Regina are liars on the scale of Trump, rational people would be well advised to take the vast consensus position of climatologists over theirs.

April 30, 2019 12:54 PM  
Anonymous don't stand so close to me said...

"So what you're telling me is that Biden has raised nearly as much money in less than a week as Rump has in 4 months"

I didn't tell you anything

Biden sent me an email that is campaign is in trouble if I don't send him $5 by midnight because Trump has raised so much money

Are you saying Joe is lying?

I am shocked- shocked- to hear that!

"Why?"

Because Jill said so, that's why!

She's sick of playing the good wife while Joe grabs every woman he meets and greets with a lascivious snuggle

April 30, 2019 12:56 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Fermi Paradox.

April 30, 2019 12:57 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If you'd like an explanation of why The Fermi Paradox is so important to the survival of humanity click on my highlighted name above.

April 30, 2019 1:08 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Women say Biden made them "uncomfortable" but that his actions didn't have sexual overtones.


Women say Trump sexually assaulted (or even raped) them and cheated on Melania with them.

If rational women have to pick one over the other, they're going to pick Biden.

April 30, 2019 1:11 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Over the years, Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous have regularly claimed the earth is cooling and referred to various natural cycles during which earth did cool in the past, Marander(sp?) minimum, sun cycle cooling, even the thousands year long tilt of the polar axis has in the past resulted in ice ages. Trouble for Wyatt/Regina is that the earth is currently in almost all these natural cycles that should have it cooling, and the global long term climate is warming at historically unprecedented speed.

Scientists have been predicting for over a century that humans burning fossil fuels will cause global climate warming. For several decades, the computer climate models don't account for the warming we've seen over the last 100 years if they only have natural cycles in them. It is only when the greenhouse effect of CO2 is factored into computer models do we see them accounting for the actual warming we've seen.

So, over the years Wyatt and Regina have tried to have it both ways - on one hand claiming that natural cycles we've seen in the past predict a cooling future, and now claiming natural cycles are too complex for us to predict what future climate will be.

Wyatt/Regina are grossly deceptive, just like Trump and the Republican Party.

April 30, 2019 1:29 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Radical white extremism 'much bigger problem' in US than radical Islam: Matthew Dowd

April 30, 2019 1:55 PM  
Anonymous Gays said...

2-4-6-8, We Don't Overpopulate!

April 30, 2019 2:12 PM  
Anonymous grandfather talk said...

RABBI YISROEL, a survivor from the shooting on Saturday at the Chabad synagogue in Poway:

I was totally in awe and shock to receive a call from the White House. I thought it may have been a prank call to me, someone trying to lift up my spirits. And then our president took the phone, and I recognized it was really him. And I've never spoken to a president before.

He was so gracious and generous with his words. Exceedingly comforting to me, my community. He spoke to me like a friend, like a buddy. I didn't realize I'm talking to the president of the United States of America. He was just exceedingly kind and sensitive. We spoke for close to 15 minutes. I thought to myself, for the president of the United States of America to take time out of his day to talk to me about the issues at hand absolutely incredible and admirable.

And we spoke about anti-Semitism. And I asked him, Mr. President, what are you doing about anti-Semitism in the United States of America? And he was very generous in explaining that he has made it as a priority.

He said, listen, I have a son-in-law who's Jewish, a daughter that's Jewish, I have grandchildren that are Jewish. I love Israel, we're going to do whatever we can to protect the Jewish people of the United States of America and abroad. It was the highlight of the day after everything I've been through to hear from the president himself to be so comforting and consoling. It meant a lot to our community, meant a lot to me.

And I also spoke to him about the concept of the moment of silence. And he was very, very taken by that concept of reintroducing to public schools about having a moment of silence. And I hope he will take it to the next level because we have -- something has to change. We have to do something about this. And we got to start it from early childhood education because that's where it all starts. And if the families at home and in the schools teach to children to respect God and to respect each other as human beings and to be accountable for your actions, your thoughts, and your speech, perhaps children will grow up with a lot clearer morals and ethics.

April 30, 2019 3:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe someone should teach them about measles vaccines while they're at it:

As of April 10, at least 285 people in New York City — mainly in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Borough Park neighborhoods — had fallen ill. In nearby Rockland County, 168 people have caught the virus. The outbreaks have prompted health officials in both areas to declare states of emergency.

What’s notable here is that the affected communities are closely linked: Cases are occurring mostly among unvaccinated or under-vaccinated Orthodox Jews, particularly children. When asked why people are opting out of vaccines, the New York city health department said anti-vaccine propagandists are distributing misinformation in the community.

Brooklyn Orthodox Rabbi William Handler has also been proclaiming the well-debunked link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Parents who “placate the gods of vaccination” are engaging in “child sacrifice,” he told Vox.

And then there was the measles outbreak among the Amish in Ohio:
A 2014 outbreak of measles in an Amish community in Ohio highlights the continuing threat of infection as well as the need for routine vaccination, CDC researchers report. From March 24 through July 23 of 2014, 383 outbreak-related cases of measles were reported in nine Ohio counties. According to the researchers, 89% of case patients were unvaccinated, and transmission occurred primarily within households. The rate of vaccination with at least one dose of MMR vaccine was estimated at 14% in affected Amish households and more than 88% in the general Ohio community. A number of containment efforts were undertaken, including isolation of case patients, quarantine of susceptible individuals, and administration of the MMR vaccine to more than 10,000 individuals. As a result, the spread of measles was limited almost entirely to the Amish community.

April 30, 2019 4:25 PM  
Anonymous (((GC))) said...



And Republicans still love to talk about how theirs was the party of Lincoln. Yes, long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, before that metamorphosis involving the Southern Strategy, the religious theofascist "right", and outright corporate takeover. (edit) We've seen how the Republican Party is the party of death, whether from lack of affordable healthcare, or validating homophobes' and transphobes' worst violent impulses, or having asylum seekers risk death as a matter of policy, and on and on. Candidate Donald Trump, with his "jokes" about "Second Amendment" solutions to a president Hillary Clinton nominating justices and judges, simply underscored that the party of Lincoln has become the party of John Wilkes Booth.

April 30, 2019 4:37 PM  
Anonymous (((GC))) said...

The Senate itself is inherently undemocratic. Only 18% of Americans, in the 26 smallest states, elect 52 of the 100 senators.

The Founders didn't envision the extent of population differences between states in the modern era -- California and Wyoming are 68 to 1.

(edit) Changing the system would require a constitutional amendment, and too many people in smaller states want to hold onto their special privilege.

April 30, 2019 4:52 PM  
Anonymous (((GC))) said...

If we'd been intelligently designed, everyone would be born with a completely safe, 100% effective fertility switch that defaults to "off", and that with one's deliberate intent and consent, can be switched back and forth as needed.

April 30, 2019 4:55 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"And if the families at home and in the schools teach to children to respect God and to respect each other as human beings and to be accountable for your actions, your thoughts, and your speech, perhaps children will grow up with a lot clearer morals and ethics."

The other night my husband mentioned the shooting at the States in a Synagogue. I asked him if that was a Jewish or a Muslim Synagogue. He laughed and said the idea of a Muslim Synagogue would be pretty amusing in the middle east.

The thing is, there's been so many shootings at places of deity worship, christian, Muslim, Jewish, that I've lost track of which group shot up which place when.

Its clear Religion never has and never will unite the world, religion is a divider of people, the number of christian sects is growing rapidly, christians aren't comming together, they're spreading ever farther and farther apart.

That's because religion is just another tribal identifier - it automatically makes people think of "us and them", not just "us".

RABBI YISROEL suggests the answer to the violence is to "teach children to respect god and respect each other as human beings." That's just the problem, putting god on a par with, or above humans, that's what divides us.

If we want to be united everyone needs to recognize that their religion comes second to maximizing the happiness for all in an equal and fair way.

There will never be an end to the violence of one religion against another until all religions voluntarily subordinate themselves to the good of humanity above all else.

The idea, such as being promoted by Wyatt/Regina's church, that mankind's highest purpose is to glorify god, is the reason one religion attacks the other.

April 30, 2019 7:36 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

God, is the problem, not the solution.

April 30, 2019 7:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Special counsel Mueller wrote to Barr saying he disagreed with the attorney general's summary of its nearly two-year investigation.

Days after Barr submitted his "principal conclusions" on the investigation, Mueller wrote a letter saying he "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions," according to The Washington Post.

"There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation," the letter continued. "This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations."

In March, Barr summarized Mueller's 448-page report with a four-page letter. In the summary, Barr deduced that the special counsel could not prove a conspiracy between members of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

Barr also concluded in the summary that Trump did not obstruct justice — despite Mueller being unable to draw a conclusion on the matter and numerous potential examples of obstruction that lawmakers have scrutinized.

Following the reports of Mueller's frustration, Democratic lawmakers have amped their calls for Barr to resign. Sen. Van Hollen referenced a previous Senate hearing on Barr's principal conclusions.

"I asked Barr, 'Did Bob Mueller support your conclusion?' His answer was, 'I don't know whether Mueller supported my conclusion,'" Van Hollen said on Twitter.

"We now know Mueller stated his concerns on March 27th, and that Barr totally misled me, the Congress, and the public," Van Hollen added. "He must resign."...

May 01, 2019 7:19 AM  
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Joe Biden Surges In Post-Launch Primary Polls

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Donald Trump Goes On Wild Retweet Rampage Over Firefighter Union’s Biden Endorsement

May 01, 2019 2:20 PM  
Anonymous Mueller found NO, NOT ONE, bit of evidence of collusion said...

“Mueller complained to Barr about memo on key findings.” That’s the banner headline at the top of the Washington Post’s website Wednesday. But when you click your way to the actual story, it turns out that Mueller’s complaint, which targeted Barr’s March 24 letter explaining the report, is not about the “key findings.” It’s about the narrative.

Mueller’s complaint is that Barr “did not fully capture the context” of Mueller’s magnum opus – the “nature and substance” of the report.

This complaint was set forth in Mueller’s own letter, dated March 27. The letter is a microcosm of Mueller’s collusion probe: sound and fury, signifying nothing; an investigative process predicated on no criminal conduct, which generated crimes rather than solving one.

Parsed carefully (which you have to do with the special counsel’s Jesuitical work), Mueller is not saying that Barr misrepresented his key findings. He is saying that he and the Clinton/Obama minions he recruited to staff the case wrote the report with a certain mood music in mind. To their chagrin, Barr gave us just the no-crime bottom line. Mueller would have preferred for us to feel all the ooze of un-presidential escapades he couldn’t indict but wouldn’t, from his lofty perch, “exonerate.”

The purportedly private letter to Barr, like Mueller’s purportedly confidential report, was patently meant for public consumption, and thus leaked to the Post late yesterday. The timing is transparently strategic: the leak drops a bomb as Barr was preparing for two days of what promises to be combative congressional hearings, starting this morning; it gives maximum media exposure to Mueller’s diva routine and its Democratic chorus, while the attorney general gets minimal time to respond to asinine cries of that he should be charged with perjury, held in contempt, and – of course – impeached.

The Post’s reporters say they were permitted to “review” the letter yesterday. This phrasing implies that they were not permitted to keep a copy – i.e., no fingerprints on this leak of a close-hold document. Keep that in mind next time you read one of those hagiographies about ramrod straight Bob Mueller who never plays these Washington games, no siree.

The Democrats’ perjury/contempt/impeachment slander against Barr is based on the fact that, in prior congressional testimony, Barr was asked whether Mueller agreed with Barr’s conclusions about the report, including that there was insufficient evidence to charge obstruction. Barr replied that he did not know whether Mueller agreed. Democrats now contend that Barr must have known Mueller disagreed because he had Mueller’s letter. But Mueller’s letter doesn’t say he disagreed with Barr’s conclusion – it says he was unhappy with how his work was being perceived by the public.

Barr and Mueller spoke by phone the day after Mueller sent his letter. If you wade through the first 13 paragraphs of the Post’s story, you finally find the bottom line:

"When Barr pressed Mueller on whether he thought Barr’s memo to Congress was inaccurate, Mueller said he did not but felt that the media coverage of it was misinterpreting the investigation, officials said."

So even Mueller conceded, through gritted teeth, that Barr’s letter was accurate. The diva was just worried about the media coverage.

May 01, 2019 3:28 PM  
Anonymous I got 2020 vision ! said...

"Joe Biden for President"

reminds me so much of Jeb Bush

lots of moola, leading a large pack because he's well-known, thinks he's entitled

let's hope he makes it to a debate with Trump so we can have an entertaining Jeb sequel!!

May 01, 2019 3:31 PM  
Anonymous Today's headlines said...

Lindsey Graham’s stunningly fact-free, pro-Trump spin of the Mueller report

Sen. Graham says he is open to bringing Mueller to Capitol Hill

Graham says he won't ask McGahn to testify

‘A bit snitty’: Barr dismisses Mueller’s letter complaining of summary

Barr’s claims of ignorance spur calls for him to resign

Judge Napolitano: Can the Attorney General defend presidential obstruction?



May 01, 2019 5:10 PM  
Anonymous Robert Mueller...LOL!! said...

“Mueller complained to Barr about memo on key findings.”

That’s the headline at the top of the Washington Post’s website Wednesday.

But when you click your way to the actual story, it turns out that the headline is not true.

Special Counsel Mueller’s complaint, which targeted Attorney General Barr’s March 24 letter explaining the report, is not about the “key findings.” It’s about the narrative.

Mueller’s complaint is that Barr “did not fully capture the context” of Mueller’s magnum opus – the “nature and substance” of the report.

This complaint was set forth in Mueller’s own letter, dated March 27. The letter is a microcosm of Mueller’s collusion probe: sound and fury, signifying nothing; an investigative process predicated on no criminal conduct, which generated crimes rather than solving one.

Parsed carefully (which you have to do with the special counsel’s Jesuitical work), Mueller is precisely not saying that Barr misrepresented his key findings. He is saying that he and the Clinton/Obama minions he recruited to staff the case wrote the report with a certain mood music in mind. To their chagrin, Barr gave us just the no-crime bottom line. Mueller would have preferred for us to feel all the ooze of un-presidential escapades he couldn’t indict but wouldn’t, from his lofty perch, “exonerate.”

The purportedly private letter to Barr, like Mueller’s purportedly confidential report, was meant for public consumption, and thus leaked to the Post late yesterday. The timing is transparently strategic: the leak drops a bomb as Barr was preparing for two days of what promises to be combative congressional hearings, starting this morning; it gives maximum media exposure to Mueller’s diva routine and its Democratic chorus, while the attorney general gets minimal time to respond to asinine cries of that he should be charged with perjury, held in contempt, and – of course – impeached.

May 01, 2019 9:58 PM  
Anonymous Robert Mueller...LOL!! said...

The Post’s reporters say they were permitted to “review” the letter yesterday.

This phrasing implies that they were not permitted to keep a copy – i.e., no fingerprints on this leak of a close-hold document. Keep that in mind next time you read one of those hagiographies about ramrod straight Bob Mueller who never plays these Washington games, no siree.

The Democrats’ perjury/contempt/impeachment slander against Barr is based on the fact that, in prior congressional testimony, Barr was asked whether Mueller agreed with Barr’s conclusions about the report, including that there was insufficient evidence to charge obstruction. Barr replied that he did not know whether Mueller agreed. Democrats now contend that Barr must have known Mueller disagreed because he had Mueller’s letter. But Mueller’s letter doesn’t say he disagreed with Barr’s conclusion – it says he was unhappy with how his work was being perceived by the public.

Barr and Mueller spoke by phone the day after Mueller sent his letter. If you wade through the first 13 paragraphs of the Post’s story, you finally find the bottom line:

"When Barr pressed Mueller on whether he thought Barr’s memo to Congress was inaccurate, Mueller said he did not but felt that the media coverage of it was misinterpreting the investigation, officials said."

So even Mueller conceded, through gritted teeth, that Barr’s letter was accurate. The diva was just worried about the media coverage.

No surprise there. Barr’s letter conveyed that Mueller had failed to render a prosecutorial judgment on the only question a special counsel was arguably needed to decide: Was there enough evidence to charge President Trump with obstruction, or should prosecution be declined?

On collusion, Mueller’s report had conveyed what everyone already knew from the indictments Mueller had previously filed, and what Mueller himself must have known very soon after taking over the probe in May 2017: There was no case.

May 01, 2019 10:01 PM  
Anonymous Robert Mueller...LOL!! said...

Plainly, this was an obstruction investigation: Mueller was appointed just days after (a) the president’s dismissal of FBI Director James Comey, and (b) the FBI’s opening of an obstruction investigation against the president based on acting Director Andrew McCabe’s harebrained theory that the chief executive’s firing of a subordinate can constitute obstruction of justice – under circumstances where (1) the president had the power to halt the Russia investigation but never did; (2) the Russia investigation was a counterintelligence matter, which is done for the president, not for prosecution in the justice system (hence, justice cannot be obstructed); and (3) McCabe testified after Comey’s firing that no one had attempted to obstruct the investigation.

Under the circumstances, Mueller’s main job was to answer the obstruction question. He abdicated. Barr’s letter made that obvious. The press coverage elucidated it. This made Mueller very unhappy. So he wrote a letter whining about “context.”

Of course, context is not a prosecutor’s job. That is the stuff of political narratives.

Mueller was not effectively supervised. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein allowed him to get into the political narrative business – just as he allowed the special counsel to persist in the collusion investigation for over a year after it was clear that there was no collusion case.

Without supervision, Mueller’s staff continued weaving a tale rather than acknowledging that they had not found a crime. For example, the allegation against George Papadopoulos – namely, that he lied about the date of a meeting – could have been charged in a single paragraph. Instead, the charge is accompanied by Mueller’s 14-page “statement of the offense,” which is not a statement of the false-statement offense at all – it is a lot of huffing and puffing about almost-but-not-really collusion.

The Michael Flynn false-statements charge similarly comes with a script about unremarkable discussions between an incoming national security advisor and Russian counterpart that are portrayed as almost-not-quite-collusion.

The Roger Stone indictment for still more process crimes – i.e., crimes the investigation caused rather than examined – is a 20-page epic of “something around here sure smells like collusion.”

No collusion charges, no espionage conspiracy evidence … just enough intrigue to keep a soap opera rolling along.

It is not a prosecutor’s job, under the pretext of “context,” to taint people by publicizing non-criminal conduct. If the investigative subject has committed no offense, the public is customarily told nothing. If a defendant is charged with a relatively minor offense, the indictment is supposed to reflect that.

You are supposed to see the crime for what it is, not view it through the prism of the prosecutor’s big ambitions. If all George Papadopoulos did was fib about when a meeting happened, the function of an indictment is to put him on notice of that charge; it is not to weave a heroic tale of how hard the prosecutor tried to find collusion with a hostile foreign power.

Mueller was annoyed because Barr’s report showed Mueller didn’t do the job he was retained to do, and omitted all the narrative-writing that Mueller preferred to do.

Before Attorney General Barr issued his letter outlining the special counsel’s conclusions, Mueller was invited to review it for accuracy. Mueller declined. After Barr explained that Mueller had not decided the obstruction question, the press reported on this dereliction. Mueller is miffed about the press coverage … but he can’t say Barr misrepresented his findings.

Like the Mueller investigation, this episode is designed to fuel a political narrative. But we don’t need a narrative – we don’t even need anyone to explain the report plainly. That’s because we now have the report. We can read it for ourselves. The rest is noise.

May 01, 2019 10:05 PM  
Anonymous Sad ........ LOL said...

"Rump is the only president in the history of Gallup polling never to earn the support of a majority of Americans even for a single day of his term.”

May 02, 2019 7:51 AM  
Anonymous the Dems shudder and get as desperate as a caged animal said...

“How did we get to the point where the evidence is now that the president was falsely accused of colluding with the Russians, accused of being treasonous and accused of being a Russian agent, and the evidence now is that that was without a basis?” Attorney General Barr asked yesterday in Congress. “And two years of his administration have been dominated by allegations that have now been proven false. But to listen to some of the rhetoric, you would think the Mueller report had found the opposite.”

No better, more concise statement has been made about the bankrupt nature of the Democratic Party and its leaders. They bet everything on Mueller validating their Big Lie of Russia, Russia, Russia, and now they have nothing.

Their threats of impeachment are hollow and their resistance movement is breaking into factions about how much socialism they should offer to voters in 2020.

Party voters should direct their fury at leaders who led them to this bitter dead end.

The nation will soon forget the bad political theater, especially with another development moving toward center stage as Barr promised again to investigate the conduct of law enforcement and the intelligence agencies during and after the 2016 campaign, including the massive numbers of leaks.

At one point, he talked of possible “overreach” by top officials, then added: “But what we have to be concerned about is a few people at the top getting into their heads that they know better than the American people.”

At another point, he said, “We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon.”

The references are unmistakable and the strongest sign yet that Barr suspects wrongdoing in very high places. It’s also a sign that the worm is turning.

Dems got the special counsel investigation they demanded and were able to play offense against Trump since 2016. Now the focus shifts to the other side of the story — the plot to steal the election and then undermine a duly elected president.

Finally, we are getting to the history that matters most.

May 02, 2019 7:56 AM  
Anonymous HRC said...

“China, if you’re listening, why don’t you get Trump’s tax returns? I’m sure our media would richly reward you.”

May 02, 2019 8:07 AM  
Anonymous humorous....LOL said...

"Rump is the only president in the history of Gallup polling never to earn the support of a majority of Americans even for a single day of his term.”

Amazing stat.

Here's more: he had the worst favorability rating of any major party candidate in history and won

why?

most consider the Dem Party unacceptable

that won't change by November 2020

the Attorney General is currently investigating the attempt to overthrow the 2016 election

don't expect Dems to get an image upgrade

polls show Americans have a lower view of Hillary than Trump

same for Dem leaders in Congress: Pelosi in the House and Schumer in Senate both have lower ratings than Trump

all this, despite the media acting as a branch of the Democratic National Committee

May 02, 2019 8:13 AM  
Anonymous Patti Davis said...

Patti Davis is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Wrong Side of Night” and the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

Dear Republican Party,

I have never been part of you, but you have been part of my family for decades. I was 10 years old when my father decided to stop being a Democrat and instead become a Republican. From that point on, you were a frequent guest at our dinner table — and an unwelcome one to me. I wanted to talk about my science project on the human heart, or the mean girls at school who teased me for being too tall and for wearing glasses. Instead, much of the conversation was about how the government was taking too much out of people’s paychecks for taxes and how it was up to the Republicans to keep government from getting too big.

You went from an annoying presence at the dinner table to a powerful tornado, lifting up my family and depositing us in the world of politics, which no one ever escapes. I know it’s not completely your fault. My father’s passion for America, his commitment to try to make a difference in the country and the world, and his gentle yet powerful command over crowds that gathered to hear him speak made his ascent to the presidency all but inevitable. He would have gotten there one way or another; it just happened to be as a Republican.

You have claimed his legacy, exalted him as an icon of conservatism and used the quotes of his that serve your purpose at any given moment. Yet at this moment in America’s history when the democracy to which my father pledged himself and the Constitution that he swore to uphold, and did faithfully uphold, are being degraded and chipped away at by a sneering, irreverent man who traffics in bullying and dishonesty, you stay silent.

You stay silent when President Trump speaks of immigrants as if they are trash, rips children from the arms of their parents and puts them in cages. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that my father said America was home “for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness.”

May 02, 2019 11:11 AM  
Anonymous Patti Davis said...

You stayed silent when this president fawned over Kim Jong Un and took Vladimir Putin’s word over America’s security experts. You stood mutely by when one of his spokesmen, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said there is nothing wrong with getting information from Russians. And now you do not act when Trump openly defies legitimate requests from Congress, showing his utter contempt for one of the branches of our government.

Most egregiously, you remained silent when Trump said there were “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis who marched through an American city with tiki torches, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

Those of us who are not Republicans still have a right to expect you to act in a principled, moral and, yes, even noble way. Our democracy is in trouble, and everyone who has been elected to office has an obligation to save it. Maybe you’re frightened of Trump — that idea has been floated. I don’t quite understand what’s frightening about an overgrown child who resorts to name-calling, but if that is the case, then my response is: You are grown men and women. Get over it.

My father called America “the shining city on a hill.” Trump sees America as another of his possessions that he can slap his name on. A president is not supposed to own America. He or she is supposed to serve the American people.

In their book “How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt warned: “How do elected authoritarians shatter the democratic institutions that are supposed to constrain them? Some do it in one fell swoop. But more often the assault on democracy begins slowly.”

Trump has been wounding our democracy for the past two years. If he is reelected for another term, it’s almost a given that America will not survive — at least not as the country the Founding Fathers envisioned, and not as the idealistic experiment they built using a Constitution designed to protect democracy and withstand tyranny.

My father knew we were fragile. He said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.”

May 02, 2019 11:12 AM  
Anonymous Bill Barr "No, I didn't exonerate" said...

Bill Barr, made this headline yesterday:

"No, I didn't exonerate. I said that we did not believe that there was sufficient evidence to establish an obstruction offense which is the job of the justice department."

So much for "TOTAL EXONERATION!"

May 02, 2019 12:39 PM  
Anonymous As long as he's sure ..... LMAO said...

"Bill Barr just finished testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It was remarkable.

Among the opinions the Attorney General espoused are that:

You only need to call the FBI when being offered campaign assistance by a foreign intelligence service, not a foreigner

It’s okay to lie about the many dangles hostile foreign countries make to a political campaign, including if you accepted those dangles

Because Trump was being falsely accused (it’s not clear of what, because the report doesn’t address the most aggressive accusation, and many other accusations against Trump and his campaign are born out by the Mueller Report), it’s okay that he sought to undermine it through illegal means

It’s okay for the President to order the White House Counsel to lie, even about an ongoing investigation

It’s okay to fire the FBI Director for refusing to confirm or deny an ongoing investigation, which is DOJ policy not to do

It’s okay for the Attorney General to call lawfully predicated DOJ investigative techniques “spying” because Fox News does

Public statements — including threatening someone’s family — cannot be subornation of perjury

You can exhaust investigative options in a case having only obtained contemptuous responses covering just a third of the investigation from the key subject of it"

The Attorney General also got himself in significant trouble with his answers to a question from Charlie Crist about whether he knew why Mueller’s team was concerned about press reports. His first answer was that he didn’t know about the team’s concerns because he only spoke with Mueller. But he later described, in the phone call he had with Mueller, that Mueller discussed his team’s concerns. Worse still, when called on the fact that the letter — as opposed to Barr’s potentially suspect representation of the call — didn’t mention the press response, he suggested Mueller’s letter was “snitty” and so probably written by a staffer, meaning he assumed that the letter itself was actually from a staffer.

But that’s not the most amazing thing.

The most amazing thing is that, when Cory Booker asked Barr if he thought it was right to share polling data with Russians — noting that had Trump done so with a Super PAC, rather than a hostile foreign country, it would be illegal — Barr appeared to have no clue that Paul Manafort had done so. He even asked whom Manafort shared the data with, apparently not knowing he shared it with a guy that Rick Gates said he believes is a Russian spy.

That’s remarkable, because he basically agreed with Ben Sasse that Deripaska — with whom Manafort was sharing this campaign data — was a “bottom-feeding scum-sucker.”

So the Attorney General absolved the President of obstruction without having the faintest clue what actions the investigation of which Trump successfully obstructed by floating a pardon to Manafort.

There may be an explanation for this fairly shocking admission on Barr’s part. He also admitted that he and Rod Rosenstein started making the decision on obstruction before they read the report. Indeed, several times during the hearing, it seemed he still has not read the report, as he was unfamiliar with allegations in it.

In short, the Attorney General said it was okay for Trump to obstruct this investigation because (he claims) Trump was falsely accused, without being aware that the report showed that several of the key allegations against Trump — including that his campaign manager coordinated with Russians, including one Barr agrees is a bottom-feeding scum-sucker” with ties to Russian intelligence — were actually true.

May 02, 2019 12:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

President Donald Trump offered yet another strangely out-of-season shoutout to Christmas on Wednesday night and once again took credit for people saying “Merry Christmas.”

Speaking at an interfaith dinner ahead of Thursday’s National Day of Prayer, Trump said:

“Now everyone’s very proud to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again. There was a time when we went shopping and you wouldn’t see ‘Merry Christmas’ on the stores, you’d see a red wall and it wouldn’t say that, it would say ‘Happy Holidays’ or something, but it wouldn’t say ’Merry Christmas.’ We’re back to saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again in this country and that’s something I consider a great achievement because it really spells out what’s happening.”

As if we needed more evidence Rump is losing it...

Maybe someone should tell him no one's saying "Merry Christmas" because it's *MAY* before he breaks his arm patting himself on the back for winning a non-existent war.

May 02, 2019 1:35 PM  
Anonymous someone's gonna get re-elected and the judges will keep on coming.... said...

Bad news for TTF: America is doing great!!

The U.S. created 263,000 new jobs in April to help drive the unemployment rate down to a 49-year low of 3.6%, the latest cue pointing to a rebound in the economy after a slow start in the new year.

The increase in hiring was concentrated at white-collar businesses, construction and health care.

The unemployment rate slipped to 3.6% from 3.8% in March, marking the lowest level since December 1969, the Labor Department said.

The increase in new jobs easily topped the 217,000 forecast of economists surveyed by MarketWatch.

The amount of money the average worker earns, meanwhile, rose 6 cents to $27.77 an hour.

Professional and business services added 76,000 jobs, continuing a torrid steak under which total employment has risen by more than a half million in the past year.

Construction companies boosted payrolls by 33,000, the second straight solid gain.

Health-care providers hired 27,000 people and employment in social assistance climbed by 26,000.

Government jobs rose by 27,000. The federal government is already starting to hire workers for the 2020 Census.

Big picture: The economy got off to a rocky start in 2019, but growth appears to have picked up with spring underway. The most muscular labor market in arguably half a century is the chief reason why.

The record number of people working has supported a steady increase in demand for goods and services, giving businesses little reason to cut staff, especially with skilled workers so hard to find.

The result is a steadily expanding economy that will set a record for longest expansion ever at the end of June. At the same time, inflation remains under control even as wages rise, because of a long-sought increase in productivity.

May 03, 2019 9:19 AM  
Anonymous Max Boot said...

In his new book, The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right, Max Boot goes further than the handful of other prominent Republicans who have stood against Donald Trump and reconsiders the conservative movement writ large. He sat down to discuss his epiphany with Washington bureau chief David Corn for the Mother Jones Podcast.
These are just a few snippets – the rest and a full podcast are here:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/10/destroy-the-republican-party-max-boot-calls-for-a-clean-start/

DC: You’ve been moved to reconsider much more than just Iraq. You wrote, “I am now convinced that coded racial appeals—those dog whistles—had at least as much, if not more, to do with the electoral success of the modern Repub¬lican Party than all of the domestic and foreign policy proposals crafted by well--intentioned analysts like me. This is what liberals have been saying for decades while accusing the Republican Party of racism. I never believed them. Now I do.” When did Boot become woke?
MB: I’m ashamed to admit that it took the emergence of Donald Trump. I was in my conservative bunker, and I thought this was a gross libel against the Republican Party to claim that we were catering to racism, or that it was a libel on America to claim that America was a pervasively racist society. And then Trump came along and I realized, “Wait a second. There is a much larger constituency for racism and xenophobia than I had realized.” And it made me think, “Oh, my goodness. This is why a lot of people were voting Republican.” It wasn’t because they loved supply-side economics. It wasn’t because they supported NATO. It was because they were looking for a candidate who would champion the interests of white people. And Donald Trump did that more unabashedly and more unapologetically than previous Republican candidates had done. That was a wake-up call. And then of course I saw other examples of racism coming to the fore in ways that were undeniable, like all these videotapes of police officers killing and abusing African Americans. The evidence is right there, on the tape. You can’t deny it. African Americans have been saying for years that they have been the victims of racist police, but I tended to believe the police officers. Same with the #MeToo movement, which made me realize, “Hey, feminists have a point when they talk about the abuses of patriarchal society and the suffering that women endure in America.” To be clear, I’m not buying into some kind of anti-American worldview. We have made real progress, but I think we have a long way to go. I think a lot of my fellow conservatives are in denial about the state of modern America.

May 03, 2019 10:56 AM  
Anonymous Max Boot said...

DC: To me, this part of your book is fascinating. Because the Iraq War, it’s a policy mistake. But race is really one of the fundamental debates and divides we have. And it’s been an article of faith, on the conservative side, that they have been libeled on this front. We see a hue and cry anytime Republicans are confronted with this issue. Why this inability to see at least a portion of this?

MB: I can talk about my own blindness. I thought, “I’m not racist. And I’m a Republican. So it seems like a gross libel to accuse Republicans and conservatives of being racist if I personally am not racist.” And what I’ve realized is there are a lot of racists that the Republican Party is appealing to. There’s also been a disconnect between what Republicans do in office and what they do on the campaign trail. Because going back to 1964, when the parties basically switched positions on civil rights, Republicans have been appealing for white votes with coded racial appeals. Whether it was Nixon’s Southern strategy, or in 1980 Ronald Reagan kicking off his general election campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, or the Willie Horton ad from George H.W. Bush. You can point to all these examples. But when you look at the actual Republican presidents and leaders, I think they were actually decent people who weren’t delivering on this white-power agenda that a lot of their supporters might have been led to think they would deliver on. And so you had a disconnect between the Republican Party on the campaign trail and the Republican Party in power. Trump exploited that, because he has no compunctions about doing in office the kind of things that previous Republican standard-bearers only hinted at on the campaign trail. And he is tapping into frustration in ranks with what they see as being RINOs, as Republicans in Name Only. What I think they mean by that is candidates who did not deliver on the kind of racist, xenophobic, white-power agenda that a lot of Republicans would actually like to see. Before Donald Trump, the Republican Party was a majority conservative party with a white nationalist fringe. Now it’s a white nationalist party with a conservative fringe.

May 03, 2019 10:59 AM  
Anonymous Max Boot said...

DC: You saw people lining up behind Trump when he got the nomination. It seems to have prompted a crisis of faith within you.
MB: Yes, it has. I wrote in 2016 that Donald Trump was a character test. And sadly, almost the entire Republican Party has failed. I am appalled to see people who I think are essentially decent, like Paul Ryan or George W. Bush, still campaigning for Republican candidates. They somehow disassociate ordinary Republicans from Donald Trump. But what we’ve seen consistently since Trump came into office is there is no separation. The Republican Party is now the Trump party. As John Boehner said, the real Republican Party is off taking a nap somewhere. This is the Trump party. They’ve basically made a Faustian bargain, where they say, “Give us judges and tax cuts and we’ll look the other way, at your racism, your xenophobia, your insanity, your attacks on our allies.” They’ve basically sold out for the judges and for the tax cuts. And for me it’s an appalling bargain.

DC: Is there any difference now between conservatism and Trumpism?

MB: There is a small group of “Never Trump” conservatives. But it is a small group, and I’ve actually been surprised that there are not more of us. There’s enough of us for a dinner party, not a political party. I wish there were more. Within the grassroots, a lot of people really love the Trump message, the racism, the xenophobia, the nonstop insults against liberals. That’s actually what they like most about him. And in Washington, there are a lot of cynical people who say, “Well, Trump has the support of 84 percent of Republicans, so we can’t get on his bad side.” These people that I used to admire have sold out their principles. Nobody’s more shocked and surprised than I am. This is a movement to which I dedicated my whole life. And now I realize, what the hell was that about? Who were these people? They’re not who I thought they were.

May 03, 2019 11:01 AM  
Anonymous Max Boot said...

DC: But what does it mean for you, personally, to be untethered in this way?

MB: It makes me realize how much of American politics is tribal and how little of it has to do with principles or ideas. The reason why so many people are Republicans is because they hate Democrats; the actual substance of what Republicans stand for almost doesn’t matter. And that’s been a shocking realization. I re¬registered as an independent the day after the election and no longer think of myself as a member of that community. On a personal level, it’s been a difficult experience because much of my identity was tied up in the conservative movement. And it’s hard for me to talk to a lot of my friends—the gap between us is so wide. But I’ve also realized the extent to which I had tailored my public statements to what the movement would find acceptable. I didn’t say anything I didn’t believe in, but there was a lot of stuff that I just didn’t comment on. I think it’s crazy that Republicans are opposed to all gun control when we have such a rampant problem with gun violence. But I just never tackled it. Or when Republicans deny climate change, which is a scientific fact, I didn’t deal with it. I just stayed in my lane, foreign policy and national security policy, and ignored the craziness all around me. I went with the tribe. I took the path of least resistance, and now it’s making me realize, no, I’ve got to think for myself, and that’s something very few people do, because being part of one of these political tribes, as much as anything, is a substitute for thought. So it’s been both chastening and liberating to escape from that stifling orthodoxy.

DC: In the book, you write, “Only if the GOP as currently constituted is burned to the ground will there be any chance to build a reasonable center-right political party out of the ashes.” So your position now, Max, is burn, baby, burn. It sounds like the old Marxists.

MB: I respect some of my friends trying to work on reforming the Republican Party, but at least for the time being, I think it’s a lost cause. So my hope is that the Republican Party will suffer massive and repeated drubbings at the ballot box. That’s why I urge everybody to vote straight-ticket Democratic even though I have a lot of disagreements with Democrats. I’m not a Democrat; I’m an independent. But for the health of our republic, I think we need to destroy the Republican Party. We need congressional oversight of Donald Trump, which you’re never going to get out of Republicans. I think you need to punish the Republicans for taking these appalling positions, abusing minorities, championing white nationalism, isolationism, protectionism. The only way to wean them from that is to punish them electorally.

May 03, 2019 11:04 AM  
Anonymous Look who is leaving the sinking ship said...

The longest-serving Republican in the Iowa Legislature said he's leaving the party, in part because of his disapproval with President Donald Trump.

Rep. Andy McKean, who represents Anamosa in the state House of Representatives, announced Tuesday that he plans to register as a Democrat and vote with the minority caucus.

"With the 2020 presidential election looming on the horizon, I feel, as a Republican, that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party," McKean said during a news conference at the Capitol. "Unfortunately, that's something I'm unable to do."

McKean said Trump is just one part of a bigger national trend of partisanship that made him feel out of place in the Republican caucus. McKean said when he joined the Iowa Statehouse 40 years ago, there were many moderates in the Republican Party. But now, he said, the ranks have thinned.

"I think the party has veered very sharply to the right," McKean said. "That concerns me."
House Minority Leader Todd Prichard, the top Democrat in the chamber, confirmed McKean's plans earlier Tuesday and joined him at the news conference.

"The Democratic party is a big tent, it's got a wide range of views and ideas," the Charles City lawmaker said. "We're pleased to have Andy's experience and ideas as part of our discussion when we go to caucus."

McKean had a "no party" affiliation on the Iowa Legislature website briefly Tuesday before updating it to reflect that he now identifies as a Democrat. According to the site, McKean has left his Republican committee assignments.

May 03, 2019 11:16 AM  
Anonymous Dems are doomed said...

when AG Barr last visited Congress he informed he was investigating Obama spying on the Trump campaign and the involvement of the Obama administration and the Hillary campaign in providing false information to Congress and the FBI to instigate an investigation of the Trump campaign

now, they are threatening to impeach him on very dubious grounds

why is that not obstruction of justice?

May 03, 2019 1:24 PM  
Anonymous SAD......LOL said...

They didn't teach you about that at Harvard Law?

Imagine that.

May 03, 2019 2:15 PM  
Anonymous lowest unemployment since 1969 because of Trump policies said...


well, I never said I went to Harvard Law

as a matter of fact, I was more specific than usual and said I went to a local school

Barack Obama did go to Harvard law, however, and lost more constitutional challenges than any President in history

I've noted that Trump can't be accused of obstruction for exercising the duties of his office

but for the jackasses who think that he can, I've pointed out that the situation with Dems in Congress is exactly the same

Barr said he would investigate Dem crimes in connection the Russian hoax

and first chance Dems get, they are threatening to fire him

so my question, "why is that not obstruction of justice?"

is directed at jackasses like you, SAD LOL

I know you have a low IQ but even you should see I'm pointing out what hypocrites Dems and you, SAD LOL, are

May 03, 2019 2:40 PM  
Anonymous Nixonian indeed said...

"Her daily habit of documenting conversations and meetings provided the special counsel’s office with its version of the Nixon White House tapes: a running account of the president’s actions, albeit in sentence fragments and concise descriptions.

Among the episodes memorialized in Donaldson’s notes and memos: the president’s outrage when FBI Director James B. Comey confirmed the existence of the investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump’s efforts to pressure Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from overseeing the probe and his push to get Mueller disqualified and removed as the special counsel.

The Harvard Law School graduate’s [ooo la la, she graduated![ unflinching words — “Just in the middle of another Russia Fiasco,” she wrote on March 2, 2017 — have cast the die-hard Republican in an unfamiliar role: as a truth teller heralded by Trump’s foes for providing what they view as proof he is unfit for office.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has already signaled that he intends to subpoena Donaldson as a critical witness.

Donaldson — who lives in Montgomery, Ala., where her husband recently got a job as a federal prosecutor — did not respond to requests for comment. She left the White House in December, both proud of her service and also somewhat stung by her experience in Washington, friends said.

Those close to Donaldson fear she will be thrust in the middle of the building war between congressional Democrats and the White House. Some privately worry she could become a target of the president, despite having worked hard to help implement his agenda..."

Donaldson's commitment to truth cannot be tolerated by Trump, who will get his friends at FOX to try to Blasey-Ford her for doing her job honestly, something our lying President is incapable of.

This is who Rump picked to be our AG:

BARR: “IT’S NOT A CRIME” FOR TRUMP TO DEMAND STAFFERS LIE TO INVESTIGATORS

May 03, 2019 4:41 PM  
Anonymous bad news for TTF: America is great again ! said...


The labor market the United States is experiencing right now wasn’t supposed to be possible.

Not that long ago, the overwhelming consensus among economists would have been that you couldn’t have a 3.6 percent unemployment rate without also seeing the rate of job creation slowing (where are new workers going to come from with so few out of work, after all?) and having an inflation surge (a worker shortage should mean employers bidding up wages, right?).

And yet that is what has happened, with the April employment numbers putting an exclamation point on the trend. The jobless rate receded to its lowest level in five decades. Employers also added 263,000 jobs; the job creation estimates of previous months were revised up; and average hourly earnings continued to rise at a steady rate — up 3.2 percent over the last year.

Compare that reality with the projections the Federal Reserve published just three years ago. In mid-2016, Fed officials thought that the long-run rate of unemployment would be around 4.8 percent.

If that were the jobless rate today, 1.9 million Americans would not be working who are instead gainfully employed. And despite this ultralow unemployment rate, inflation is only 1.6 percent over the last year, below the level the Fed aims for.

After more than two years of the Trump administration, warnings that trade wars and erratic management style would throw the economy off course have proved wrong so far, and tax cuts and deregulation are most likely part of the reason for the strong growth rates in 2018 and the beginning of 2019.

In particular, it now appears that recession fears that emerged at the end of 2018 were misguided — especially once the Fed backed off its campaign of rate increases at the start of 2019.

But there’s a bigger lesson in the job market’s remarkably strong performance: about the limits of knowledge when it comes to something as complex as the $20 trillion U.S. economy.

The last few years have made it clear that the Phillips curve — the relationship between unemployment and inflation — has either changed shape or become irrelevant.

The breakdown of the old guidelines suggests that policymakers need to avoid overreliance on them, and to stay broad-minded to the full range of economic possibilities. Maybe using data from a few decades in the middle of the 20th century to set policy in the 21st isn’t actually a good idea.

The results of the last few years make you wonder whether we’ve been too pessimistic about just how hot the United States economy can run without inflation or other negative effects.

There are signs that the tight labor market may be contributing to a surge in worker productivity, which if sustained would fuel higher wages and living standards over time. That further supports the case for the Fed and other policymakers to let the expansion rip rather than trying to hold it back.

The continued boom in the American job market suggests that economic policymakers need to be open-minded about when the old relationships and rules of thumb no longer apply.

May 03, 2019 4:41 PM  
Anonymous It's funny how great things look when you cherry pick the data said...

President Trump has taken important steps to improve trade deals with foreign nations that allow American workers and businesses to compete. Although he is right to take action to solve these issues, raising tariffs and setting quotas places a burden on Americans. Protectionist policies are hurting the economy, causing job loss and negating the gains from recent tax reforms, according to a report released by Trade Partnership Worldwide.


New U.S. tariffs, in combination with China’s failure to respect intellectual property rights and rule of law, have trigged a trade war between the two nations. As of November 2018, tariffs affected $255 billion worth of imports, while foreign tariffs affected $124 billion of American exports. In response, China has threatened to increase their tariffs, potentially impacting an additional $290 billion in exports.


The administration's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs have been similarly harmful to global trade and have opened the door to retaliatory tariffs. Mexico, Canada, Turkey, the EU, and Russia have responded with increased tariffs, causing a decrease of American exports by 36.7 percent.

According to the study, the threatened tariffs, which include Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, 25 percent tariffs on China, and tariffs on automobiles could result in annual GDP loss of 1.04 percent, costing a family of four $2,389 per year, and costing the U.S. 2.2 million jobs.

This trade action is clearly harming American businesses - Harley Davidson announced they will be relocating some of their production overseas, claiming the only way they can sustain sales is avoiding EU tariffs. This is not an isolated case – trade barriers lead to increased cost to the producer and consumer, which means less buyers, and in turn, layoffs.
Free trade is vital for America’s economy and employment. International trade directly impacts more than 20 percent of all jobs in America, totaling close to 41 million. Historically, tariffs have failed America, prolonging the Great Depression and declining trade. Since World War II, the United States has decreased trade barriers with bipartisan support and success. This has paid enormous dividends domestically and abroad. The United States must continue this trend.
Tariffs’ negative effects, such as unemployment and declined trade and spending, far outweigh the temporary benefits. While President Trump is right to fight for American jobs and businesses, these protectionist policies risk undercutting all the good his administration has achieved for the economy thus far. America should lower its tariffs, and abandon any plans to implement more, to protect U.S. workers and the economy.

May 03, 2019 4:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The continued boom in the American job market suggests that economic policymakers need to be open-minded about when the old relationships and rules of thumb no longer apply."

This sounds a lot like the "new economy" claims pundits were making before the dot-com bubble burst... and the housing market bubble burst.

It was no new economy. It was the same old economy with a new investment bubble to burst. Most people didn't realize that before it was too late.

Wages haven't gone up because there are other segments of the market laying people off thanks to the Rump tariffs. You don't need to raise wages when you can hire newly unemployed workers from other segments of the economy.

If there's anything we should have learned in economics from the last 20 years, it's when people starting talking about things like "new economy" and "the old rules don't apply any more" too much, it's time to start selling your stock and lock in your gains.

May 03, 2019 5:06 PM  
Anonymous I got 2020 vision said...

"If there's anything we should have learned in economics from the last 20 years, it's when people starting talking about things like "new economy" and "the old rules don't apply any more" too much, it's time to start selling your stock and lock in your gains."

an ignorant comment wrapping up a ignorant longer comment

there is no bubble waiting to burst

job gains are substantive and real, across sectors and among every demographic

minorities are sharing in the prosperity

this is a contrast to Obama, who borrowed more money than all the Presidents in history and enjoyed zero interest rates created by a Fed deeply concerned about the tepid Obama economy

and still presided over a sluggish and called that the new "normal"

he said we'd never see employment this low and growth this high or a viable manufacturing sector again

face it, Dems have lost all credibility about economic issues

May 04, 2019 8:25 AM  
Anonymous words from a rational observer said...

The economy is strong, unemployment is low and wages are rising, according to the latest economic data released Friday, which is in stark contrast to what the vast majority of elite economic opinion predicted just a few years ago from a Trump presidency.

The latest unemployment report has joblessness at 3.6 percent. Where is the Trump Armageddon Squad now?

What’s even more egregious is that the same folks predicting the end of the world refuse to provide sane analysis of radical proposals dribbling out of the mouths of the Democrats. They report on Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal and college debt forgiveness as if these cockamamie ideas will have no impact on the economy.

First some full disclosure: While I was never a naysayer in the camp of Paul Krugman, I was never fully aboard the Trump economic train. I worried about his occasional dumb, off-hand remarks on finance — he once blurted out he could renegotiate debt payments without understanding it was a form of default, which would lead to massively higher interest rates and lots of bad stuff to follow.

I continue to worry about his trade policies; while it’s fine to call out China for its bad behavior, going to trade war with the world as Trump sometimes suggests will lead to higher unemployment and inflation. Sometimes it seems Trump doesn’t understand that US manufacturers need Chinese buyers.

But I have read enough economics from the likes of Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek (and yes, those great economists who put it to practical use such as Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan) to know there was plenty good in the Trump plan that he ran on back in 2016 and continues to propose today.

That’s why unemployment is where it is: Cutting taxes on individuals and businesses often propels economic growth because people — not inefficient governments — make the best decisions about where to allocate capital. And I said as much on these pages both before and after Trumps presidency.

Not so for many of my fellow pundits. For example, if you relied on the Washington Post just a month before Election Day 2016, you would think the economy was on the brink of disaster. “A President Trump Could Destroy the World,” screamed one headline from its editorial page, which predicted economic collapse because of Trump’s nationalist trade policies, ignoring, of course, he was proposing one of the largest fiscal stimulus’ in years though his tax plan and deregulation.

Politico wrote that “Wall Street is set up for a major crash if Donald Trump shocks the world on Election Day and wins the White House,” in a piece citing various economists.

These geniuses believed a day of market volatility when it seemed like Trump might beat Hillary Clinton was evidence that stocks wouldn’t recover once the massive corporate tax cut from a Trump presidency kicked in (which is exactly what happened after futures sold off on election night).

No list of bad calls on the Trump economy would be complete without mentioning the not-so-sage words of The New York Times in-house economist and columnist Krugman.

It wasn’t too long ago that Krugman won the Noble prize in economics, which is startling given this bizarre post Trump election prediction: “So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”

What school of economics was he following? Krugman doesn’t really say even as he continues to spew dreck predicting a severe economic collapse that never seems to come.

Again, we all make mistakes, and even a few of the Trump doubters such as entrepreneur Mark Cuban (famous for tweeting, “In the event that @realDonaldTrump wins, I have no doubt in my mind that the market tanks”) have more recently owned up to theirs.

The vast majority haven’t. Even worse they have ignored the revolutionary dumb economics of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic candidates, who if in the driver’s seat, would really steer the economy and the markets over the cliff.

May 04, 2019 8:56 AM  
Anonymous Stop ignoring all the data said...

The economy looks great, if you cherry-pick the data...

The latest drop in the unemployment rate was for the wrong reason

By Jeffry Bartash

"Nearly half a million people stop looking for work in April

The nation’s unemployment rate sank in April to the lowest rate since December 1969, but the milestone comes with a big caveat: The decline stemmed from more people quitting their search for work.

The jobless rate slipped to 3.6% last month from 3.8% in March, continuing a long downward arc from a 27-year high of 10% in 2009. Yet that doesn’t mean there aren’t some potential trouble spots.

Take the size of the labor force. It contracted in April by nearly half a million people and fell for the fourth straight month.

The last time the labor force fell four months in a row was during the waning stages of the 2007-2009 Great Recession. And before that one has to go back to 1950.

As a result, the so-called labor-force participation rate slipped to 62.8% from a six-year high of 63.2% in January. That is, every 63 of 100 able-bodied Americans 16 or older either have a job or are seeking one.

The shrinking labor force “is the primary factor behind the unexpected decline in the unemployment rate,” noted chief economist Richard Moody of Regions Financial.

Or as economists like to say, the unemployment rate fell for the wrong reason."

This easily explains why we're not having an inflation problem yet - there are still plenty of unemployed people out there willing to work if they can find a job that pays enough. As such, there is little upward pressure on wages.

This isn't some new economy that's doing amazingly well, it's the same old economy with Rump sycophants spinning the data to make things look amazingly well while ignoring all data that doesn't fit their agenda.

Right now, the labor force participation rate is sitting roughly at the same level it was back in the late '70s - back when Carter was president:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/labor-force-participation-rate

(Expand the graph to the "MAX" view.)

The biggest differences between now and then is back then, Regan hadn't tripled that national debt yet. And we were still suffering the inflationary consequences of Nixon suddenly taking the US of the gold standard (because some dudes in Britain did some math and realized the US couldn't possibly have enough gold reserves to cover their debt and decided to cash in their chips before everyone else figured it out).

May 04, 2019 10:05 AM  
Anonymous Flip Floppin' said...

Donald Trump Calls Unemployment Rate One of the "Biggest Hoaxes in Politics"

May 04, 2019 11:15 AM  
Anonymous Correction said...

"this is a contrast to Obama, who borrowed more money than all the Presidents in history and enjoyed zero interest rates created by a Fed deeply concerned about the" DIASTEROUS BUSH RECESSION.

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

May 04, 2019 11:55 AM  
Anonymous I got 2020 vision said...

"As a result, the so-called labor-force participation rate slipped to 62.8% from a six-year high of 63.2% in January. That is, every 63 of 100 able-bodied Americans 16 or older either have a job or are seeking one.

The shrinking labor force “is the primary factor behind the unexpected decline in the unemployment rate,” noted chief economist Richard Moody of Regions Financial."

And you accuse me of "cheery-picking"?

Sheeeeesh!!

It's true that is part of the difference from last month but, still, about twice as many jobs were created during the month than the economic "experts" predicted. Further, past months were upgraded.

More importantly, Obama's years were when the labor participation rate fell precipitously.

That hasn't happened under Trump.

Obama and Dems said his tepid economy was the new normal.

Millions of people who are now employed, and wouldn't be if Hillary had been elected, are grateful!

What planet are the Democrats on?

I ask that question for two reasons. First, because the 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner happily ignores China, America's preeminent threat. Second, because Democrats seem determined to destroy an economic model that is producing record benefits to individuals in society — and in particular to the lower-income workers they claim to support.

Consider the latest unemployment data released Friday. Alongside an increase in productivity of 3.6%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the unemployment rate fell to 3.6% over the first quarter 2019. That's the lowest rate since we first landed on the moon. And that 3.6% matching speaks to an economy that is growing, dynamic, and moral. Consider that the data also shows Hispanic unemployment is now at just 4.2%. Aside from static year-on-year changes in (still very low) unemployment for blacks, and a 0.2% year-on-year increase in unemployment for teenagers, the economy is boosting employment for every listed demographic subset.

Yet Democrats say that Trump's economy is somehow immoral. When they aren't trying to assign credit for it to Obama, they claim that it punishes the middle class and the poor. And so, rather than doubling down on the economic fortune we now find, Democrats are pledging to shred Trump's corporate tax reforms, escalate regulation, and increase state control in the economy.

This is insane.

Why don't Democrats ask themselves why it is that only teenage or youth unemployment is increasing. Might it be due to state and local minimum wage laws pricing out of the workforce those with the least skill? Democrats don't want to hear the answer to that.

Don't get me wrong, we should be polite in discussing these issues. But we should also be bold and relentless. Democrats are trying to craft an economic morality narrative that flies in the face of the Republican policies that are actually making the economy and lives better. It's an unsustainable level of insincerity on their part.

From my point of view, there will be two critical concerns in November 2020: the economy and countering China. At the moment, Trump is by far the better candidate on both of those fronts.

May 04, 2019 12:53 PM  
Anonymous Yellow Bellied Flip Floppin' said...

Lindsey Graham✔
@LindseyGrahamSC

If there was ever any doubt that @realDonaldTrump should not be our commander in chief, this stupid statement should end all doubt.

1:19 PM - Jul 18, 2015

Lindsey Graham✔
@LindseyGrahamSC

.@RealDonaldTrump unrelenting & offensive comments about @MegynKelly puts the @GOP at a crossroads w/Mr. Trump

9:59 AM - Aug 8, 2015


Lindsey Graham✔
@LindseyGrahamSC

Donald Trump gets his foreign policy from watching television - the Cartoon Network. #CNNDebate #ReadyToLead

8:34 PM - Sep 16, 2015

Lindsey Graham✔
@LindseyGrahamSC

Just when you think it can’t get worse: A leading American candidate for President praising Putin.

7:06 PM - Dec 17, 2015

Lindsey Graham✔
@LindseyGrahamSC

Donald Trump is not a conservative Republican. He's an opportunist. He's not fit to be President of the United States.

10:25 AM - Feb 17, 2016

Lindsey Graham✔
@LindseyGrahamSC

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.

5:03 PM - May 3, 2016

May 04, 2019 3:23 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Evangelical christians applaud Trump allowing health care providers to refuse to help lgbt patients, even in an emergency

Not too long ago, paramedics showed up to an accident and started trying to save the life of a transwoman. They, upon realizing she was trans, stopped working on her and let her die. This is what Trump's executive order allows for and what christians like Wyatt and Regina Hardiman want more of.

During the 2016 election, Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous repeatedly insisted Trump was the most gay friendly presidential candidate in history and that gays would be better off voting for Trump than Hillary. The truth is that Trump always planned to attack gays to please his evangelical christian supporters and has unleashed a vicious attack on lgbt people since he was illegitimately elected. And Wyatt/Regina lied repeatedly to lgbt people to try and get them to vote for their own oppression. Wyatt and Regina Hardiman don't abide by any moral code.

Republicans value this freedom to refuse to help someone in need of medical attention, even in an emergency, but refusing to serve Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a restaurant is the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone. The hypocrisy is shameful and non-stop.

May 04, 2019 3:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Republicans & Conservatives: God and religion should control our government.

Muslims, ISIS & Sharia law: God and religion should control out government
-------------------------


Republicans & conservatives: Children should be forced to pray in schools.

Muslims, ISIS & Sharia law: Children should be forced to pray in schools.
----------------------------------


Republicans & conservatives: 100% focused on wars

Muslims, ISIS & Sharia law: 100% focused on wars
------------------------------


Republicans & consrevatives: Against women's rights

Muslims, ISIS & Sharia law: Against women's rights
-------------------------------


Republicans & conservatives: Fox News in the U.S. is owned by the Saudi Prince & Rupert Murdock

Muslims, ISIS & Sharia law: Al Resalah TV in the Middle East is owned by the Saudi Prince & Murdock
------------------------


Republicans & conservatives: Political religious leaders are filthy rich.

Muslims, ISIS & Sharia law: Political religious leaders are filthy rich.
------------------------------


Republicans & conservatives: Oppose sex education, contraceptives and gays.

Muslims, ISIS & Sharia law: Oppose sex education, contraceptives and gays.

May 04, 2019 3:49 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Recent polls show almost all of the 22 Democratic presidential nominee candidates beat Trump in a 2020 match-up by several points.

Trump is the only president in the history of polling to never have had a majority of the public approving of his job. He's not even been close to majority favourability support.

As more and more about the 244 pages of Trump/Russia collusion the Mueller report documented comes out Trump has no where to go but down.

Trump won't be president in 2020, he'll be going to jail.

May 04, 2019 3:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If Republicans were moral and smart, they'd 25th amendment Trump immediately and then have their only chance to win in 2020 with Pence.

Would the country be better off with a president Pence than a President Trump? Beyond a shadow of a doubt it would. Trump is shitting all over the rule of law and trying to become a dictator.

Trump wasn't joking when he said "President for life, I like that, maybe we'll have to do that here.".

The choice for Republicans is stark - do you support continue American democracy or Trump?

May 04, 2019 4:06 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bigotry disguised as "religious liberty" is STILL bigotry.

May 04, 2019 4:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"First, because the 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner happily ignores China, America's preeminent threat."

Really? Listening to the Rumpster you'd think our biggest problem was Hispanic families fleeing their homes and seeking asylum here - you know, the ones he calls "illegal immigrants" - MS13 gang members that are coming up to kill and rape us?

Ironically MS13 started up in the Los Angeles prison system - where they learned how to be real thugs. It seems when we deported them back to where they came from they ran off the good people. That says a lot about our prison system.

"Democrats are trying to craft an economic morality narrative that flies in the face of the Republican policies that are actually making the economy and lives better. It's an unsustainable level of insincerity on their part."

All right, let's talk about some economic morality and unsustainable practices. When Obama took office so many people had been laid off that tax revenues dropped by half a TRILLION dollars a year. Part of it was because of Bush's unsustainable tax cuts, and a larger portion came from the collapse of a commodity trading system that had most of its regulations removed and many of the rest of them unenforced.

You can blame Obama for making those tax cuts permanent, which he never should have done - it should have been temporary and put back into place toward the end of his 2nd term to help minimize increasing debt.

As it was, you can blame Obama for a 74% increase in the national debt while he brought us out of Bush's recession. 74% sounds like a lot, until you remember that Ronnie Raygun shoved it up 186% and G.W. ran it up 101%.

Of course, Obama didn't invade another country on false premises and start a war we still haven't been able to get out of.

The Rumpster is on track to add $9.1 Trillion to the debt if he gets a second term. Obama only added $8.588 Trillion to get us out of the Bush fiasco years. Clinton handed Bush a good working economy, and Bush managed to run it into the ground. It remains to be seen if Rump is smart enough to avoid doing what Bush did. I'm not holding my breath.

Republicans think like DICK Cheney that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."

But that simply isn't the case. There simply isn't a case in history where a nation went on decades of deficit spending like the US has and didn't run itself into the ground. In fact, if you want to take some Republican credit, you can credit Ronnie Raygun and his "Star Wars" defense plan for scaring the Russians enough to spend themselves into the ground.

Rump's now doing the same thing to the US. I'm sure Putin would love to see that.

Our biggest economic moral issue isn't China. It's the disastrous head-long drive over the fiscal cliff that Republican trickle-down economics and borrow-and-spend, budget busting antics that are going to leave a future generation paying off our debts for what... decades? We won't be able to compete with China when the largest portion of our tax revenues go to pay interest on a huge debt that took off under Ronnie Raygun.

If you think I'm wrong, find ONE country in history that has managed to keep spending like we have and hasn't had to face miserable consequences.

May 04, 2019 4:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

On May 4, 1970, unarmed college students were fired on by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio during a mass protest against the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces, 4 students killed, 9 wounded.

Wyatt and Regina are blindly pushing to maximize Trump's totalitarian control over the American populace. This could happen again. And a lot more frequently.

May 04, 2019 5:16 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Thank god for Good Anonymous :)

Great analysis!

May 04, 2019 5:18 PM  
Anonymous Halou said...

"Trump has both annihilated the funding for, and in some instances even disbanded America's cyber defences while at the same time going out of his way to communicate with the Russians overtly and behind closed doors on electoral matters, and tried to make happen a joint US-Russian cyber task-force without consulting with US intel."

And yesterday Trump invited Putin to attack the 2020 election as he did in 2016. Trump knows he wouldn't be president if it weren't for the sweeping and systematic Russian attack on the 2016 election.

May 04, 2019 6:40 PM  
Anonymous Merrick, Goresuch & Kavanaugh....LOL!!!!!! said...

"All right, let's talk about some economic morality and unsustainable practices"

actually, we already did

Dems proposals would cause suffering among the people they claim to champion

raising taxes, over-regulating, the Green New Deal, Medicare for all would destroy our economic properity

note that the only group with rising unemployment is teenagers, the group most affected by raising minimum wages

"The Rumpster is on track to add $9.1 Trillion to the debt if he gets a second term. Obama only added $8.588 Trillion"

oh, Trump has plenty of plans to cut spending

when the Dems lose the House in 2020, that will happen

the chess pieces are in place

face it, Dems have lost all credibility about economic issues

"And yesterday Trump invited Putin to attack the 2020 election as he did in 2016."

the only thing Putin did to "attack" the 2016 election was to disclose Hillary campaign email and place ads on facebook with false ads

reporters and advocacy groups in America do the same all the time, an at a much higher volume

it's constitutionally protected activity

we have the resources to counter any such activity

Trump is only trying to schmooze Putin to take advantage of him to advance American interests

Dems set that back with their Russian hoax

some of them will going to jail for perjury and filing false reports with government agencies

right now, Dems are in full war against AG Barr to hinder his investigation into the Dems' Russian hoax

face it, Dems have lost all credibility about Russian activties

May 05, 2019 12:45 AM  
Anonymous fact of the matter said...

The persecution of Christians in parts of the world is at near "genocide" levels, according to a report ordered by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

The review, led by the Bishop of Truro the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen, estimated that one in three people suffer from religious persecution.

Christians were the most persecuted religious group, it found.

Mr Hunt said he felt that "political correctness" had played a part in the issue not being confronted.

The interim report said the main impact of "genocidal acts against Christians is exodus" and that Christianity faced being "wiped out" from parts of the Middle East.

It warned the religion "is at risk of disappearing" in some parts of the world, pointing to figures which claimed Christians in Palestine represent less than 1.5% of the population, while in Iraq they had fallen from 1.5 million before 2003 to less than 120,000.

"Evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution, but also its increasing severity," the Bishop wrote.

"In some regions, the level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN."

May 05, 2019 12:51 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great," Trump said of the
Chinese president. "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."


Trump's henchman Attorney General Bob Barr is breaking the law himself to protect Trump and Trump is making his move to seize dictatorial control over the United States.

This is for all the marbles folks, do you want the United States to be a democracy, or a Trump family dictatorship?

May 05, 2019 2:13 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Don't let Right Wing Authoritarians like Wyatt and Regina Hardiman lie to you like they did to gays and claim Trump's going to treat you nice if he gets elected in 2020 - Right Wing Authoritarians under a dictator like Trump will make life a living hell for you:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxxylK6fR81rckQxWi1hVFFRUDg/view

Decades of psychological research shows that conservatives believe in one rule of law for the rich, and a much harsher rule of law for the poor. Trump and the Republicans are the embodiment of this.

May 05, 2019 2:18 AM  
Anonymous Jerry Nadler, Chair, House Judiciary Committee said...

"Ladies and gentlemen, the challenge we face is that the President of the United States wants desperately to prevent Congress—a coequal branch of government—from providing any check whatsoever to even his most reckless decisions.

The challenge we face is that if we don’t stand up to him together, today, then we risk forever losing the power to stand up to any President in the future.

The Attorney General of the United States is sworn to uphold the Constitution as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer. He has an obligation to do everything in his power to warn the President of the damage he risks and the liability he assumes by directly threatening our system of checks and balances.

Sadly, the Attorney General has failed in that responsibility. He has failed to check the President’s worst instincts. He has not only misrepresented the findings of the Special Counsel. He has failed to protect the Special Counsel’s investigation from unfair political attacks. He has himself unfairly attacked the Special Counsel’s investigation. He has failed the men and women of the Department by placing the needs of the President over the fair administration of justice. He has even failed to show up today.

Yes, we will continue to negotiate for access to the full report. And yes, we will have no choice but to move quickly to hold the Attorney General in contempt if he stalls or fails to negotiate in good faith. But the Attorney General must make a choice. Every one of us must make the same choice. That choice is now an obligation of our office. The choice is simple: we can stand up to this President in defense of the country and the Constitution we love, or we can let the moment pass us by.

I do not know what Attorney General Barr will choose. I do not know what my Republican colleagues will choose. But I am certain that there is no way forward for this country that does not include a reckoning with this clear and present danger to our constitutional order.

History will judge us for how we face this challenge. We will all be held accountable, one way or the other. And if he does not provide this Committee with the information it demands and the respect that it deserves, Mr. Barr’s moment of accountability will come soon enough."

May 05, 2019 8:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Dems proposals would cause suffering among the people they claim to champion"

Republicans were screaming that Obama would destroy our economy too - after Bush ran it into the ground. Then congressional Republicans stood in the way and actively stopped programs that Obama wanted to put people back to work during the recession - prolonging it and making it worse.

Despite 40 years of trickle down economics that Republicans keep saying will work, it NEVER has - all their tax cuts have NEVER paid for themselves, and more and more middle-class wealth keeps getting shifted to the 1%.

Those are simple facts that all the Republican spin in the world won't change. Look them up. But keep spouting out the bumper sticker slogans if it helps keep you believing them.

There's more Kool-Aide where that came from.

May 05, 2019 11:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"oh, Trump has plenty of plans to cut spending

when the Dems lose the House in 2020, that will happen

the chess pieces are in place"

Look closer. The Rumpster has never had the attention span to play a game of chess. He'd be lucky to win a game of checkers. And Putin can obviously bluff him well enough to clean him out in a poker game.

"Very stable genius" indeed.

May 05, 2019 11:22 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"The choice is simple: we can stand up to this President in defence of the country and the Constitution we love, or we can let the moment pass us by."

Trump is making his move to become Dictator of the United States. Barr has declared that the president is above the law and he and Republicans are doing everything they can to enable Trump's authoritarian ambitions.

History will remember who stood for American Democracy and who stood against it.

May 05, 2019 12:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Dems proposals would cause suffering among the people they claim to champion"

Nonsense.

Obamacare gave tens of millions of Americans health insurance that couldn't get it before. Trump and the Republicans have promised to take away health insurance from over 20 million Americans and repeal the Obamacare law that now requires insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing health conditions at no extra cost.

Democrats give more people health care, Republicans take it away.

May 05, 2019 12:25 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Christine Blasey Ford,the victim of sexual assault by illegitimate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh...

bravely took questions from an outside lawyer because Republicans insisted on it. But now the Attorney General of the United States is afraid of being questioned by staff lawyers about the Mueller report.

The rich tapestry of Republican hypocrisy and attacks on the rule of law.

May 05, 2019 12:28 PM  
Anonymous Nadler believes he as the unlimited power of a dictator said...

Jerry Nadler, Chair, House Judiciary Committee said...

"Ladies and gentlemen, the challenge we face is that the President of the United States wants desperately to prevent Congress—a coequal branch of government—from providing any check whatsoever to even his most reckless decisions."

This is a lie.

In the old days, Rep. Nadler was a much-admired progressive congressman — smart, able and representing an important district with strong values and beliefs. He represented his views with honor and dignity whether in the majority or the minority.

Today he has become the conductor of his own “railroad job” that is over the top and embarrassing us all. Congress has about a 20 percent approval rating and Nadler is doing his part to keep it that low.

After AG Barr did not show up for his hearing on Thursday because Nadler wanted to question the A.G. in a manner reserved for inquests and investigations, Nadler then called the president a “dictator.”

The Mueller report should have closed down investigations of the president, not opened them up. It unambiguously cleared the president of any conspiracy or collusion with the Russians, ending two or more years of undermining the president and his family with unfair and unjust criminal investigations. There is nothing more distracting for an administration than to be under independent counsel investigation.

I understand that Nadler is upset about the refusal of the A.G. to participate in some kind of show trial he was arranging after 5 hours of Barr’s testimony before the Senate, but to the extent anyone is acting like a dictator here it’s unfortunately Nadler. He has lost all perspective.

Nancy Pelosi then piled on as well calling the Attorney General a criminal. You may or may not like Barr’s demeanor, answers or his summary of the Mueller report, but he is no criminal nor does he deserve this kind of unrestrained disrespect. It’s really hard to understand why Nadler or Pelosi believe this kind of personal vitriol will be rewarded at the ballot box. The evidence is that similar behavior during the Senate hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh may have cost Democrats several U.S. Senate seats. For presidential candidates wooing Iowa voters, over the top words and behavior at least makes some political sense. But Nadler and Pelosi should know better.

Nadler, representing a safe district without any serious challenge, is acting like someone anointed him king, and that all executive branch officials should bow down and kowtow to his ever-increasing demands.

Legislative oversight is not a specifically enumerated power in the Constitution — it’s a limited power implied from the “necessary and proper” clause and subject to privileges, separation of powers, and THE NEED FOR A LEGITIMATE LEGISLATIVE PURPOSE. It’s not an open-ended power but bounded by the checks and balances of our constitution.

May 05, 2019 1:58 PM  
Anonymous Nadler believes he as the unlimited power of a dictator said...

Nadler‘ s response has been to begin a coordinated plan with other Democratic committee chairs to subpoena every tax, business and other records of the president, his family, and his businesses and associates.

Now that kind of inquisition is exactly what dictators do, especially when they are trying to use their power to destroy their political opponents.

There is not a smidgen of bipartisanship in any of his actions and so the precedent it sets could be the most destructive congressional behavior since Joe McCarthy discovered he could use and abuse the investigative process for political gain.

No matter how good our Constitution, it requires people to operate out of good faith.

Former FBI Director James Comey joined the over-the-top gang with his new op-ed that said that Trump destroys people a bit at a time. Comey, however, was quite capable of destroying himself before Trump was elected with his intrusions into 2016 campaign that managed to anger just about everyone and was declared improper by the DOJ inspector general.

Hillary, on Rachel Maddow’s show the other night, said that if the Russians were helping Trump that the Chinese should now help the Democrats. At least this was civil in tone. Clearly, she forgot that the original foreign-help scandal was in fact Chinagate in 1996-8 in which China poured millions of dollars into the DNC to help the Democrats. In that investigation, it was found that China was, in fact, making illegal campaign contributions and multiple indictments were handed down.

I’m all for a good political fight over the issues, but the politics of personal destruction is hindering our democracy; the lack of respect for opponents across the aisle is furthering the deep divisions in this country.

Our political system is being weaponized against itself. Our elections have to settle our differences not exacerbate them and investigations have to have an end not be endless.

May 05, 2019 2:02 PM  
Anonymous the horror of TTF views on life said...

Alabama state Rep. John Rogers, a Democrat, had a few choice comments last week about abortion — the very sort of comments that abortion's defenders usually know to keep to themselves.

"I'm not about to be a male telling a woman what to do with her body," Rogers said in the midst of a debate over a bill that would restrict abortion to cases where it could prevent a serious health risk for the mother. “You bring them in the world unwanted, unloved, you send them to the electric chair. So, you kill them now or you kill them later.”

This seems like a bizarre way to describe the value of a child's life, as if no one has ever risen above oppression, poverty or an unstable family situation to do something great in life. Rogers and the millions who think like him believe implicitly that poor or adopted children must be incapable of happiness just because some grown-ups decided it is so. Not only that, but Rogers seems to think they're all going to become murderers headed for execution.

It is also surreal to hear Rogers, a prominent black lawmaker for nearly 40 years now, utter the same ugly rationalizations that white liberals use in private to justify the vastly disproportionate abortion of minority children. If not for abortion, there would be as many as 19 million more black people in the United States today — almost 50% more than there are currently. That's a shocking number.

But then, Rogers was just warming up — after all, there were more people to offend.

"Some parents can't handle a child with problems," he went on. "It could be retarded. It might have no arms and no legs."

Rogers seemed to think himself rather clever, for he later chuckled as he told a local NBC News affiliate that Donald Trump Jr. was "evidently retarded. Or crazy. Donald Trump's son, I know there is something wrong with that boy. I look at him and can tell something is wrong with him. That’s the best defense I have right there for an abortion — looking at him.”

We would say that abortion opponents and disability advocates were outraged by this, but these arguments aren't new. They're just less subtle than usual. The advocates of abortion frequently offer excuses about children being unwanted and lacking a future. These are always very lame excuses requiring foreknowledge that they certainly don't have. They cite not only poverty and unstable family situations, but also prospective or even known disability as a valid reason for killing a baby to spare her the experience. They play God in this, despite having absolutely no idea what sort of future any child will have.

In the end, whatever the motivations for Rogers' and others' views in favor of abortion, they do not stem from concern for children's well-being. After all, you cannot kill a child to improve his future, any more than you can save a village by burning it down. Any pretense to altruism ends with the Democratic Party's push this year in Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, and other states to make taxpayers fund abortions and to keep abortion legal right up to and beyond the moment of birth.

Look deep into the abyss, and you'll find fear — of minorities, of the disabled, of the future — and plain old grown-up selfishness behind it all. Rogers was just kind enough to say the quiet part out loud for everyone to hear.

May 05, 2019 2:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"There is not a smidgen of bipartisanship in any of his actions and so the precedent it sets could be the most destructive congressional behavior since Joe McCarthy discovered he could use and abuse the investigative process for political gain."

It looks like someone conveniently forgot about all those Benghazi investigations, and all the times Republicans expected Hillary to show up at their kangaroo court for yet another hearing.

If Hillary had refused to show up for one, the Republicans would have blown their tops.

Somehow Republicans think that what they do to Democrats shouldn't be down to them when the Dems control the committees.

If there anything the Republicans love more than doubling down, it's a double standard.


May 05, 2019 2:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Demands to shut it down. A waste of taxpayer money. A never-ending witch hunt.

The criticisms of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into President Donald Trump and Russia that have ratcheted up in recent months hearken back to the investigation that roiled Congress during the last administration: Benghazi.
The tables have turned with party doing the criticizing. And there are, of course, significant differences: The Benghazi Select Committee investigation was a congressional probe, while Mueller is a Justice Department-appointed special counsel who is leading a criminal investigation.

But there are still notable similarities over how the Mueller and Benghazi probes transformed into political flashpoints on Capitol Hill, bitterly dividing the two parties.

For months now, a growing number of Republicans have called on Mueller to wrap up his investigation, which originated as an FBI counterintelligence investigation in July 2016 that the special counsel took over in May 2017.

South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, who chaired the Benghazi Select Committee for more than two years, joined the chorus Thursday when the told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to "finish it the hell up."

"If you have evidence of wrongdoing by any member of the Trump campaign present it to the damn grand jury. If you have evidence that this President acted inappropriately, present it to the American people," Gowdy said to Rosenstein, who supervises the Mueller probe. "Whatever you got, finish it the hell up, because this country is being torn apart."

Gowdy's comments sparked outrage from Democrats, who charged that Mueller has been on the case for a year less than Gowdy investigated Benghazi from 2014 to 2016.

May 05, 2019 2:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Chairman Gowdy urgently demanded that the Justice Department wrap up the investigation, yet he literally spent years and years investigating Hillary Clinton as part of the GOP's eight-committee investigation of Benghazi, which resulted in nothing but a deluge of false Republican allegations that helped get Donald Trump elected President," said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, who was the top Democrat on the Benghazi committee.

Democrats argue that the two probes are night and day. Benghazi was a congressional investigation designed to harm Hillary Clinton's campaign, they say, while Mueller has already landed indictments and guilty pleas from several senior members of the Trump campaign.

"There have already been five guilty pleas... one person's already been sentenced,' said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat. "You can compare that to the Ken Starr Whitewater investigation, which lasted four years and produced nothing, or the seven congressional committees that went after the Benghazi holy grail and came back with nothing, including our beloved Mr. Gowdy."

Gowdy said the Benghazi investigation wasn't about targeting Clinton, but Democrats seized on comments from Republicans like Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said in October 2015 ahead of Clinton's testimony that the probe had successfully driven her poll numbers down.
Cummings, the top Democrat on the select panel, said following McCarthy's comments that the committee was "an unethical abuse of millions of taxpayer dollars and a crass assault on the memories of the four Americans who died."

In the end, the committee's 800-page report did not contain any bombshells about Clinton's actions — like the claim of a "stand down" order to help the Americans that was never proven.

May 05, 2019 2:40 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump is facing all manner of ongoing legal jeopardy from both congressional oversight and 14 ongoing investigations spun off from the Mueller Investigation.

Trump will push to maximize his power any way he can. He will not stop until he becomes Dictator if Republicans continue to enable and cover up for him.

May 05, 2019 3:36 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump is lying that the media is censoring conservative voices. The truth is, its Trump trying to silence voices he doesn't agree with

Fox News personality Judge Andrew Napolitano has said Trump is guilty of multiple counts of criminal obstruction of Justice and Trump is a disgrace.

So, naturally, Trump is calling for Napolitano to be fired. Trump is lying and saying the media isn't being truthful, he's calling the free press "the enemy of the people".

As people who've studied history know, this is all out of the Dictator's handbook to seizing power"

1) Delegitimize or silence the press, tell the public only you are telling the truth.

2) Stack the courts and legal system with your lackies.

3) Use your now partisan and loyal Justice System to investigate and destroy the people trying to hold you accountable.

The conventional wisdom is that Republicans in the Senate will never convict Trump if he's impeached. But you can see clear cracks and divisions developing in Trump's Republican support. Don't kid yourself, Republicans in the Senate will convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors if it get's bad enough. And it certainly could get that bad given Trump's drive to maximize his power and eliminate all accountability.

When Trump is starting to lose Fox News, his prospects look pretty dim.

May 05, 2019 4:08 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump's former lawyer Micheal Cohen is in jail for carrying out a crime Trump directed him to do.

Why is Cohen in jail and not Trump?

May 05, 2019 4:25 PM  
Anonymous global warming debunked for good said...

"It looks like someone conveniently forgot about all those Benghazi investigations, and all the times Republicans expected Hillary to show up at their kangaroo court for yet another hearing."

well, since you remember, how many times was Hillary expected to show up?

"Somehow Republicans think that what they do to Democrats shouldn't be down to them when the Dems control the committees."

No one named a special prosecutor for Hillary and then refused to accept the results

Bengahazi investigation focused on one incident, it wasn't a sweeping examination of decades of Hillary's life

the Benghazi incident actually occurred and lives were lost

neither is true of the Russian hoax

"Demands to shut it down. A waste of taxpayer money. A never-ending witch hunt."

the work of this administration has already been impeded for two and a half years

the Benghazi hearings had no such effect

Libya is insignificant, relations with Russia have profound effects

"there are notable similarities over how the Mueller and Benghazi probes transformed into political flashpoints on Capitol Hill, bitterly dividing the two parties"

not really

you're just making a convenient hyperbolization

"Mueller has already landed indictments and guilty pleas from several senior members of the Trump campaign"

no evidence of any member of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia was found

NONE, NOT ONE BIT

and what do you mean by "already"

the Mueller investigation is over

"Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat"

I've spoken with this guy

let's just say there should be a certain minimum IQ required for members of Congress

not to mention psychological testing

May 06, 2019 5:18 AM  
Anonymous democracy dies in darkness said...

Don’t fool yourself. This latest assault on Attorney General Barr is a coordinated hit job cooked up between the media, the special counsel, and their allies in Congress. And it has only one purpose, to stop or slow Barr’s inquiry into the gross abuses leading up to the effort to spy on the Trump campaign.

Why would the public need to read about a dispute over how to preview a report we now have in its entirety? The reason is simple, to mount an attack on an attorney general who can’t seem to get with the deep state program. Barr is not a partisan hack. Hoax boosters were lulled into a sense of false hope by Barr’s close friendship with Mueller. Thus they might have hoped he would have looked the other way at the malfeasance that led to the Mueller probe in the first place-Clinton’s dirty dossier and the politically corrupt Justice Department officials who peddled it to throw the election to Clinton. Barr doesn’t seem to share the media’s view that “spying” on a political campaign is not a big deal so long as the spying is done with the consent of the partisan leadership of the DoJ.

What is Mueller’s endgame here? Impeachment? Don’t be ridiculous. An impeachment vote could be taken before dinnertime tonight. It requires a bare majority. But impeachment is not a conviction. The matter would then proceed to the Senate with no hope of conviction. The cooler heads among the media have correctly noted that impeaching President Trump would make him stronger.

To answer that question, go back and look at where the Mueller people were standing on the night that Donald Trump shocked the world by upsetting Hillary Clinton. Robert Mueller left a $3.4 million partner job with WilmerHale, the same law firm that had just won a lawsuit for the Clinton Foundation, keeping Clinton emails secret. The Mueller probe provided former Clinton Foundation attorney Jeannie Rhee with the opportunity once again to protect Clinton by making sure the word “Fusion” never appeared in the Mueller report and by steering the Papadopoulos prosecution to help obscure the role of the Clinton-financed dossier in the hoax. The end-game is to continue to protect the coup plotters and deep-state bad actors who have used surveillance of Americans in much the same way the Soviets used it in Eastern Germany.

Mueller was friends with fired FBI Director James Comey who should have been in trouble for leaking classified information. Mueller’s position on the probe gave him the ability to protect his friend while supposedly investigating the Trump/Russia hoax. Mueller even helped prepare Comey for his congressional testimony. The Carter Page FISA warrant abuse is actually a tiny tip of a giant iceberg of FISA abuse leading back to Comey’s bogus certification to the FISA court that promised the court that Americans were not being improperly spied upon. Mueller probe #2 Weissmann was literally standing in the Clinton election-night (supposed to be victory) party. The probe provided these people a unique platform for their revenge.

This is high stakes stuff. If the elites can continue using intelligence and law enforcement to interfere in American elections, they will eventually get good at it and we will lose our republic. The deep state allies are fighting like the “Unsullied” protecting the gates of Winterfell to cover for the bad actors still fumbling for their golden parachutes. Bottom line, the report, these new leaks, they’re just desperate attempts to delay the reckoning. The attorney general is now subject of a campaign of smear and intimidation and he must be protected so he can hold these villains to account.

That reckoning cannot come soon enough.

May 06, 2019 5:29 AM  
Anonymous Cambridge Analytica and parent SCL Elections shutting down said...

Cambridge Analytica, the data firm embroiled in a controversy over its handling of Facebook Inc user data, and its British parent firm SCL Elections Ltd are shutting down immediately, the company said on Wednesday.

SCL Elections and Cambridge Analytica will begin bankruptcy proceedings, the firm said, after losing clients and facing mounting legal fees in the controversy over reports the company harvested personal data about Facebook users beginning in 2014.

"The siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the Company’s customers and suppliers," the company's statement said.

"As a result, it has been determined that it is no longer viable to continue operating the business, which left Cambridge Analytica with no realistic alternative to placing the company into administration."

Allegations of improper use of data on 87 million Facebook users by Cambridge Analytica, which was hired by President Donald Trump's 2016 U.S. election campaign, has hurt the shares of the world's biggest social network and prompted multiple official investigations.

"Over the past several months, Cambridge Analytica has been the subject of numerous unfounded accusations and, despite the company’s efforts to correct the record, has been vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas," the company's statement said.

The firm is shutting down effective Wednesday and employees have been told to turn in their computers, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier.

Cambridge Analytica is a part of SCL Group, a government and military contractor that says it works on everything from food security research to counter-narcotics to political campaigns. SCL was founded more than 25 years ago, according to its website.

Cambridge Analytica was created around 2013 initially with a focus on U.S. elections, with $15 million in backing from billionaire Republican donor Robert Mercer and a name chosen by future Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, the New York Times reported.

Cambridge Analytica marketed itself as providing consumer research, targeted advertising and other data-related services to both political and corporate clients.

After Trump won the White House in 2016, in part with the firm’s help, Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix went to more clients to pitch his services, the Times reported last year. The company boasted it could develop psychological profiles of consumers and voters which was a “secret sauce” it used to sway them more effectively than traditional advertising could.

One unanswered question in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether there was any collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia is whether Russia’s Internet Research Agency or Russian intelligence used data Cambridge Analytica obtained from Facebook or other sources to help target and time anti-Hillary Clinton, pro-Trump and politically and racially divisive messages during the election...

May 06, 2019 7:39 AM  
Anonymous I got 2020 vision said...

The Great Realignment in American politics, working people and their families leaving the Democrats for Republicans, got another boost with the announcement that GDP in the first quarter of 2019 grew by 3.2 percent. That was an increase of more than 50 percent in GDP growth of the less than 2 percent on average for the entire eight years of the Obama administration.

Europe may be sliding into recession as you read this. China may already be there, with the rest of Asia not far behind. South America is swirling in turmoil. Only Donald Trump’s America is still growing smartly, with the Blue Collar Boom that began on Election Day 2016, as voters definitively retired the consistently anti-growth economic policies of former President Obama.

Mr. Obama thought he was helping Hillary Clinton when he said at the 2016 Democratic Convention that the only way to have a third term of the Obama administration was to vote for Hillary. Hillary herself seconded that, pledging to continue Mr. Obama’s economic policies. Blue collar voters from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Wisconsin to Missouri, with call-ins from West Virginia to Indiana to Iowa, said they had enough of that already thank you.

The backbone of the Democratic Party was long-working people, especially unionized industrial workers. The realignment actually began with Richard Nixon, reinvigorated even more powerfully by Ronald Reagan. But it was first seen again in more modern times in 2010, with a New Deal-size Republican gain of 63 seats in the House in Mr. Obama’s first midterm. It was reflected again in Republicans taking the Senate majority in Mr. Obama’s second midterm in 2014.

It was Milton Friedman who first recognized that America’s historical record is the worse the recession, the stronger the recovery. Democrats don’t know it yet, but the rest of America recognized Mr. Obama’s economic policies as a dismal failure by that metric.

Mr. Obama’s apologists tried to tell America that Mr. Obama’s dismal, less-than 2 percent economic growth on average for his entire two terms was the New Normal. America could no longer do better than that. Get used to it, America, they imperiously proclaimed. 2016 was America’s way of responding, in the refrain of Vietnam War protestors, “Hell no, We won’t go.”

May 06, 2019 8:25 AM  
Anonymous I got 2020 vision said...

Hillary Clinton, not to mention the rest of the party, have not figured it out yet. Instead, they have overreacted to the typical results of Mr. Trump’s first midterm, which were overinflated by some brazen Democratic “ballot harvesting.” That reaction reflects Democratic overconfidence in the political success of Mr. Obama’s so-called Rainbow Coalition. Which altogether has led Democrats down the blind alley of outright socialism, which has been a Democratic weakness since the so-called Progressive Era over 100 years ago.

Mr. Trump’s economic policies of tax rate cuts, deregulation and stable dollar monetary policies have worked to produce booming economic growth four times in the last 100 years. From the Roaring Twenties, to President Kennedy’s Booming ‘60s (which proved these policies can and should be bipartisan), to President Reagan’s 25-year economic boom from late 1982 to late 2007, to Mr. Trump’s now Blue Collar Boom.

That has produced the lowest African-American unemployment, the lowest Hispanic-American unemployment, the lowest Asian-American unemployment, the lowest teen unemployment, and soon the lowest female unemployment, in American history. That adds up to the most inclusive economic recovery in American history.

The most salient point of this recovery is that it is raising wages the most for the least-skilled American workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. That is actually reducing inequality, exactly the opposite of Mr. Obama’s rhetoric and policies.

That is because booming economic growth is the root of prosperity for working people, the opposite of socialism, which produces only poverty, most for the least-skilled workers. These have been the disparate effects of both capitalism and socialism worldwide for the last 150 years now. You can read all about it in Frank Buckley’s new book, “The Republican Workers Party.”

The greatest threat to Mr. Trump’s Blue Collar Boom is the tax increases supported by Mr. Trump’s 2020 Democratic opponent, whichever shade of socialist that turns out to be. Because those tax increases would push America back into recession, joining the rest of the world.

So go ahead Democrats. Run the 1984 election all over again. Run Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan. Only this time let the candidate openly espouse socialism. After all, that is working out so well before our very eyes this very day, in formerly prosperous Venezuela.

May 06, 2019 8:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"no evidence of any member of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia was found

NONE, NOT ONE BIT"

An entirely irrelevant point, as has been explained, many times before. "Collusion" doesn't have a legal definition, and Mueller wasn't looking for it. But somehow Republicans think if they repeat it enough everyone will believe the Rumpster is innocent.

A Republican controlled House gleefully impeached Bill Clinton for far less than what is in the Mueller report and they were quite proud of their self-righteous selves for doing it. Of course, at this point, no one expects them to hold themselves to the same standards they held Bill to. They've become the party of "do whatever it takes to gain or retain control."

May 06, 2019 10:34 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "no evidence of any member of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia was found NONE, NOT ONE BIT"

Lol, another gigantic lie from the TTF Troll. the truth is The Mueller Report documented over 200 pages of Trump campaign collusion with Russia. Mueller just didn't use the word "collusion" in describing it.

There were over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government! And Trump and his people repeatedly said there were none!

May 06, 2019 1:13 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...


Wyatt/Regina, do you realize that by lying for Trump you're helping to create the dictatorship he so badly wants?

May 06, 2019 1:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's the dictatorship they want too.

Duh.

May 06, 2019 1:30 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If Trump isn't president in 2020 he knows he's going to jail. This makes him willing to do anything to stay president and very dangerous.

Congress has a constitutionally mandated duty to oversight of the executive branch (Trump). The founders intended and described three co-equal branches of government: Congress, the presidency, and the judiciary. Trump is breaking one law after another to prevent congress from getting not only the information it lawfully subpoeanaed, but also the information it normally and rightfully gets in the course of government.

Trump has declared he will no longer allow constitutional congressional oversight of his activities and is trying to hide them to protect himself. The Mueller Report was essentially a referral to Congress to impeach Trump for obstruction of justice because, as Mueller explained, he viewed Justice Department policy as prohibiting indicting a sitting president. Mueller believed only Congress could convict Trump of obstruction of justice, and clearly thought congress should do so.

May 06, 2019 1:31 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Good anonymous said "That's the dictatorship they want too.

Duh."

Yes, you're probably right, as the research on Right Wing Authoritarian followers of dictators like Trump shows.

Its that natural tendency to by default think everyone else thinks like you do. For me its unthinkable that anyone would prefer a dictatorship to a democracy.

Wyatt/Regina's church teaches its followers some "multiplication theory" or some such thing whereby the their taught the need to not only add people to the church view one by one, they need to multiply church numbers so they can take over the world.

Yes, good anonymous is right - Wyatt and Regina Hardiman want Trump as dictator over all Americans. Then they can start punishing innocent lgbt people, whom they've been suspiciously quiet about lately after a long angry stint of ranting about how the illegitimate supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh was going to get even with gays for "lying" about him.

May 06, 2019 1:37 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Dear Readers, please don't forget that current Attorney General William Barr auditioned for the job by sending a 19 page publicly displayed memo to the Justice Department saying he didn't believe it was possible for a president to be guilty of obstruction of justice no matter what he did, even if he shot someone on fifth avenue.

Now Barr gets the AG job and starts doing what Trump hired him to do, be Trump's defence attorney rather than the attorney of the American public he took an oath to be.

Barr starts by grossly mischaracterizing the substance, nature, and conclusions of the Mueller Report and repeatedly denying the accusations he's lying - standard Republican bad faith arguing tactic, like Wyatt and Regina use all the time over the past two decades. And then they claim its gays who immoral, and not themselves.

Mueller was asked by Congress if he knew if Bob Mueller had any objections to the way he summarized(didn't summarize) the Mueller Report. Barr said under oath "Not that I know of." when in fact Mueller had contacted him on three previous occaisions to document his objections to Barr's gross mischaracterization of his report and giving the public the false impression Trump had done nothing wrong.

Current Attorney General Bill Barr lied to Congress under oath. That is a crime, there is no "wiggle" room on this.

Barr is doing what Trump hired him to do and what pre-employment Barr promised to do - defend Trump, not the American Public, and enable Trump to break the law without consequence or restraint.

May 06, 2019 1:54 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I can tell you one thing, if Wyatt and Regina's church want's to take over the world as they've stated they do, they're going to have to kill most of humanity to do it.

Wouldn't be the first time someone tried to do that to gain ultimate power.

May 06, 2019 1:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

President Donald Trump’s conduct as outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report would have led to obstruction of justice charges if he were not a sitting president, hundreds of former federal prosecutors said in a statement Monday.

“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice,” said the statement, which has garnered at least *375* signatures.

“To look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience,” the statement continued.

May 06, 2019 2:01 PM  
Anonymous Merrick, Goresuch, Kavanaugh, and the Jack of Hearts....LOL!!!!!! said...

"President Donald Trump’s conduct as outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report would have led to obstruction of justice charges if he were not a sitting president, hundreds of former federal prosecutors said in a statement Monday."

Their logic is inane

All the supposed obstruction acts that Trump were only possible for a sitting President to do

A President is never obstructing justice by carrying out his constitutional duties to oversee the Justice Dept and to foil false attacks on the elected government, which is what the Russia hoax has proven to be

May 06, 2019 3:01 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Can you believe the world isn't screaming about the fact that Trump talked to Putin about Mueller, but refused to talk to Mueller about Putin? Which country is Trump loyal to? What oath did Trump take?

Isn't it strange how Trump appears to want the world to know he and Putin are good friends? Is it because he's being blackmailed into a servile role? Or does he just have a natural affinity towards dictators? Or perhaps both?

May 06, 2019 3:26 PM  
Anonymous Rump tries to tell us all, "Do not look behind that curtain!" But we will..........LMAO said...

First it was the former White House counsel. Now it is special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. In both cases, President Trump — seemingly petrified of witnesses concerning a report in which he claims to have been exonerated — has tried to suppress testimony from those with the most damning evidence of Trump’s obstruction of justice.

The Post reports, “President Trump said Sunday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III should not testify before Congress, reversing course from his previous position that the decision is up to Attorney General William P. Barr. ‘Bob Mueller should not testify,’ Trump said in an afternoon tweet. ‘No redos for the Dems!’” The House Judiciary Committee is seeking to have Mueller testify on May 15.

Mueller’s testimony would not be a redo, but it could demolish Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr’s canard that Trump is guilty of nothing. It’s an opportunity to explain what is in the report and review the 10 episodes of conduct that could support a charge of obstruction of justice. Trump and Barr have been overstating and misconstruing the report to such an extent that many Americans — who don’t have time to read a 448-page report — are genuinely confused. The last thing Trump wants is an accurate accounting of the report and his misdeeds.

As former prosecutor Joyce White Vance tells me, “If Trump has nothing to worry about, he’d be scheduling Mueller’s testimony himself. His concern is a red flag.”

So can he stop Mueller from testifying? “Of course there is no way Trump can stop Bob Mueller from testifying,” constitutional lawyer Laurence Tribe tells me. “There is no executive privilege between them, and obviously no attorney-client privilege, and Mueller doesn’t even work for Trump.” Tribe continues, “Until he leaves [the Justice Department], he works for Barr. And Barr has no conceivable basis to stop Mueller from testifying.” In any event, Tribe explains, “Mueller is free to leave [Justice] at any time and will then be simply a private citizen.”

And we'll all hear what he has to say.

May 06, 2019 3:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Their logic is inane"

Your knowledge of law is non-existent.

Reason's Nick Gillespie interviews Judge Andrew Napolitano about federal obstruction of justice laws and the historical and constitutional context of Trump's presidency.

UDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: First, I reject the word collusion. That word was insinuated into our vocabulary very shrewdly I might say by Rudy Giuliani so he could say he's not guilty of collusion -- by the way, collusion is not a crime, that is a circular argument. The crime is a conspiracy. An agreement to accept something of value from a foreign national, which is unlawful in a federally monitored campaign.





I didn't see the underlying evidence but 127 communications between the Trump campaign or Trump organization and Russian intelligence in a 16-month era would be enough to prick my curiosity and look a little deeper.

But that’s not what I’m challenging him on. I’m challenging him on whether or not there was enough basis to prosecute [Trump] for obstruction of justice. And there clearly was. The reason, in my view, Bob Mueller did not ask for permission to seek an indictment under the Bill Barr managed-DOJ. He had to ask the attorney general for permission to seek the indictment because Barr has this bizarre, narrow view of the obstruction statutes, which would have caused Barr to say no.

In Attorney General Barr’s view, it is impossible to commit obstruction unless you actually committed the crime being violated, and you’re trying to obstruct efforts to investigate the crime that you’ve committed.

NICK GILLESPIE, REASON: Barr is saying because there was no conspiracy, there couldn't be any obstruction?

NAPOLITANO: Correct. If this were so, then Richard Nixon could not be charged with obstruction of justice unless he was actually one of the Watergate burglars, under Barr’s theory. That’s how absurd it is.

We also know that it’s been rejected uniformly. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit was convicted of obstruction of justice for interfering with an investigation into an extra-marital affair -- not a crime.

Martha Stewart was famously convicted of obstruction of justice for interfering with prosecution of her for insider trading, even though the insider trading charges were dismissed.

May 06, 2019 4:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Trump must be frustrated. His spin works only when the facts are hidden or too complicated to unravel. Put the facts out in plain sight, have someone more credible than Trump (an open-ended category) explain what has happened and — poof! — Trump’s smokescreen, the nonsensical patter coming from Fox News hosts and the incoherent arguments from Trump’s TV lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, will vanish.

And make no mistake: According to a new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, voters by a substantial margin think more highly of Mueller (net +12 favorability), Democrats (-5) and even Barr (-7) than they do Trump (-10). Sixty percent say Trump is not honest or truthful about Mueller’s investigation, and by a 42-to-29-percent margin, voters already understand that the report doesn’t clear Trump. It may be wrongheaded and fruitless, but you can understand why Trump is trying every trick to shield voters from the full impact of the report. It paints a portrait of a president desperately trying to stop an inquiry into him, which is exactly what he continues to do.

May 06, 2019 4:05 PM  
Anonymous wmforr said...

Don't you remember that stirring speech by FDR:

"I spoke to Hirohito about Pearl Harbor, and he said he didn't do it. And I believe him. It could have been the Chinese or some 400 pound guy in his pajamas."

May 06, 2019 4:30 PM  
Anonymous wmforr said...

I'm waiting for the moment, sometime next year, when Trump discovers "massive election fraud" and cancels the election "until we can figure this thing out". I'm serious.

May 06, 2019 4:35 PM  
Anonymous wmforr said...

Trump passed an executive order allowing healthcare providers to refuse to help lgbt patients. And yes, that includes first responders sent to help in an emergency - Trump gave them the right to stand by and laugh while innocent lgbt victims die.
----------------------

Only in my fantasies, if I were in a State with such a cruel law and came upon someone I knew to be a homophobe lying on the ground calling for help, I believe I'd begin with, "At what age did you first have sex?"

"What? My leg! I think I broke my leg! Help me!"

"In a minute. First I have to determine if you pass my deeply held religious beliefs about who is worthy of help. Okay, concerning your first sexual experience, I'll need to know your age and marital status at the time, the age and gender of the other individual or individuals, their marital status and the relationships between you.

"Once we get up to your most recent experience, we'll need to go back and run quickly through any masturbation experiences.

"Keep quiet! I know you must be in terrible pain, but we do have a First Amendment, and I think you're being very selfish putting your pain and health over my right to practice my religion as I see fit. Now, let's go back to your first .. "

But of course it's only fantasy, because I couldn't be that cruel, even to a rotten son of a bitch who hated my guts.

May 06, 2019 4:41 PM  
Anonymous Kelly Lape said...

It appears you may now ask about a patient's faith. When a patient reply's with a religion you find blasphemous (such as Christianity) you are allowed to discriminate. If you walk in on a patient watching a Televangelist you can with the full force of Federal anti-discrimination law label that patient a blasphemer and refuse to provide any treatment. Such is the path the GOP is sending America down. Christ-Based Sharia law is still Sharia Law.

May 06, 2019 4:49 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Claiming His First Two Years Were “Stolen” By Mueller Probe, Trump Retweets Call For Extending First Term


The Washington Post reports:

President Trump on Sunday seemed to warm to the idea of reparations — for himself, and in the form of an unconstitutional, two-year addition to his first term in the White House. He retweeted a proposal offered by Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, that he be granted another two years in office as recompense for time lost to the Russia investigation. Half of his first term, Trump wrote in a Twitter dispatch of his own, had been “stolen.”

The argument was perhaps tongue-in-cheek, leading some legal experts to dismiss the comments as bravado. Others, however, saw the president’s apparent longing to overstay his four-year term in office as an assault on the rule of law. That it was raised playfully, they said, was small comfort, especially given Trump’s playful refusal, in the fall of 2016, to say that he would accept the outcome of an election that polling suggested he was destined to lose.

Republican luminary Richard Painter:

"A president here suggests that his term be "extended"? That's the way its done in dictatorships...@realdDonaldTrump is a dangerous man and should be impeached now!"

May 06, 2019 5:03 PM  
Anonymous Nowhereman said...

By the above logic, Obama should have gotten at least a 6 year extension on his term.

May 06, 2019 5:05 PM  
Anonymous DesertSun59 said...

You all know what this Trump Tweet is about, right? It's priming the pump, which he does often. He'll go along like this for months now, moving the goalpost as he goes. Eventually, his base will DEMAND that he get an extension; or will simply declare the next election void due to what their deity wants.

May 06, 2019 5:06 PM  
Anonymous Mike said...

There are a few things we can be sure of:

McConnell will grimace, then get completely behind the idea.

Susan Collins will express disappointment, then vote in favor of it.

Lindsay Graham will get her petticoats in a twist when people object.

There will be a pack of "lifelong Republican lawyers of unassailable integrity" who see no reason why Trump can't be president for life.

Drunk Uncles everywhere, when they aren't slobbering about the troops' sacrifices for liberty, will rejoice and say it's about time.

May 06, 2019 5:10 PM  
Anonymous Paganguy said...

I really wish the above post by Mike didn't sound as plausible as it does.

May 06, 2019 5:15 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And let's not forget the GOP controlled both houses of Congress for the two years Trump is claiming Democrats "stole" from him - Trump and the Republicans could have passed anything they wanted to. They couldn't get their sh*t together to pass anything and now Trump's trying to blame Democrats for the failure of Republicans to achieve anything when they had total control of government.

May 06, 2019 5:22 PM  
Anonymous Uncle Mark said...

9 hours ago

Trump knows what’s awaiting him and his crotch-fruit the moment he’s out of the White House. He’s not joking. This tweet is his trial balloon he always puts one out to see how comfortable the public is with his ideas. Even in “jest,” it needs to be stomped to death immediately. It should not even be entertained in the media.

Trump has also just introduced his second option. He has Bolton sending a naval strike force to the Persian Gulf to provoke a war. This will be followed by the same BS Cheney floated about not having elections during the Iraq “war”/occupation. He was roundly ridiculed for suggesting it.

Democrats need to start using the term “dictator,” and must continue to investigate his ass...fighting all attempts at obstruction, as trump is clearly terrified of losing the White House.

May 06, 2019 5:25 PM  
Anonymous Halou said...

How can the last two years be both the most successful ever and stolen from him?
Inconsistency must be his middle name.

May 06, 2019 6:17 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Propaganda doesn't have to be consistent; just pervasive.

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous live by that maxim.

May 06, 2019 6:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

GRIM STUDY: One Million Species Face Extinction



NBC News reports:

A sweeping report assessing the state of the natural world found that humans are having an “unprecedented” and devastating effect on global biodiversity, with about 1 million animal and plant species now threatened with extinction.

A summary of the report’s findings was released Monday by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which was established in 2012 by the United Nations Environment Programme and includes representatives from 132 countries.

Nature reports:

About 75% of the planet’s land and 66% of its ocean areas have been “significantly altered” by people, driven in large part by the production of food, according to the IPBES report, which will be released in full later this year. Crop and livestock operations currently co-opt more than 33% of Earth’s land surface and 75% of its freshwater resources.

Agricultural activities are also some of the largest contributors to human emissions of greenhouse gases. They account for roughly 25% of total emissions due to the use of fertilizers and the conversion of areas such as tropical forests to grow crops or raise livestock such as cattle.

Agricultural threats to ecosystems will only increase as the world’s population continues to grow, according to the IPBES analysis.

May 06, 2019 6:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Fermi Paradox, people.

Click on my highlighted name for an explanation

May 06, 2019 6:23 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The blindly accepted mantra of business is that if your business isn't growing, its failing. The blindly accepted mantra of government is that we want to grow the economy. If we want our planet to survive we have to accept the reality that humanity must establish zero population growth and that means business and the economy must be stationary, not ever growing, as well.

May 06, 2019 6:28 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Washington Post.com

"In Federalist 65, [Hamilton]clearly states that a president impeached for misconduct is also "liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law." In other words, the presidency was not designed to be free from prosecutorial inquiry." - contrary to AG Barr's absurd claims that Trump can end any investigation into himself if he thinks its unfair.

May 06, 2019 11:45 PM  
Anonymous I reeeeeeeeally like our Supreme Court.and the best is yet to come!!!!!!! said...

For those of you who survived the Great GOP Tax Cut Massacre, things are finally looking up. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent last month, the lowest level since 1969. We’ve now experienced over a full year of unemployment at 4 percent or lower. The economy beat projections, adding another 263,000 jobs in April. Wages are rising.

It was Larry Summers, Bill Clinton’s former Treasury Secretary and Barack Obama’s White House economic adviser, who warned that tax reform would lead to over 10,000 dead Americans every year in December of 2017. Summers, considered a reasonable moderate by today’s political standards, was just one of the many fearmongers.

The same month, after cautioning that passage of tax cuts would portend “Armageddon,” then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi explained that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), a reform of corporate tax codes and a wide-ranging relief, was “the worst bill in the history of the United States Congress.” Worse than the Fugitive Slave Act? Worse than the Espionage Act? Worse than congressional approval of the internment of Japanese Americans? That’s a really bad bill.

The tenor of left-wing cable news and punditry was predictably panic-stricken. After asserting that the cuts wouldn’t help create a single job, Bruce Bartlett told MSNBC that tax relief was “really akin to rape.” Kurt Eichenwald tweeted that “America died tonight … Millenials [sic]: move away if you can. USA is over. We killed it.” “I’m a Depression historian,” read the headline on a Washington Post op-ed. “The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929,” proclaimed the same writer. And so on.

None of this is even getting into the MSM’s straight news coverage, which persistently (and falsely) painted the bill as a tax cut for the wealthy. “One-Third of Middle Class Families Could End up Paying More Under the GOP Tax Plan” noted Money magazine. An Associated Press headline read, “House Passes First Rewrite of Nation’s Tax Laws in Three Decades, Providing Steep Tax Cuts for Businesses, the Wealthy.” “Poor Americans Would Lose Billions Under Senate GOP Tax Bill” reported CNN. Yahoo News ran one piece after the next predicting doom.

The GOP tax cut’s “unstated goal is to leave the poor and vulnerable in America without the support of their government,” ABC News pretend centrist claimed. “It’s not enough to give money to rich people. Apparently, Republicans want to kick the poor and middle class in the face, too,” a columnist at Washington Post noted, leaning hard into two of the stalest canards about tax policy.

Of course, the notion that allowing Americans to keep more of their own money is tantamount to “giving” them something is just transparently specious. Does any liberal really maintain that government owns all your income, and anything you keep is a gift? Tax rates were not handed to us on Mount Sinai, they were cooked up by economists. In truth, you only “give” taxes, you never keep. And the government only spends.

May 07, 2019 8:37 AM  
Anonymous I reeeeeeeeally like our Supreme Court.and the best is yet to come!!!!!!! said...


In any event, the idea that the poor or middle class are being shaken down by the cuts was even more of a dishonest claim. As Chris Edwards has pointed out, the TCJA’s largest percentage tax cuts went to the middle class. Even the liberal Tax Policy Center estimated that 65 percent Americans paid less last year (6 percent paid more) due to tax reform. More than 44 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax. (Though corporate taxes are also a tax on consumers, so cuts benefitted nearly everyone.)

That hasn’t stopped former vice president Joe Biden. “There’s a $2 trillion tax cut last year. Did you feel it? Did you get anything from it? Of course not. Of course not. All of it went to folks at the top and corporations,” the presidential hopeful claimed the other day. It’s a fabrication.

Whenever you hear people bellowing about the wealthy benefitting most from across-the-board tax cuts, they always leave out the fact that wealthy pay the vast majority of income taxes: the top 20 percent of income earners paid over 95 percent of individual income taxes in 2017, the top 10 percent paid 81 percent and the top 0.1 percent paid nearly a quarter of all federal income taxes.

Now, I realize it’s unfashionable to mention that Ronald Reagan’s 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act, an across-the-board 25 percent cut in tax rates, helped spur a 40-plus year boom after a decade of stagnation. Since that time, the Left has been dependably wrong about tax relief and deregulation. Because once again, tax relief has spurred economic growth. It’s stimulated higher productivity, and it’s created jobs.

In 2010, Barack Obama warned that a “new normal” had gripped the economy; that businesses would have fewer employees and the job market wouldn’t regain its footing. The same people who supported and presided over the slowest economic recovery in US history—despite having the most room for growth and despite throwing unprecedented amounts of money at the problem—are the nation’s biggest Chicken Littles.

“So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight,” The New York Times’ Paul Krugman told us after the election of Donald Trump. This is the same Krugman who has spent the past few weeks mocking and belittling now-former Fed nominee Stephen Moore, who happened to be mostly right about tax reform.

To be this wrong this often deserves special recognition. Congrats to the Dems!!!!

May 07, 2019 8:39 AM  
Anonymous Nancy Pelosi is right to worry said...



Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will declare the Trump-Russia probe “case closed” on Tuesday, using a floor speech to instruct Democrats to accept the findings of the nearly two-year investigation and “move on.”

The Kentucky Republican had been one of the staunchest defenders of special counsel Robert Mueller, insisting he would be allowed to complete his work.

Having prevailed on that matter, Mr. McConnell will say that the county should accept the findings — and will order Democrats on Capitol Hill, who despite Mr. Mueller declining to charge the president still see crimes on Mr. Trump’s behalf.

“This investigation went on for two years. It’s finally over,” Mr. McConnell will say in remarks previewed by his office.

He said the country has a choice.

“Would we finally be able to move on from partisan paralysis and breathless conspiracy theorizing? Or would we remain consumed by unhinged partisanship, and keep dividing ourselves to the point that Putin and his agents need only stand on the sidelines and watch as their job is done for them,” he said.

“Regrettably, I think the answer is obvious.”

May 07, 2019 10:11 AM  
Anonymous Garland, Goresuch, Kavanaugh, and the Jack of Hearts....LOL!!!!!! said...

Abortion rights advocates and opponents are racing to pass some of the most aggressive laws in recent history as each side prepares for coming legal fights that are likely to culminate in Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court, featuring Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Conservatives have advanced new restrictions that go well beyond constitutional limits set by Kavanaugh’s predecessor, liberal Justice Anthony Kennedy, while liberal states are working on measures to protect abortion access in the likelihood that Roe is overturned.

“This has been one of the most prolific legislative seasons that I’ve seen in many, many years in the abortion debate. I think that the Kavanaugh hearing and the potential maybe for one more seat on the court is putting states on notice that, likely, Roe may be overturned,” said Sue Swayze Liebel, who directs state policy for the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List.

Already this year, legislators in six states passed laws meant to present a legal challenge to Roe. Six more states have passed measures known as “trigger” laws, which would ban abortions when the Supreme Court strikes down Roe.

On Tuesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) will sign legislation that bans virtually all abortions after six weeks. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed a similar measure last month.

Later this week, the Alabama Senate will vote on a measure to ban all abortions, except those necessary to protect the health of the mother, after the state House passed the bill last week.

Wisconsin Republicans are bringing up four bills that would limit funding for abortion providers, prohibit abortions based on a fetus’s race, gender or health symptoms, and require a doctor to tell women who seek drug-induced abortions that they can reverse the process after the first dose is taken.

The Texas Senate passed a measure last week requiring women seeking an abortion to undergo outside mental counseling before they kill their child.

In Kansas, dastardly Gov. Laura Kelly (D) last week vetoed a measure requiring doctors to inform women seeking drug-induced abortions that they can reverse the treatment. Her veto survived by a single vote in the legislature, but Republicans have signaled they will bring another version up for a vote, and have the votes to prevail.

Most of the measures that have passed in recent weeks generated immediate legal action, as abortion rights advocates moved to block their implementation. Those lawsuits were encouraged by abortion opponents who know that legal challenges make their way through federal courts and, eventually, to the Supreme Court, featuring Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“Pro-life states are being more bold in their efforts to restrict abortion activity,” Liebel said. “they’re rushing to out-pro-life each other.”

Advocates on both sides say the focus of new legislation has changed since right-thinking Kavanaugh replaced liberal Kennedy on the high court. With little hope of winning over Kennedy, abortion opponents tightened restrictions around the edges, demanding more reporting and imposing new restrictions on clinics or mandating longer waiting periods before a woman got access to an abortion.

Now, conservative legislators see a clear and certain path to strike down the Supreme Court precedent that had stood in the way of more aggressive restrictions while liberals who don't believe in the Constitution controlled the court.

May 07, 2019 10:59 AM  
Anonymous Garland, Goresuch, Kavanaugh, and the Jack of Hearts....LOL!!!!!! said...

“We are seeing a real increase in abortion restrictions moving through state legislatures,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, which supports the right of women to kill their children. “We’re just seeing a lot more of that kind of legislation moving, versus what we’ve been seeing moving for many years around waiting periods or abortion coverage restrictions or clinic regulations. Right now the focus is on abortion bans.”

Abortion rights advocates are pushing back in states where Democrats control the legislature. Ten states have passed trigger laws of their own, codifying the right to matricide in the event that Roe is struck down.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in January signed a law protecting the right to matricide, including access to late term abortions. The new law also allows physician assistants to perform some types of abortions.

Several other Northeastern states are likely to add their own pro-Roe measures in the coming weeks. Nash said legislators in Vermont, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are likely to move similar bills.

Nevada legislators are debating several measures to eliminate parental notification rules and to change informed consent rules that require doctors to counsel women seeking an abortion.

The new laws are already eliminating access to abortion services in red states. Many conservative states have passed measures so onerous that only a handful of clinics remain; Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming all have just one clinic legally allowed to perform abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Abortions performed in the United States has fallen to the lowest levels since Roe v. Wade was decided. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Guttmacher Institute show the number of abortions steadily dropping over time.

Guttmacher, which most researchers believe produces more complete data than the CDC, estimated 926,000 matricides were conducted in 2014, the last year for which data are available.

May 07, 2019 11:00 AM  
Anonymous Trump heroically defends citizen privacy said...

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has made it official: The administration won't be turning President Donald Trump's tax returns over to the Democratic-controlled House.

Mnuchin told Committee Chairman Richard Neal, in a Monday letter, that the panel's request "lacks a legitimate legislative purpose" as Supreme Court precedent requires.

In making that determination, Mnuchin said he relied on the advice of the Justice Department. He concluded that the Treasury Department is "not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information." He said the Justice Department will provide a more detailed legal justification soon.

The move is sure to set in motion a legal battle over Trump's tax returns. The only options available to Democrats are to subpoena the IRS for the returns, with an explanation of their legislative justification, or to file a frivolous lawsuit.

Neal originally demanded access to Trump's tax returns in early April under a misunderstanding of a law that says the IRS "shall furnish" the returns of any taxpayer to the chair of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. He maintains that the committee is looking into the effectiveness of IRS mandatory audits of tax returns of all sitting presidents, a dubious attempt to justify his claim that the panel has a potential legislative purpose.

Mnuchin has said Neal's request would potentially weaponize private tax returns for political purposes and that the law cited was not intended to apply to presidential tax returns. Congressional Democrats made their actual intent clear in statements during their 2018 campaigns. The supposed legislative justification is a canard.

Trump has privately made clear he has no intention of turning over his tax returns public.

President Trump says that the attempt to get his returns was an invasion of his privacy and a further example of what he calls the Democrat-led "witch hunt" — like Mueller's Russia probe — meant to damage him.

Trump has long told advisers that the American people elected him once without seeing his taxes and would do so again.

May 07, 2019 11:25 AM  
Anonymous Chicken shit said...

Rump is hiding his taxes so his deplorable sycophants will continue to believe his lies.

Sad

May 07, 2019 12:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Really? Why are you hiding yours?

Btw, lovely screen name. Tells us alot about your outlook on life.

May 07, 2019 1:06 PM  
Anonymous President bone spurs said...

"Chicken shit" is my outlook of Rump, your chicken shit leader.


May 07, 2019 1:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know anyone called Rump. Say, are you supposed to be taking meds? Make sure you don't drive without gulping.

May 07, 2019 2:46 PM  
Anonymous Welcome to tЯumplandia, the land of liars said...

"I don't know anyone called Rump."

What a liar you are.

""Alright Rumpster, after all the lies you've told during this administration, why should we "believe" anything you say, Cadet Bone Spurs?"

no one is asking to believe anything he says"

.
.
.
""So what you're telling me is that Biden has raised nearly as much money in less than a week as Rump has in 4 months"

I didn't tell you anything

Biden sent me an email that is campaign is in trouble if I don't send him $5 by midnight because Trump has raised so much money"

.
.
.
""The Rumpster is on track to add $9.1 Trillion to the debt if he gets a second term. Obama only added $8.588 Trillion"

oh, Trump has plenty of plans to cut spending"




But now you "don't know anyone called Rump."

Apparently you have brain issues.

That's sad.

May 07, 2019 5:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Trump heroically defends citizen privacy"

BWAHAHHAHHAHAHA!!!!!!

Yet somehow Obama wasn't "heroically defending citizen privacy" when the Rumpster kept badgering him about his birth certificate.

People voted Obama into office without seeing his birth certificate, btw.

"Shameless" and "double-standard" doesn't even begin to describe Republicans these days.

The bar for "who can be president" has now been lowered so far that no one will be surprised if the next Republican candidate is a convicted felon out on parole - unless Rump pardons him first.

May 07, 2019 6:57 PM  
Anonymous global warming debunked for good said...

"Yet somehow Obama wasn't "heroically defending citizen privacy" when the Rumpster kept badgering him about his birth certificate."

well, what did Obama do when everyone was asking him about his birth certificate?

information on a birth certificate isn't confidential.

information on a tax return is.

by law.

"People voted Obama into office without seeing his birth certificate, btw."

US birth is a constitutional requirement

""Shameless" and "double-standard" doesn't even begin to describe Republicans these days."

you're right

it doesn't

it describes Dems perfectly

when are Comey, Brennan, and Clapper going to have a swat team descend on their house to arrest them at 4 in the morning for perjury?

"The bar for "who can be president" has now been lowered so far"

at least now we have someone in the White House who was successful at something before running

all Obama ever accomplished was running for office

when we elected him, the least qualified President of all time, whose first political fundraiser was put on by a terrorist, the bar went as low as possible

May 07, 2019 11:42 PM  
Anonymous sing along with Mitch said...

It’s now been more than six weeks since special counsel Bob Mueller, the former FBI director, concluded his investigation into Russia’s interference in our 2016 election and delivered his findings to the Justice Department. It’s been two weeks since Attorney General William Barr made the 450-page report public. This investigation went on for two years. It’s finally over. Many Americans were waiting to see how their elected officials would respond.

With an exhaustive investigation complete, would the country finally unify to confront the real challenges before us? Would we finally be able to move on from partisan paralysis and breathless conspiracy theorizing? Or would we remain consumed by unhinged partisanship and keep dividing ourselves to the point that Putin and his agents need only stand on the sidelines and watch as their job is done for them?

Regrettably, the answer is pretty obvious. So that’s what I want to discuss this morning. Russia’s interference in American elections. The work of the special counsel and the attorney general. And how we can finally end this “Groundhog Day” spectacle, stop endlessly relitigating a 2¹/₂-year-old election result, and move forward for the American people.

Now, it bears remembering what this investigation was actually supposed to be about: Russian interference in 2016. For many of the president’s opponents, it quickly morphed into something else. A last hope that maybe they’d never have to come to terms with the American people’s choice of a president.

In some corners, special counsel Mueller came to be regarded as a kind of a secular saint, destined to rescue the country from the inconvenient truth that the American people actually elected Donald Trump. For two years, many of the president’s opponents seemed to be hoping the worst conspiracy theories were actually true. They seemed to be hoping for a national crisis for the sake of their own politics.

Now look, I will say it was at least heartening to see many of my Democratic colleagues and the media abruptly awaken to the dangers of Russian aggression. An awakening to the dangers of Russian aggression. Remember, not long ago, Democrats mocked Republicans like John McCain and Mitt Romney for warning about the dangers posed by Putin’s Russia. Remember President Obama’s quip in 2012 when then-Governor Romney emphasized his concerns with Russia? Here’s what President Obama said when Mitt Romney emphasized his concerns with Russia back in 2012. Direct quote: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” That was President Obama in 2012.

Well, I think many of us now see that President Obama’s approach to Russia could have used some more of the 1980s in it. More Ronald Reagan and less Jimmy Carter. We’d have been better off if the Obama administration hadn’t swept Putin’s invasion and occupation of Georgia under the rug or looked away as Russia forced out western NGOs and cracked down on civil society.

If President Obama hadn’t let Assad trample his “red line” on Syria or embraced Putin’s fake deal on chemical weapons. If the Obama administration had responded firmly to Putin’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine in 2014; to the assassination of Boris Nemtsov in 2015; and to Russia’s intervention in Syria.

Maybe stronger leadership would have left the Kremlin less emboldened. Maybe tampering with our democracy wouldn’t have seemed so very tempting. Instead, the previous administration sent the Kremlin the signal they could get away with almost anything. So is it surprising that we got the brazen interference detailed in special counsel Mueller’s report? A concerted effort to divide Americans through social- media campaigns. Hacking into the e-mail accounts and networks of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.

Thanks to the investigation, we know more about these tactics. Thanks to the investigation, 13 Russian nationals, three Russian companies and 12 more Russian intelligence officers have been indicted. These are the people who really did seek to undermine our democracy.

May 08, 2019 8:26 AM  
Anonymous sing along with Mitch said...

Yet, curiously, many of our Democratic colleagues and most of the news media don’t really seem to care about that. New insight into defending America? Russian nationals indicted? Doesn’t seem to interest my colleagues across the aisle. No interest. Just like there’s been little interest in the steps this administration has taken to make Russia pay for its interference and strengthen America’s hand.

Election interference was just one part in Russia’s strategy to undercut the United States. And this administration has taken the problem head-on. We have a new, coherent national security strategy and national defense strategy that take this threat seriously.

We have new sanctions. We’ve provided Georgia and Ukraine weapons to better defend themselves — capabilities the previous administration denied our partners — now listen to this — out of fear of provoking Russia. We’ve worked against pipeline projects like Nord Stream 2 that would further expand Putin’s influence. We’re strengthening and reforming NATO so the alliance can present a united front. We proved Russia’s noncompliance with the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty] and walked away from a treaty that Moscow had made into a sham.

And the Trump administration has, over Russian objections, twice enforced President Obama’s red line in Syria after Assad’s use of chemical weapons.

With respect to election security: Congress appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to state governments to shore up their systems. The administration increased information-sharing from the Department of Homeland Security in cooperation with the states. And according to press reports, the Department of Defense has expanded its capabilities and authorities to thwart cyber threats to our democracy.

No longer will we just hope Moscow respects our sovereignty; we will defend it. These are just a few examples. There’s already evidence they’re having an effect.

We just had the 2018 midterm elections. Thanks to this administration’s leadership, all 50 states and more than 1,400 local election jurisdictions focused on election security like never before. DHS provided resources to localities for better cybersecurity, and private social-media companies monitored their own platforms for foreign interference. Thanks to efforts across the federal government, in 2018, we were ready.

That clearly is progress. The Mueller report will help us. So will the upcoming report from the Select Committee on Intelligence. These threats and challenges are real. Our responsibility to strengthen America is serious. And it requires serious work.

May 08, 2019 8:28 AM  
Anonymous Inconvenient facts for the Trump U idiot said...

"information on a tax return is.

by law."

Bullshit.

Congress can get anyone's tax return

by this law:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/6103

26 U.S. Code § 6103. Confidentiality and disclosure of returns and return information...

(f) Disclosure to Committees of Congress
(1) Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance, and Joint Committee on Taxation
Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.

(2) Chief of Staff of Joint Committee on Taxation
Upon written request by the Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish him with any return or return information specified in such request. Such Chief of Staff may submit such return or return information to any committee described in paragraph (1), except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.

(3) Other committees
Pursuant to an action by, and upon written request by the chairman of, a committee of the Senate or the House of Representatives (other than a committee specified in paragraph (1)) specially authorized to inspect any return or return information by a resolution of the Senate or the House of Representatives or, in the case of a joint committee (other than the joint committee specified in paragraph (1)) by concurrent resolution, the Secretary shall furnish such committee, or a duly authorized and designated subcommittee thereof, sitting in closed executive session, with any return or return information which such resolution authorizes the committee or subcommittee to inspect. Any resolution described in this paragraph shall specify the purpose for which the return or return information is to be furnished and that such information cannot reasonably be obtained from any other source.

May 08, 2019 8:29 AM  
Anonymous Continued said...

(4) Agents of committees and submission of information to Senate or House of Representatives
(A) Committees described in paragraph (1)
Any committee described in paragraph (1) or the Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation shall have the authority, acting directly, or by or through such examiners or agents as the chairman of such committee or such chief of staff may designate or appoint, to inspect returns and return information at such time and in such manner as may be determined by such chairman or chief of staff. Any return or return information obtained by or on behalf of such committee pursuant to the provisions of this subsection may be submitted by the committee to the Senate or the House of Representatives, or to both. The Joint Committee on Taxation may also submit such return or return information to any other committee described in paragraph (1), except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.

(B) Other committees
Any committee or subcommittee described in paragraph (3) shall have the right, acting directly, or by or through no more than four examiners or agents, designated or appointed in writing in equal numbers by the chairman and ranking minority member of such committee or subcommittee, to inspect returns and return information at such time and in such manner as may be determined by such chairman and ranking minority member. Any return or return information obtained by or on behalf of such committee or subcommittee pursuant to the provisions of this subsection may be submitted by the committee to the Senate or the House of Representatives, or to both, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer, shall be furnished to the Senate or the House of Representatives only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.

May 08, 2019 8:34 AM  
Anonymous sing along with Mitch said...

But seriousness is not what we’ve seen from the Democratic Party in recent days. What we’ve seen is a meltdown. An inability to accept the bottom-line conclusion on Russian interference from the special counsel’s report: “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.”

That’s the conclusion. Two years of exhaustive investigation, and nothing to establish the fanciful conspiracy theory that Democratic politicians and TV talking heads had treated like a foregone conclusion. They told everyone there’d been a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Yet on this central question, the special counsel’s finding is clear: Case closed. Case closed.

This ought to be good news for everyone. But my Democratic colleagues seem to be publicly working through the five stages of grief.

The first stage is denial. Remember what happened when the attorney general released his preliminary letter describing the special counsel’s bottom-line legal conclusions? Denial. Immediately, totally baseless speculation that perhaps Attorney General Barr hadn’t quoted the report properly.

But then, comes stage two: anger. Welcome to Washington, DC, in recent days. The Democrats are angry. Angry that the facts disappointed them. Angry that our legal system will not magically undo the 2016 election for them.

And they’ve opted to channel all their partisan anger onto the attorney general. They seem to be angrier at Bill Barr for doing his job than they are at Vladimir Putin. This is a distinguished public servant whose career stretches back almost 50 years. He’s widely respected. Nobody claims he has any prior personal allegiance to this president.

And why are they angry? Did the attorney general fire the special counsel or force him to wind down prematurely? No. Did he sit on the Mueller report and keep it secret? No, he quickly reported out its bottom-line legal conclusions and then released as much as possible for the world to see. Did he use redactions to mislead the public? No. Working with the special counsel’s team, he released as much as possible within standard safeguards.

So it’s hard to see the source of this anger. Maybe my Democratic colleagues are thinking of some strange new kind of coverup — where you take the entire thing you’re supposedly covering up and post it on the Internet. The claims get more and more utterly absurd. Baseless accusations of perjury. Laughable threats of impeachment.

Look, we all know what’s going on here. This is the whole angry barrage that Democrats had prepared to unleash on President Trump. Except the facts let them down. And so the left has swung all those cannons around and fired them at the attorney general. Not for any legitimate reason. Just because he’s a convenient target.

So look, there’s this “outrage industrial complex” that spans from Capitol press conferences to cable news. They are grieving — grieving — that the national crisis they spent two years wishing for did not materialize. But for the rest of the country, this is good news. Bad news for the “outrage industrial complex,” but good news for the country.

So, now they’re slandering a distinguished public servant because the real world has disappointed them. Instead of taking a deep breath and coming back to reality, our colleagues across the aisle want to shoot the messenger and keep the perpetual outrage machine right on going. Even undermining the institution of the attorney general itself in the process.

May 08, 2019 8:39 AM  
Anonymous sing along with Mitch said...


Remember, Russia set out to sow discord. To create chaos in American politics and undermine confidence in our democracy. But, on that front, given the left’s total fixation on delegitimizing the president Americans chose and shooting any messenger who tells them inconvenient truths, I’m afraid the Russians hardly need to lift a finger. Well, the last stage of grief is acceptance. For the country’s sake, I hope my Democratic friends get there soon. There are serious issues the American people need us to tackle. There is more progress for middle-class families that we need to deliver.

For two years, the Democratic Party held out hope that the legal system would undo their loss in 2016. They refused to make peace with the American people’s choice. But the American people elected this president. They did. The American people voted for change. The American people sent us here to deliver results for their families. That’s what Republicans have been doing for the past two years and counting. It’s what Republicans will continue to do. And whenever our Democratic friends can regain their composure and come back to reality, we look forward to their help

May 08, 2019 8:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"at least now we have someone in the White House who was successful at something before running"

Well, if you consider being the corporate world's "biggest loser" being "successful," I guess you got me there:

"The newspaper’s analysis of the tax information includes how Trump was already deep in financial trouble in 1987 when he published his book “The Art of the Deal,” a bestseller that focused on his business career as a so-called self-made billionaire. In 1985, his core businesses apparently reported a loss of more than $46 million and carried over a $5.6 million loss from earlier years. The president has long blamed his first round of business reversals and bankruptcies on the 1990 recession, but the Times analysis shows that his fortune was already on its way down much earlier.

The tax results also show that Trump appears to have lost more money during that decade than nearly any other individual taxpayer, according to the Times. His core businesses reportedly lost over $250 million each year in 1990 and 1991, which the Times said is more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in its sampling of high-income earners for those years.

Notably, the investigation reveals that the president did not pay federal income taxes for eight out of the 10 years analyzed. Business owners can use their net operating losses to avoid paying taxes on future income. The new tax information reportedly shows that Trump’s net operating losses reached $418 million in 1991, which was 1% of all the losses the IRS said was declared by individual taxpayers that year.

The analysis notes that Trump at one time tried to delay his collapse by playing the role of a corporate raider, in which he would acquire company shares with borrowed money, publicly announce he was contemplating a takeover and then quietly sell his shares on the resulting stock price bump. According to the Times, Trump declared $67.3 million in such stock gains from 1986 through 1989, but he ultimately lost most of it after investors stopped taking his takeover announcements seriously."

May 08, 2019 8:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"For two years, the Democratic Party held out hope that the legal system would undo their loss in 2016."

McConnell: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

The Democrats should treat Trump with the same dignity, respect, cooperation, and deference that Republicans showed for President Obama.

May 08, 2019 8:51 AM  
Anonymous Garland, Goresuch & Kavanaugh...two outta three ain't bad said...

"The Democrats should treat Trump with the same dignity, respect, cooperation, and deference that Republicans showed for President Obama."

they should but they haven't

no one ever launched the kind of investigative blitzkrieg on Obama that Dems have launched on Trump

"26 U.S. Code § 6103. Confidentiality and disclosure of returns and return information."

this law requires confidentiality

the problem Congress has is that it made clear they believe Trump should release his returns publicly and that they would abuse their legislative authority to achieve that

the other problem is the law doesn't specifically mention the President so other parts of the legal code and judiciary record may provide protection from politically motivated requests

May 08, 2019 9:18 AM  
Anonymous Crawl back under your rock. Liars are not welcome said...

"Congress has is that it made clear they believe Trump should release his returns publicly"

I dare you to show us this request to "publicly" release Rump's tax forms, you liar.

Inconvenient facts:

As chairman of the House’s tax-writing panel, Neal has the authority to ask for any tax return from the Treasury Secretary, who oversees the IRS. However, any returns supplied about a particular taxpayer can be furnished only when the committee is sitting in closed executive session, unless the taxpayer consents to disclosure.

Neal’s authority to seek the president’s tax returns stems from Section 6103 of the tax code: “Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request.”

The law is crystal clear — the Treasury Department must provide tax returns to the Ways & Means and Finance Committees when the chairman requests them.

May 08, 2019 9:31 AM  
Anonymous Garland, Goresuch & Kavanaugh...two outta three ain't bad said...

"The law is crystal clear — the Treasury Department must provide tax returns to the Ways & Means and Finance Committees when the chairman requests them."

anyone who thinks "the law is crystal clear" is a moron

eventually, we'll find out what Brett Kavanaugh thinks

"I dare you to show us this request to "publicly" release Rump's tax forms, you liar."

literally, every Dem has made it known they think Trump should release his returns publicly

your remark is inane

May 08, 2019 10:24 AM  
Anonymous you guys really did it this time, now you'll never see the report said...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is invoking executive privilege, reserving the right to block the full release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia probe, escalating President Donald Trump's battle with Congress.

The administration's decision was announced just as the House Judiciary Committee was gaveling in to consider holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress over failure to release the report.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the action was a response to the "blatant abuse of power" by Democratic Rep. Nadler.

"Neither the White House nor Attorney General Barr will comply with Chairman Nadler's unlawful and reckless demands," she said.

Barr released a redacted version of Mueller's report to the public last month, but Democrats said they want to see the full document, along with underlying evidence, desperately hoping to find something to justify their hyperbolic statements over the last two years, and subpoenaed the full report . The department has rejected that demand, while allowing a handful of lawmakers to view a version of Mueller's report with fewer redactions. Democrats have said they won't view that version until they get broader access.

Executive privilege is the president's power to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of the Oval Office decision-making process.

Trump has defied requests from House Democrats since the release of Mueller's report last month, and Democrats are fighting the White House on several fronts as they attempt to learn more about the report, call witnesses and obtain all of Trump's personal and financial documents.

On Monday, Justice spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said the department has "taken extraordinary steps to accommodate the House Judiciary Committee's requests for information" regarding Mueller's report, but that Nadler had not reciprocated. She noted that Democrats have refused to read the version of Mueller's report with fewer redactions that has been provided to Congress.

Democratic House leaders could file a lawsuit against the Justice Department to obtain the Mueller report, though the case could take years to resolve. Some committee members have suggested they also could fine Barr as he withholds the information.

Republicans have united behind the president, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday declaring "case closed" on Mueller's Russia probe and potential obstruction by Trump. McConnell said Democrats are "grieving" the result.

Mueller said he could not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, and he did not conclude that Trump obstructed justice.

Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer issued a laughable joint statement calling it "a stunning act of political cynicism and a brazen violation of the oath we all take."

May 08, 2019 11:29 AM  
Anonymous Comey, Clapper, Brennan....three out of three are bad said...

What do you call a country where the police and the intelligence agencies spy on an opposition party? Russia? Because that’s what we’ve become, and the question is what should be done about it.

For the last two years the media establishment has known that the FBI and the CIA spied on the Trump campaign, and we didn’t hear a peep from them about it. The reason for their silence was the belief that we’d find out that Trump had colluded or conspired with the Russians. Had that been the case, we might now be celebrating the FBI’s Peter Strzok as a hero that saved the Republic. But now that the Mueller Report is out, we know that Trump and the Trump campaign were entirely innocent. With all the tools and threats at his disposal, with all the dead-of-night raids and prosecutions for process offenses, Mueller couldn’t get anyone to lie about Trump.

When something goes so wrong, there would be consequences in a normal country. The people who pushed a collusion story without any evidence to back it up might feel a little ashamed of themselves. They would have come out publicly and admitted they were wrong, and if they were honorable apologized to the president. But if any of that happened, I’m afraid I missed it.

You might also expect people to want to know how a story of treachery and corruption were created out of thin air. Fine, the very politicized people in the intelligence agencies hated Trump and thought he’d be a disaster. They were wrong, of course, but the question is what gave them the right to employ all the powers at their command to unseat a duly elected president?

If we’re now supposed to sweep it under the rug, then wouldn’t it be fair game to unleash a politicized CIA to spy on a Democratic president, or for a partisan FBI to trick his officials into lying to them? Except that then we really would have descended to a Third World rule of law.

It’s hard to define the rule of law, but one thing it has to mean is that there’s a barrier between law and politics. You don’t prosecute political enemies on trumped up charges, and especially you don’t overturn an election because it didn’t turn out the way you wanted. They do that sort of thing in Venezuela and Turkey. I had thought we were better than that.

May 08, 2019 1:00 PM  
Anonymous Comey, Clapper, Brennan....three out of three are bad said...

The FBI and CIA have gotten away with it because they protect their own, and because they’re protected by a media establishment that isn’t a fan of the rule of law when it gets in their way. But the issue is too important to let it rest.

FBI director Christopher Wray has announced that he’s trying to understand how the investigation got started, but in his testimony Tuesday he sounded like he’s circling the wagons. Not that we should be surprised. The Bureau can’t be expected to investigate itself.

Then there’s the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz. He’s announced that he’s looking at whether the Department and the FBI complied with proper procedures in applications filed with the FISA court. But he’s limited to looking at Justice Department records, and he doesn’t have the power to subpoena witnesses to testify.

That’s why the task of repairing the breach and restoring the rule of law falls on Attorney General Bill Barr. In his first press conference, after receiving the Mueller Report, he announced that he’d be looking at whether the members of the intelligence agencies that pursued the Trump campaign had the proper “predicate” to do so. That’s a legal term meant to insure that Americans can’t be investigated unless there are reasonable grounds for doing so. And what that in turn means is that he’ll have to go back to how the whole thing started.

We now know that there was nothing to the Russian collusion story. We didn’t know that six months ago, which means that investigations launched in 2018 were not improper. But what about how all this got started, in the fall of 2016, when the Democrats were shocked to learn that they had lost and Hillary Clinton joined the “resistance”? When the infamous Steele dossier, bought and paid for by the Democrats, was given to the FBI, who made the sale, who made the purchase, and who in the FBI decided this was something the FISA court should know about?

Barr’s challenge is to show that the intelligence agencies are not permitted to abuse their powers by launching an investigation for partisan reasons. And most importantly, about people who have just been elected President of the United States.

May 08, 2019 1:03 PM  
Anonymous drip...drip..drip....... said...

If ever there were an admission that taints the FBI’s secret warrant to surveil Donald Trump’s campaign, it sat buried for more than 2 1/2 years in the files of a high-ranking State Department official.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline.

And that confession occurred 10 days before the FBI used Steele’s now-discredited dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s ties to Russia.

Steele’s client “is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8,” the date of the 2016 election, Kavalec wrote in a typed summary of her meeting with Steele and Tatyana Duran, a colleague from Steele’s Orbis Security firm. The memos were unearthed a few days ago through open-records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United.

Kavalec’s notes do not appear to have been provided to the House Intelligence Committee during its Russia probe, according to former Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). "They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there’s a reason for it," Nunes told me. Senate and House Judiciary investigators told me they did not know about them, even though they investigated Steele’s behavior in 2017-18.

One member of Congress transmitted the memos this week to the Department of Justice’s inspector general, fearing its investigation of FISA abuses may not have had access to them.

Nonetheless, the FBI is doing its best to keep much of Kavalec’s information secret by retroactively claiming it is classified, even though it was originally marked unclassified in 2016.

The apparent effort to hide Kavalec's notes from her contact with Steele has persisted for some time.

May 08, 2019 1:08 PM  
Anonymous No deal, no art -- Trump. Is. The. Biggest. Loser. In. The. Country! said...

BIGGEST LOSER : Trump’s tax figures show over $1 Billion in business losses. He was -and likely is- deeply in debt.

I demand this president show us his long-form worth certificate. #TrumpTaxes

The businessman has no clothes.

The biggest loser!!!!

Trump lost money in the LATE 80’s—a period of economic growth that’s about the last time you would have expected him to have operated in the red. If he wasn’t making money then, you seriously have to wonder when he ever turned a profit.

World's greatest businessman lost $1 billion RUNNING CASINOS https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/trump-tax-figures.html

The only man who could bankrupt a business rigged in favor of the proprietor.

The myth of @realDonaldTrump as a successful businessman is over. The truth? He's the largest loser in the IRS system, and the spoiled inheritor of his daddy's real estate empire.

“And then he had someone write The Art of The Deal about himself while he was on his way of being $1 billion in debt!” #Trump #TrumpTaxes

Turns out, Trump was better suited for The Biggest Loser than his own reality TV show-to the tune of more than a billion dollars.

Donald Trump is a man born one foot from home plate who has spent his entire life walking back to third base and stepping on rakes the entire way.#TrumpTaxes

I saw focus groups of Trump voters in 2016. They thought the fact he was a hugely successful businessman would make him a successful president. The fact he was a loser in business will hurt him. And that is why he’s kept his taxes secret.

May 08, 2019 3:08 PM  
Anonymous To hell with Trumplandia, WE WANT AMERICA BACK! said...

Trump issued a bogus declaration of executive privilege over the full Mueller report in advance of the House Judiciary Committee’s vote on whether to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt.

Too bad Trump already waived executive privilege during Mueller’s probe and allowed the release of more than 1.4 million pages of documents and voluntary interviews from dozens of staffers.

Further, it is preposterous to invoke executive privilege for a document designed to provide not a prosecutorial judgment but evidence for Congress to act.

House Judiciary Chair Nadler reminded everyone of the facts:

"This is information we are legally entitled to receive and we are constitutionally obligated to review. And I would remind the Members that the Mueller report is no ordinary, run of the mill document—it details significant misconduct involving the President, including his campaign’s willingness and eagerness to accept help from a hostile foreign government, numerous misstatements if not outright lies concerning those acts, and 11 separate incidents of obstructive behavior by the President that more than 700 former prosecutors have told us warrant criminal indictment."...

The administration is saying you cannot indict a president and Congress cannot get the full information it needs to determine whether impeachment is advisable. Noting that Trump is also stonewalling on his tax returns, Nadler warned: “This is unprecedented. If allowed to go unchecked, this obstruction means the end of congressional oversight. As a co-equal branch of government, we should not and cannot allow this to continue. I urge my colleagues, whether or not you care to see the full Mueller Report—and we all should want to see the complete Report—to stand up for the institution we are proud to serve.”

But Republicans think they serve Trump, not the US Constitution. They are entirely unwilling to look beyond naked partisan concerns, to adhere to their oaths and to take seriously the assault that Trump wages on the Constitution. If the committee votes to hold Barr in contempt, the matter will go to the floor of the House.

For a report that is supposed to entirely exonerate Trump, he and his minions are going to extreme lengths to conceal its complete contents, to prevent the attorney general from testifying and even to try to keep Mueller from testifying. If he did not obstruct justice before, he certainly is obstructing Congress now. The House should exercise all of its powers to end Trump’s autocratic spasm. Our democracy is at stake.

May 08, 2019 3:26 PM  
Anonymous drip...drip..drip....... said...

"Donald Trump is a man born one foot from home plate who has spent his entire life walking back to third base"

then, why does he have so many more assets than his father?

if he lost so much in the 80s, why is he thriving three and half decades later?

Dems are desperate to divert attention from the dripping in the wall

May 08, 2019 3:29 PM  
Anonymous drip...drip..drip....... said...

"For a report that is supposed to entirely exonerate Trump, he and his minions are going to extreme lengths"

typical pufffed-up demagoguish Dem hypocrisy

no one wants their private matters and confidential conversations exposed

traditionally, when a prosecutor finds no cause to indict, all evidence is confidential

think of the fit Dems had that Hillary's emails were exposed

why did they mind if Hillary was so innocent?

what a bunch of hypocrites!

May 08, 2019 3:38 PM  
Anonymous drip...drip..drip....... said...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals late Tuesday granted the Trump administration's request to send asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait out court proceedings.

The court order reversed a decision by a San Francisco judge that would have blocked the policy — giving President Trump a huge victory on immigration.

The case will liely end up at the Supreme Court.

May 08, 2019 3:42 PM  
Anonymous How soon they forget said...


Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump

HALF of Americans don't pay income tax despite crippling govt debt...http://plu.gd/qLa

3:59 PM - Feb 23, 2012

May 08, 2019 3:45 PM  
Anonymous He's guilty as sin said...

Instructing witnesses not to appear before Congressional committees, raising bogus privilege claims, blocking a legally required delivery of his tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee chairman — President Trump seems eager to duplicate the conduct that was the basis for Article 3 of the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon.

May 08, 2019 4:24 PM  
Anonymous drip...drip..drip....... said...

Please, rabid Dems were throwing the kitchen sink at Nixon.

Earl Warren ruled that Congress must have legitimate legislative purpose to expose the confidential records of individuals.

Does Congress have unlimited authority to look at the tax returns of President Trump — or anyone else?

Trump won the election without releasing his returns and has steadfastly refused to release them since, making them something of a Holy Grail for his opponents.

House Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) has what would appear to be plenary authority to personally review the tax returns of any American, thanks to 26 USC 6103(f), a law regarding "confidentiality and disclosure of returns and return information." Neal demanded the Treasury Department produce Trump's tax returns.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin issued a firm refusal. "In reliance on the advice of the Department of Justice," Mnuchin wrote to Neal, "I have determined that the committee's request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose."

Without such a legislative purpose, Mnuchin warned, the IRS would not provide the returns — even though the language Neal cites in 26 USC 6103(f) unequivocally says the Treasury Department is required to supply any such returns to the committee chair if they are requested. The Department of Justice maintained that Neal's authority in the statute "is bounded by Congress' authority under the Constitution," and that Supreme Court precedent required Congress to demonstrate a specific and legitimate "legislative purpose."

Curiously, the term "legislative purpose" appears nowhere in the relevant law. In fact, the same law allows the president the authority to review the returns of White House employees without their express approval. So where did Mnuchin and the Department of Justice come up with this argument?

May 08, 2019 4:35 PM  
Anonymous drip...drip..drip....... said...

It originates in two other scandals — both of which involved government officials intruding on Americans' privacy, although in different ways.

The law emerged from what could easily be called the Watergate of the 1920s: the Teapot Dome scandal. The treasury secretary of that time, Andrew Mellon, got into a political battle with fellow Republican Sen. James Couzens over tax-reform plans in response to the scandal. Mellon allegedly used his position to access Couzens' tax returns and exploited the data to paint him as a hypocrite. In its attempt to investigate Mellon's actions, Congress discovered that it had no similar mechanism to access tax returns, prompting an early form of the statute we have today as a means of balancing power between the two branches — and presumably discouraging any further political exploitation of tax returns.

If that action speaks against wanton access to tax returns of political foes, then an important Supreme Court decision in another context emphasizes the point. In a letter last month to the Treasury Department's general counsel, Trump's personal attorney, William Consovoy, pointed to the Supreme Court's decision in Watkins v. US, a 1957 case brought against the House Un-American Activities Committee during the "Red Scare." Labor organizer John Watkins was cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to provide information not pertinent to a legitimate investigative purpose. Watkins sued and eventually the Supreme Court ruled 6-1 in his favor, a ruling hailed at the time as a major limitation on Congress' reckless use of its investigative authority.

Former Chief Justice Earl Warren's opinion from that time speaks to some of the issues in contention in the current fight. "Congress has no general authority to expose the private affairs of individuals," Warren concluded, "without justification in terms of the functions of Congress." He specifically cited a need to demonstrate a "legislative purpose," noting that "[i]t cannot simply be assumed that every congressional investigation is justified by a public need that overbalances any private rights affected."

The same statute cited by Neal makes clear the private nature of tax returns. No one other than the taxpayer himself or his duly designated agents, custodians, or heirs can disclose that information unless required for specific legal investigations or to review specific issues of administration by the IRS. Even in the law's whistleblower section, the release of taxpayer information to anyone else has to relate to "misconduct, maladministration, or taxpayer abuse" by the government, not the taxpayer himself.

Watkins makes it clear that one party winning a majority in either chamber of Congress does not authorize fishing expeditions through the private affairs of any American, whether president or pipefitter. Without an explicit and clear predicate for Congress to review Trump's tax returns, the courts will side with Warren in this instance. Otherwise, both parties could misuse confidential tax information to declare open season on their political opponents, the allies of their political opponents, their critics, and so on.

When politicians voluntarily release their tax returns, this has value in transparency and character assessment. And I'm not saying voters can't assume the worst about political candidates who refuse to follow this tradition. Voters have the authority to make this criteria as important or unimportant as they see fit, and punish those who fail to meet those standards at the ballot box. We do not need to make the good compulsory, however, nor allow the same politicians the authority to access private information simply because they won an election, regardless of which branch of government they serve. For all of our sakes, we should leave it at that.

May 08, 2019 4:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"specific and legitimate "legislative purpose.""

Oversight is a core constitutional function, a cornerstone of the structural checks and balances on which our federal government is built. Congress cannot carry out its constitutional duties without the power to investigate whether the laws it enacts are being faithfully executed and whether the money it appropriates is being properly spent. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the exercise of congressional oversight, including the power of committees to issue subpoenas, because oversight is “inherent in the legislative process.”

May 08, 2019 4:56 PM  
Anonymous drip...drip..drip....... said...

"Oversight is a core constitutional function, a cornerstone of the structural checks and balances on which our federal government is built. Congress cannot carry out its constitutional duties without the power to investigate whether the laws it enacts are being faithfully executed and whether the money it appropriates is being properly spent. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the exercise of congressional oversight, including the power of committees to issue subpoenas, because oversight is “inherent in the legislative process"

you're talking yourself into a dither

Trump's tax returns have nothing to do with whether or how his administration is faithfully executing laws or properly spending appropriations

for that matter, neither does the Russian hoax

time is running out for Dems

that's why they're so desperate

if they can't get Barr removed, his investigation will discover their malfeasance

by their own definitions, their harassment of Barr represents obstruction of justice

May 08, 2019 5:26 PM  
Anonymous Donald Trump Jr. subpoenaed by Senate committee for further testimony on campaign’s Russia contacts said...

The Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, seeking additional closed-door testimony as part of lawmakers’ ongoing probe of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, according to people familiar with the summons.

Trump Jr. has been a focus of several probes — including special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation — over his involvement in a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on the Hillary Clinton campaign. Congressional Democrats believe that, during his previous turns on Capitol Hill, Trump Jr. may have lied to investigators about that meeting and whether he told President Trump that the meeting would take place.

News of the subpoena was first reported by Axios.

Trump Jr. is “exasperated” by the committee’s actions, according to a person who has discussed the subpoena with him, because he already “offered to continue to cooperate in writing.”

“From his view, Don Jr. thinks they just want a PR stunt,” the person said.

But the Intelligence Committee has been trying to schedule a second interview with Trump Jr. for weeks, according to people familiar with the negotiations, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is supremely sensitive. The panel is bringing several key witnesses back for second interviews to give lawmakers a chance to question witnesses previously interviewed only by staff.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, appeared for a second closed-door interview with the committee in late March. After Mueller’s report was published, Democrats raised concerns that Kushner also may have lied to the House and Senate Intelligence committees about a business associate’s collaboration with a Russian banker close to the Kremlin, talks that centered on revamping U.S.-Russia relations.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, appeared for a second closed-door interview with the committee in late March. After Mueller’s report was published, Democrats raised concerns that Kushner also may have lied to the House and Senate Intelligence committees about a business associate’s collaboration with a Russian banker close to the Kremlin, talks that centered on revamping U.S.-Russia relations...


May 08, 2019 6:45 PM  
Anonymous drip, drip, drip...Obama will be caught said...

"The Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, seeking additional closed-door testimony as part of lawmakers’ ongoing probe of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election"

what else could they possibly want to know at this point?

he's right

it's a PR stunt

May 08, 2019 9:26 PM  
Anonymous drip, drip, drip...Obama will be caught said...

Pelosi is right, Trump is trying to get the Dems to impeach him

he knows he'll win...and get sympathy from the public

One day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Donald Trump is “goading us to impeach him,” the president's erstwhile confidant Chris Christie basically dared Democrats to do just that.

Interviewed Wednesday at the SALT Conference in Las Vegas Christie said Democrats could seek to impeach Trump but know it would be“politically stupid.”

“If they want to do it, game on. If they want to do it, go ahead and do it, but stop skirting around the edges and acting as if you may do, but you may not do it and try to make a political point out of it,” Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, said. “Either do it or don’t, otherwise, let’s have a political election in 2020 and people can decide these issues then.”

The Trump White House has defied congressional subpoenas seeking a full, unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“It sounds like he’s asking us to impeach him,” Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, said last week. “He puts us in a position where we at least have to look at it.”

Pelosi echoed that remark Tuesday.

“Trump is goading us to impeach him,” Pelosi said at an event sponsored by Cornell University’s Institute of Politics and Global Affairs. “That’s what he’s doing. Every single day, he’s just like taunting, taunting, taunting.

“He knows that it would be very divisive in the country,” she continued. “But he doesn’t really care. He just wants to solidify his base.”

Christie said Trump was within his rights to exert executive privilege over the Mueller report and in seeking to prevent his former White House counsel, Don McGahn, from testifying.

“I know a lot of people don’t like this, but he was elected president of the United States by the American people. They are the ultimate deciders on his truthfulness or untruthfulness, unless he’s brought before an impeachment hearing in the House of Representatives and a trial in the United States Senate, which the Democrats like to kind of skirt around because they know it’s politically stupid to do,” Christie said. “They just want to get around the edges of it and imply it but not do it, because, by the way, if they wanted to go back to the Don McGahn issue, if they wanted Don McGahn to testify, open an impeachment hearing. Then Don McGahn would have no basis not to come and testify.

“But they don’t want to do that because they’re afraid it would rebound on them.”

Jeff Sessions, who is entertaining the possibility of running once more for Senate in his home state of Alabama, praised William Barr, his successor at the Department of Justice, and portrayed the clash between the executive and legislative branches as nothing new.

“I don’t think we’re ... at a constitutional crisis yet and I don’t think very close to it,” Sessions said. “There’s been some squabbles between Congress and the Department of Justice and Cabinet agencies for years over all kinds of discovery questions, documents and that sort of thing.”

May 08, 2019 9:37 PM  
Anonymous Publicity stunt said...

"what else could they possibly want to know at this point?"

This:

"Trump Jr. may have lied to investigators about that meeting and whether he told President Trump that the meeting would take place."

And had you bothered to click the link and read more, you would know:

"The subpoena is not new; it was issued at least a week ago, people familiar with the matter said. But a person close to Trump Jr. argued that no lawyer would allow him to go back to the panel for open-ended questioning.

As negotiations over Trump Jr.’s testimony dragged on, committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) became increasingly frustrated and believed that Trump Jr. was defying the committee’s authority and not honoring his original agreement, a person familiar with the matter said.

Trump Jr. had always understood that his first appearance was with committee staff and that members reserved the right to call him again so that they could question him, but he continued to put off his appearance, this person said....

But concerns about Trump Jr.’s statements are potentially more problematic for the president. According to a transcript of Trump Jr.’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he told lawmakers that he did not tell his father about the Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Trump Jr.’s testimony to other committees was in line with the account he gave to the Senate Judiciary panel, several Democrats said.

Yet in Mueller’s report, the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, said he recalled being in Trump’s office when Trump Jr. talked about a meeting to get “adverse information” on Clinton. Cohen told Mueller’s team that it appeared that father and son had previously discussed the subject.

Mueller never interviewed Trump Jr...."

Thanks for askin'

May 09, 2019 9:52 AM  
Anonymous drip...drip..drip....... said...

Mueller's report says all they need to know. Perjury committed by a non-President is not under their purview. If they think that, they should refer to the DOJ

The House vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress is unlikely to result in punishment, recent history shows.

Both parties have voted to hold high-ranking, executive branch officials in contempt over the past two decades for refusing to testify or turn over subpoenaed material, among them President George W. Bush’s chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and President Barack Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder.

But little has come of criminal contempt votes, and none of the top officials lawmakers targeted were prosecuted.

“Efforts to punish an executive branch official for non-compliance with a subpoena through criminal contempt will likely prove unavailing” the Congressional Research Service, which provides analyses exclusively to Congress, concluded in 2017.

May 09, 2019 10:04 AM  
Anonymous Apparently you can't even fool Fox viewers all the time said...

From:

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/poll-just-50-of-fox-news-viewers-buy-trumps-claim-the-mueller-report-cleared-him/

"When it comes to whether the Mueller report clears Trump, a tiny fraction of network, CNN and MSNBC viewers said it did. Fox News viewers were the clear outlier, with 50% believing the report clears the president:"

Broadcast: 21%
Fox: 50%
CNN: 14%
MSNBC: 15%

May 09, 2019 10:32 AM  

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