We
can scoff and sneer at those images of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
on his beachfront imperium, or we can learn from them. As he took in the
sun, he doled out a lesson, the same one that Donald Trump is
delivering on a daily basis and in a grander fashion:
Beware
the politician who doesn’t give a damn for decorum. What he markets as
irreverence can be something coarser and more perverse.
It can lead to ruin. Christie’s approval rating from New Jersey voters was just 15 percent — the lowest for any current governor in the country and the worst in his state’s history
— before his weekend repose on what turned out to be quicksand. He
could sink into single digits after this. Negative integers aren’t
entirely out of the question.
I
hope Trump is watching, but I have my doubts. The Christie family’s
swimwear pageant isn’t the kind that he’s known to ogle. Plus, he surely
turns the channel when the visage on the screen isn’t his own.
The
stories of the disgraced New Jersey governor and the disgraceful
American president overlap.
Christie was “Trump before Trump,” Michael
Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, told The
Washington Post’s Robert Costa in an article
published late Monday. “He does what he wants to do, and his success
can be traced to that. But there are consequences, of course, when you
work that way.”
Steele
could as easily have been talking about Trump, and when Costa referred
to the “defiance that has both lifted and hobbled Christie’s political
career,” he brought to mind Trump’s temperament and trajectory, whether
he meant to or not.
The
twins of tantrum, Christie and Trump had almost identical political
appeals. They mocked propriety. They broke rules. They assertively
peddled the impression that as happy as they were to make friends, they
were even happier to make enemies, because that meant that they were
fully in the fight.
In
an era of resentment and anger, many voters thrilled to the spectacle.
The problem with other politicians, these voters legitimately reasoned,
was too much indulgence of vested interests and too cowardly an
obeisance to convention. If you didn’t slaughter the sacred cows, you’d
never get to the tastiest filet.
But
Christie and Trump proved to be butchers of a more indiscriminate and
self-serving sort, and both demonstrated that there’s a short leap from
headstrong to hardheaded and from defiant to delusional. Bold
nonconformity can be the self-indulgent egotist’s drag.
Yes,
Christie called out fools in certain circumstances where they deserved
it and steamrolled opponents who stood in the way of some plans that
were wholly defensible. And he was seemingly immune to any of the
subsequent caricatures of him as a bully.
But he was also deaf to inevitable and entirely fair questions about his behavior. As Nick Corasaniti noted
in The Times this week, he was caught “using a state helicopter paid
for by taxpayers to attend his son’s baseball game.” He let King
Abdullah of Jordan treat him and his family to a $30,000 weekend in a posh hotel.
He
was blind to how he would come across when, in his speech at the 2012
Republican National Convention, he took such a gaudy star turn that the
party’s presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, was reduced to a cameo. Christie bucked traditional manners, all right. He bucked them all the way to jaw-dropping megalomania.
Make
no mistake: For all their flamboyant pugnaciousness, the Christies and
Trumps of the political world are chasing adulation every bit as much as
their peers are — maybe more so. They’re just taking a deliberately
muddier route, and if they don’t get there, they’re more likely to wear
their failure as a badge of honor and to dig in with a destructive
arrogance.
When
Christie was asked whether, despite a shutdown of the state government,
he would steal away to the manse on the shore that’s a perk of his
office, he unabashedly answered yes.
“That’s just the way it goes,” he said. “Run for governor, and you can have a residence.”
Translation: I’m governor and you’re not. Where have we heard a formulation like that before?
Trump
and Christie somehow decided that you have to govern by middle finger
if you want to avoid governing by pinkie finger. But there’s a digit in
between: a middle ground. It’s where real leadership and true
effectiveness lie.
Christie’s
disrepute and dashed ambitions confirm as much. So does the ongoing
insult of Trump’s presidency. They show that if you embrace a politician
who talks too frequently and proudly about not caring what anyone
thinks, you’ll wind up in the clutch of a politician whose last refuge
is not caring what anyone thinks. That’s a dangerous place to be.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 5, 2017, on Page A19 of the New York Times edition with the headline: Chris Christie’s Tutorial In Hubris. Today's Paper|Subscribe
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams abruptly pleaded guilty
Thursday, nearly two weeks into a federal bribery trial that dragged
embarrassing details about his messy personal life and financial
struggles out into open court.
Williams will resign as the city’s top prosecutor as part of a deal
under which he pleaded guilty to one count related to accepting a bribe
from Bucks County businessman Mohammad Ali.
Asked by U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond whether he intended to
follow through with his resignation, Williams choked up and answered,
“humbly, sincerely and effective immediately.”
Diamond said he wanted Williams’ resignation letter couriered to Mayor Kenny’s office as soon as the hearing was over.
Williams remained somber looking throughout the guilty plea hearing.
“I’m just very sorry for all of this, your honor,” he said.
At a followup hearing to determine whether Williams should be jailed
immediately, defense attorney Thomas F. Burke argued the disgraced
prosecutor was not a flight risk.
“He has no means as the court can see to go anywhere. He has no
support. He’s deeply in debt and he doesn’t even have a car,” Burke
said.
Taking the witness stand to plead with a judge not to send him
directly to prison before sentencing, tears welled up in Williams’ eyes
while discussing his daughters.
He acknowledged he was broke, saying he had “probably about $150 to $200” in his bank account.
In addition to accepting that he could face a maximum 5 year term
when he is sentenced Oct. 24, Williams agreed to forfeit $64,878.22
While the 28 remaining counts against Williams were dismissed, he
“admits that he committed all of the conduct in those 29 counts,”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer said.
“Williams took benefits repeatedly from Mr. Ali knowing that those
benefits were offered – at least in part – to influence him to take
official actions,” said Zauzmer.
Williams notified prosecutors he wanted to take the plea deal at 1 a.m.Thursday, said Zauzmer.
Sources close to the case say the deal is similar to one Williams was
offered – and turned down – one day before his indictment earlier this
year on 29 corruption-related counts including bribery, extortion and
honest services fraud.
Prior to his admission, prosecutors and Williams’ defense lawyers –
Thomas F. Burke and Trevan Borum – spent more than an hour huddled in
quiet conversation in the courtroom, while the district attorney was
nowhere to be seen.
His decision came after weeks of damaging testimony in which
government witnesses characterized him a shameless beggar who repeatedly
turned to the money of others to fund a lifestyle he couldn’t afford.
Two wealthy businessmen testified that they had showered the district
attorney with gifts of all-expenses-paid travel, luxury goods and even
cash in anticipation of the legal favors they might need from him.
And prosecutors had alleged that Williams delivered for them –
writing letters to throw his weight into their legal problems and
promising in one instance to intervene in a drug case brought by his
office.
Additionally, Williams was accused of misspending thousands of
dollars from his campaign fund on memberships to exclusive Philadelphia
social clubs, misusing city vehicles as if they were his own and
misappropriating money intended to fund his mother’s nursing home care.
Read a recap of Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams’ trial with our day-by-day updates and learn more with our explainer on everything you need to know about the case.
As
Senate Republicans aim to force a vote on their version of
Trumpcare — a bill that was written in secret, without public hearings,
despite the fact that it will reshape one-sixth of the U.S. economy and
impact the lives of millions of Americans — most people have been left
in the dark.
Last month, the House passed their version of the bill, which would strip health care from 24 million people,
according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill also
makes major cuts and structural changes to Medicaid, a health insurance
program relied upon by nearly 75 million Americans — primarily
low-income, disabled, and elderly.
The Senate version of Trumpcare
goes even further, according to the draft released by Sen. Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday, effectively phasing out
Medicaid entirely.
But according to a new poll
released by the Kaiser Family Foundation on Friday, only 38 percent of
Americans are aware of the significant cuts to Medicaid that would be
delivered by the House-passed bill (the poll was conducted before the
details of the Senate bill were made public). Seventy-four percent of
those polled, meanwhile, said they have a favorable opinion of Medicaid.
The
KFF poll notes that “proposed Medicaid changes were not initially a
major point of discussion surrounding consideration of the House bill…
which may partly explain why many respondents were unaware of its
effect.”
The
Senate’s harsher Medicaid cuts were immediately met with fierce
objections, however. Roughly 60 members of ADAPT, a U.S. disability
rights organization that strongly opposes the Republican health care
bill, staged a die-in outside of McConnell’s office on Thursday. Wheelchair users were arrested and dragged from the Capitol by police.
Moderate Republicans have also expressed their discomfort with the severe cuts to Medicaid, with the strongest objection
thus far coming from Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) on Friday. “I cannot
support a piece of legislation that takes away insurance from tens of
millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans,” the
senator said at a press conference in Las Vegas.
Hours
later, America First Policies — a pro-Trump group run by several of the
president’s top campaign advisers — announced it was launching a
seven-figure advertising campaign against Heller, Politico reported. Heller is widely viewed as one of the most vulnerable incumbents up for reelection in 2018.
Ironically, President Donald Trump made protecting Medicaid a key component of his campaign, vowing to “save Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security without cuts” in the speech announcing his candidacy.
Trump told the Washington Post’s Abby Phillip that the Senate version of Trumpcare needed “a little negotiation, but it’s going to be very good.” The president reportedly made calls
to Senate Republicans on Friday to try to gin up support for the
measure. Trump acknowledged there is a “very, very narrow path” to
passage, but that “I think we’re going to get there,” Reuters reported.
Let us say, and why not, that you've got a car you've had for a few years. It was given to you by a boyfriend you broke up with a while back. The car's nothing fancy, but it gets you where you need to go and it's only given you a few minor problems here and there. Maintenance kind of stuff - new tires, a brake job - the stuff you expect to need to do to take good care of the car so it takes good care of you.
Now, let us say, and, indeed, why not, that you start dating a new guy who takes a look at your car and says, "Man, what a piece of shit. I'm gonna get you a new car. A better car. One that won't cost you nearly as much. Better gas mileage. Less repairs. Shiny damn paint job. And you can just trash that thing. That guy you were with before me didn't know shit about cars. I know better." It sounds good. I mean, who doesn't want a new car? But then he drives up in a rusted out hulk that looks like it's been beaten with a sledgehammer in a sand storm. You know it's gonna need a major overhaul, possibly a new engine or transmission. It's gonna be a pain in the ass and cost you a ton.
"The fuck is this?" you ask.
"I promised you a new car," he said. "I got you a new car. Now you can get rid of that car of yours I hate."
You would break up with that shitheel as soon as you could speak the words.
This morning, on NPR's Morning Edition, Tommy Binion, the congressional liaison for the Heritage Foundation (motto: "We came up with Obamacare but now we're too fucking crazy conservative to acknowledge that"), was asked why he thought Senate Republicans were moving forward with their version of the "mean" American Health Care Act, despite it having incredibly high negatives in polling. Binion was frank, saying, "I think what's happening here is [Republicans are] trying desperately to keep their promise to vote for anything that they can call Obamacare repeal. So in this case, yes, they've picked a very unpopular bill. That's part of what the process has thrust upon them. But they're determined to keep their promise."
That's the kind of fuckery we're dealing with. Not only is the bill being written by a shitty star chamber of white dudes who represent less than a quarter of the population of the country, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch "One Day, Children Will Say My Name in the Same Breath as Benedict Arnold" McConnell is determined to get a vote in the next two weeks, with at most 10 hours for senators not locked in a room and forced to breathe in Orrin Hatch's old man farts to read it, debate it, and amend it. That is fucked beyond fucked. That is contorting yourself into a pretzel to suck your own dick kind of fucked. Even the senators themselves can't justify the bill beyond the idea of repealing the ACA.
Here's a handy, one paragraph review of what happened when the Affordable Care Act went to the Senate in 2009: President Obama actively courted Republicans to get on board, especially Maine's Olympia Snowe. Hell, snarky asshole bloggers were pissed about his outreach. The bill was debated in the Senate Finance Committee before it passed from there to the Senate floor. That was after three House committees and the Senate health committee had vetted it, with Republicans able to debate it the whole time. This was followed by weeks of more debate and amendment votes. So if any dumbfuck conservative tries to ejaculate stupidly about how Democrats rushed through the ACA, shove that list from Congress up their idiot asses.
Look, it's time to stick a pin in the left's Russia hard-on right now in order to get all hands, voices, and boots on deck to stop the American Health Care Act from passage. It's a terrible bill filled with terrible ideas, concocted by terrible human beings. So it's time for Hayes/Maddow/O'Donnell/Reid and whoever else to knock off the financial conflict and espionage stories for a while and go whole hog on this. Right now, Democrats are doing something by denying unanimous consent to proceed on any votes in the Senate, and they are holding the floor in a "talkathon," speeches about the unfair process.
But these delay tactics need to be followed by even more. The "filibuster by amendment" is one approach, where Democrats keep proposing amendments that need to be voted on until Republicans agree to hold hearings on the bill. Pressure needs to brought to bear on the seemingly wavering Republican senators, who need to be reminded who will be blamed when the AHCA doesn't do any of the shit voters were promised.
One last thing needs to happen, and I'm frankly stunned that it hasn't happened yet. The Affordable Care Act is the signature achievement of the Obama presidency. Where the fuck is he? Why the fuck isn't Barack Obama barnstorming the country, riling people up? He gets to protect his legacy. Enough of being above the fray. Fuck that. Lives are on the line, man, and a bunch of vicious assholes are shitting all over him.
Obama, Biden, get 'em all out there, giving interviews, tearing into the cruelty of those who want to turn back the clock. This is life and death, motherfuckers. Let's all act like it is.
Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary
handling restrictions arrived at the White House.
Sent by courier from
the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown
to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.
Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing
deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and
discredit the U.S. presidential race.
But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific
instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at
least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her
opponent, Donald Trump.
At that point, the outlines of the Russian assault on the U.S.
election were increasingly apparent.
Hackers with ties to Russian
intelligence services had been rummaging through Democratic Party
computer networks, as well as some Republican systems, for more than a
year. In July, the FBI had opened an investigation of contacts between
Russian officials and Trump associates. And on July 22, nearly 20,000
emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee were dumped online
by WikiLeaks.
Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say
Massimo Calabresi - Jun 22, 2017
The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers, current and former officials tell TIME.
In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Investigators have not identified whether the hackers in that case were Russian agents.
The fact that private data was stolen from states is separately providing investigators a previously unreported line of inquiry in the probes into Russian attempts to influence the election. In Illinois, more than 90% of the nearly 90,000 records stolen by Russian state actors contained drivers license numbers, and a quarter contained the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, according to Ken Menzel, the General Counsel of the State Board of Elections.
Congressional investigators are probing whether any of this stolen private information made its way to the Trump campaign, two sources familiar with the investigations tell TIME.
“If any campaign, Trump or otherwise, used inappropriate data the questions are, How did they get it? From whom? And with what level of knowledge?” the former top Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Michael Bahar, tells TIME. “That is a crux of the investigation."
In
a tone that would become familiar in the following months, Republicans
and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) allowed Russia to
interfere in the election to help Trump by expressing skepticism about
the intelligence that Russia was meddling in the 2016 presidential
election.
In a tone that would become familiar in the following months,
Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) allowed
Russia to interfere in the election to help Trump by expressing
skepticism about the intelligence that Russia was meddling in the 2016
presidential election.
“The Dems were, ‘Hey, we have to tell the public,’ ” recalled one
participant. But Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public
that the election was under attack would further Russia’s aim of sapping
confidence in the system.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went further,
officials said, voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence
truly supported the White House’s claims. Through a spokeswoman,
McConnell declined to comment, citing the secrecy of that meeting.
Key Democrats were stunned by the GOP response and
exasperated that the White House seemed willing to let Republican
opposition block any pre-election move.
Sen. McConnell’s doubt of the intelligence is the same tactic that
has been used by Trump and his administration since the Russia scandal
heated up. The other problem is that the Obama White House let McConnell
block them and did nothing. Looking back with 20/20 perspective, it is
easy to say that Obama should have issued a warning about Russian
election meddling without the Republicans on board, but his concern that
the Russia issue would turn into a partisan one that could destroy the
integrity of the election was legitimate.
What the now former president couldn’t have known was that he was
facing a no-win situation. The integrity of this election was going be
damaged no matter what because the Russians had already acted.
Mitch McConnell made sure that this election ended up damaged, and
the process lost credibility by doubting the intelligence about Russian
election interference.
Republicans sold out their country and democracy to win an election.
Russia interfered with the election, and Sen. McConnell allowed them to
get away with it because it helped him and his party.
The Russia scandal goes beyond Trump, and if Americans are going to
prevent a future on our democracy, they must remove Russia enabling
Republicans like Mitch McConnell from their positions of power.
If Trump made an illegal deal with the Russians, Robert Mueller wants to
find out. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.
“In addition to investigating whether or not Donald Trump committed
obstruction of justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey,
special counsel Robert Mueller is also reportedly investigating “money
laundering by Trump associates,” the New York Times reports.
The Times report corroborates a separate bombshell Washington Post
article, published Wednesday, that said in addition to possible
obstruction, investigators are also “looking for any evidence of
possible financial crimes among Trump associates.”
“A former senior official said Mr. Mueller’s investigation was looking
at money laundering by Trump associates,” a source told the Times. “The
suspicion is that any cooperation with Russian officials would most
likely have been done in exchange for some kind of financial payoff, and
that there would have been an effort to hide the payoffs, most likely
by routing them through offshore banking centers.”
Trump’s budget calls for sharply reducing funding for programs that
shelter the poor and combat homelessness — with a notable exception: It
leaves intact a type of federal housing subsidy that is paid directly to
private landlords.
One of those landlords is Trump himself, who
earns millions of dollars each year as a part-owner of Starrett City,
the nation’s largest subsidized housing complex. Trump’s 4 percent stake
in the Brooklyn complex earned him at least $5 million between January
of last year and April 15, according to his recent financial disclosure.
As details emerge from Senate Republicans’ backroom deliberations to
write a single bill repealing Obamacare, defunding Medicaid and
deregulating health insurance, it's clear that virtually no American
household—apart from the very rich—would be immune from fiscally painful
and medically harsh consequences if the GOP gets a bill to the
president’s desk.
For the past month, an 11man committee appointed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, has been meeting in secret
to fine-tune the House-passed Obamacare repeal legislation. They are
not starting anew, but are polishing a bill that will leave 15-20
million people without health care, prompt higher insurance and medical
costs for all but the youngest adults, freeze and shrink state-run
Medicaid (which now covers 45 percent of the children in rural America), and defund Planned Parenthood. This is according to analyses by the Congressional Budget Office, Kaiser Family Foundation and others.
Even the pro-corporate Washington Post editorial board has called out the GOP for its chaos-creating prescriptions, writing that
they are “motivated to solve a problem that does not exist—saving a
health-care system supposedly on the path to inevitable collapse by
repealing and replacing Obamacare.” None of that seems to matter to
McConnell, who wants to pass the as-yet-unreleased bill before the
Senate’s July 4 recess. While defections from the GOP’s far right or few moderates
could thwart any Senate bill’s passage, the White House has made it
clear it wants McConnell to pass something the president can sign.
What’s
unfolding in Washington right now is appalling. Beyond the cowardly
political tactics, the GOP is literally playing with the lives and
livelihoods of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Everyone ages, and
many will get sick and develop chronic illness and disease. The
consequences can be devastating if the GOP shreds medical safety nets
for the poor and allows the insurance industry to charge more yet
deliver less health security in myriad ways.
What follows are 10 takeaways from the Senate’s Obamacare repeal process.
1. McConnell’s skullduggery is back.
As Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services from 2015 to 2017, wrote in a Washington Post column Saturday,
only 8 percent of the public supported passage of the House’s Obamacare
repeal bill (which also slashed Medicaid and included major tax cuts
for the rich). He could have told senators to fix Obamacare’s problems,
such as allowing small states to form insurance pools.
“Instead,
McConnell put a plan in place to pass something close to the House bill
using three simple tools: sabotage, speed and secrecy,” Slavitt wrote.
“He formed a committee to meet secretly, hold no hearings, create a
fast-track process and pressure Senate skeptics with backroom deals.”
Trump just wants it done, Politico.com reported. “He’s definitely leaving it to Mitch to lead. But he very much wants it to happen,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, told Politico.
2. Congressional chaos is having its desired effect—2018 premiums to rise.
The GOP is not just sending mixed signals about what they may do to
one-sixth of the U.S. economy. They are intentionally provoking insurers
to raise their prices for 2018 as a pretext to pass their legislation.
This was cited in a Washington Post editorial,
“The GOP’s Obamacare Sabotage Continues,” in which the editorial board
was unusually clear-eyed. “‘Insurers have made clear the lack of
certainty is causing 2018 proposed premiums to rise significantly,’
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) said Thursday, arguing that Congress should step in.” That’s creating a problem to fit a solution.
3. Meanwhile Trump’s team is also embracing more chaos. The Trump team is doing everything it can not to enforce Obamacare, such as “lax enforcement of the individual mandate
to purchase health insurance, inadequate efforts to enroll more people
in coverage and other gratuitous subversions of the finely tuned system
Obamacare sought to create,” the same Post editorial said. As significant, the White House is refusing to commit to paying 2018 Obamacare subsidies for millions, according to Vox.com,
which reported that Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price
wouldn’t even tell a U.S. Senate committee what the administration’s
plans were.
4. Against this backdrop, the Senate is 'making progress.' That’s
the word from a handful of center-right Republicans who have been shown
glimpses of what’s going on behind closed doors—as if reversing one or
two planks of the House bill is supposed to be a sign of moderation.
That is absurd. Moreover, what the Senate is said to be doing is
terrible.
For example, restoring Obamacare’s pre-existing condition
rule—which requires insurers to sell people policies—but without cost
controls or coverage requirements. Last month’s Congressional Budget
Office analysis
of the House-passed bill said a wide swath of the public “would be
unable to purchase comprehensive coverage with premiums close to those
under current law and might not be able to purchase coverage at all.”
Moreover, many policies are likely to cover less once minimum coverage
standards are deregulated.
5. The young will pay less, but everyone else won’t. The only people who stand to benefit, the New York Times reported,
are those least likely to get sick. “The budget office [CBO] did note
that the House bill would potentially lead to lower prices, especially
for younger and healthier people,” it said. “But the budget office also
warned that markets in states that allowed insurers to charge higher
premiums for people with pre-existing conditions—whether high blood
pressure, a one-time visit to a specialist or cancer.” This is what
deregulation of the insurance industry will bring. The industry will go
back to creating more barriers between patients and doctors.
6. Many policies will only be used for hospitalization.
Other analyses include scenarios where people will see deductibles rise
to levels where they will pay for most care until a serious emergency
requiring hospital care arises. As the Times wrote,
that can amount to a major fiscal burden.
“Millions of people could
also wind up with little choice but to buy cheap plans that provided
minimal coverage in states that opted out of requiring insurers to cover
maternity care, mental health and addiction treatment or rehabilitation
services, among other services required under the Affordable Care Act.
Consumers who could not afford high premiums would wind up with enormous
out-of-pocket medical expenses.”
7. Medicaid is going to be frozen, justified by big lies. Another detail that’s leaked out of the Senate drafting sessions is that it’s not a question whether
Medicaid will see $800 billion in reduced spending and 14 million fewer
recipients during the next decade, as the House bill laid out. Rather
it is a question of how fast the Medicaid rollback will be. The Hill reports there’s been debate whether it will be three years or seven years. Vox.com also reports
that the Senate wants to institute an approach that could lead to
sharper funding cuts than the House: more frequent revisions to Medicaid
reimbursement rates.
The White House and GOP talking points on this are a series of lies. HHS Secretary Price told
a Senate committee, “We are trying to decrease the number of
uninsured,” after the CBO estimated that 23 million people would lose
insurance. Trump has said he will not touch Medicare—even though
Medicaid pays for nursing home care in that program. And Republicans
keep saying this is not spending cuts, but slower spending increases.
“What the defenders of this claim—ranging from Karl Rove to Sally Pipes—have insisted is that this is a cut to the growth rate, not cuts to the existing program,” wrote
health policy blogger Emma Sandoe. “The reality is that states will
have to reduce the number of services they provide or reduce the types
of people that can enroll as inflation and increased costs in medical
services rise.”
8. This is a war on government and on the poor. What the GOP is trying to do is not just go after Obamacare, but dismantle safety nets dating back to the 1960s. As Sandoe noted,
“The GOP has campaigned for decades on the idea that the social welfare
state is bloated and that the oversized growth of the welfare state
needs to be trimmed. The GOP should embrace the idea of calling
per-capita caps and block grants cuts. From a policy perspective, the
goal of the per-capita caps and block grants is to reduce the size and
scope of the program.”
9. Republicans are pursuing this despite vast opposition.
Recent polls show safety nets are incredibly popular while the GOP’s
American Health Care Act is not. On Medicaid alone, a Kaiser Family
Foundation poll by Democrats and Republicans opposed cutting its expansion and changing its financing structure. “Manyotherpolls
show that the majority of voters have favorable views of Medicaid,
coming close to the level of support for Medicare,” Sandoe wrote.
“Telling is that a Quinnipiac poll found that Republicans oppose cuts to
Medicaid. This is one possible reason that the latest [GOP] messaging
appears to be focused on reframing the cuts as minimal. Meanwhile, the
AHCA has polled from 17–21 percent by Quinnipiac and only 8 percent think that the Senate should pass these reforms without changes.”
10. If this passes, a colossal downward spiral will ensue.
The impact of the AHCA, if passed, is not just going to be fiscal—in
terms of increased out-of-pocket costs for those with insurance
policies. As the Times reported,
people age 50 and older, and “millions of middle- and working-class
Americans” will once again be trapped in their jobs because they will be
unable to pay for coverage. “The Affordable Care Act has enabled many
of those workers to get transitional coverage that provides a bridge to
the next phase of their lives—a stopgap to get health insurance if they
leave a job, are laid off, start a business or retire early.”
For
those too poor to buy insurance, Medicaid will contract and likely be
forced to focus on emergency and crisis care, rather than prevention.
Rationing care will likely ensue, unless states step in with raising
revenues to offset federal cutbacks. Safety nets are likely to roll
backwards, landing somewhere between where they are now and where they
were before Obamacare’s reforms took effect.
McConnell’s Fast Track
As Axios.com reported,
McConnell is hoping to finalize the Senate’s legislation this week,
because the Congressional Budget Office will need two weeks to “score”
it—the Washington term for assessing its financial and programmatic
impacts—if it is to come up for a Senate floor vote before the July 4
break. While it's possible that McConnell could present a bill without
that analysis, it is likely that more details will emerge in coming
days.
At that point, Republicans will surely feel the full wrath
of voters who aren’t going to have anything positive to say if their
health care is trashed, or if the GOP tries to blame Obama and the
Democrats for market chaos they have worsened, not diminished.
Trump will not testify before Congress under oath, a development that
legal experts say was expected but that illustrates the pitfalls of the
president’s tendency to shoot from the hip in public remarks.
Trump
said at a Friday press conference that would “100%” agree to give sworn
testimony in response to former FBI director James Comey’s allegations
last week.
On Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the
president was “specifically asked whether or not he would talk to
Director Mueller,” the special counsel investigating alleged Russian
election meddling, under oath.
In fact, Trump was asked generally about
giving sworn testimony rebutting Comey’s allegations that the president
asked him to pledge loyalty and to ease up on the FBI’s investigation
into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Asked a follow-up
about Mueller specifically, the president said he would speak with him
as well.
Congressional Democrats were giddy at the prospect of grilling
Trump under oath, but experts say that testimony was probably never
going to happen. “I think that was expected,” said national security
attorney Bradley Moss. “Having the President testify before Congress
raises significant separation of powers concerns. The last to do it was
Gerald Ford and all others since have adamantly refused.”
But Moss and
his law partner Mark Zaid say the president didn’t seem aware of that
fact during his remarks on Friday. “This Presidency is marked like none
other by a White House tendency to reinterpret the specific words of the
President. Every time that happens its credibility suffers,” Zaid said
in an email.
After the testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey on Thursday,
which raised as many questions as it answered, pundits and politicians
on both sides of the aisle are left to analyze and debate what it all
meant. The information given to the American public did not, however,
end with Comey’s testimony.
On Tuesday, new testimony will be presented to the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science by
Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions has recently
come under fire for his failure to disclose secret meetings with Russian
government operatives in his requests for security clearance as
attorney general. Questioning, however, will apparently not focus on
those meetings, nor will it focus on matters related to commerce or
science.
‘The hearing is supposed to focus on the 2017 budget request for the
Department of Justice. But Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the senior
Democrat on the overall Appropriations Committee and a member of the
Judiciary Committee, said Thursday he will press Sessions about his role
in President Trump’s May decision to fire Comey as FBI director.’
While Trump’s spokespeople insisted that the president fired James
Comey on the recommendations of Attorney General Sessions and Deputy
Attorney General Rosenstein, Trump later denied that to Lester Holt
during a televised interview in which he insisted that he alone made the
decision to fire Comey.
The rapid turnaround in the narrative came after questions were
raised as to why Sessions was involved in decisions about Comey at all,
considering that Comey was in the process of investigating the
president’s campaign team for collusion with Russia and Sessions had recused himself from all decision involving that investigation after his undisclosed meetings with Russian government officials became public.
The country once again waits with bated breath for more details of this ongoing saga.
Thanks to the hard work of Democratic pundit Scott Dworkin, it’s
beginning to look like every Republican politician has some kind of link
to Russia.
Over the last few months, Dworkin has revealed that several
Republican senators — including John McCain, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio —
have accepted money from Russian donors. He also produced evidence of
even more connections a couple of weeks ago that were shared by Palmer
Report.
In May, Dworkin found documents that link Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell to a super PAC that accepted $2.5 million from a
“pro-Putin Ukrainian businessman.” He shared photos of the documents on
Twitter, along with the following message:
‘#TrumpLeaks Docs: Mitch McConnell linked super PAC took $2.5
million from a pro-Putin Ukrainian businessman last election cycle
#trumprussia’
#TrumpLeaks Docs: Mitch McConnell linked super PAC took $2.5 million
from a pro-Putin Ukrainian businessman last election cycle #trumprussia
pic.twitter.com/V7HTq16fCR
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) May 21, 2017
*Scott Walker*
Dworkin also found that McConnell is not the only person who has
benefited from a pro-Putin businessman. He tweeted a couple of days
later photos of documents that show Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker also
received money from this “pro-Putin” individual during the last
election cycle.
MORE..Interesting read.!
Why they refuse to have Trump investigated.
We all knew that bunch was invested in Putin's scam, now we have the story.
When will the people of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, those
stalwart Trump voters who believe he’ll be bringing back coal jobs,
finally figure out they’ve been had?
History suggests it's
unrealistic to expect people to change their minds quickly. This is a
pattern that has held for centuries. In the 1600's the Salem witch trials
dragged on for eight long months before townsfolk finally began to
realize that they had been caught up in an irrational frenzy. More
recently, Americans proved during Watergate that they are reluctant to
turn on a president they have just elected despite mounds of evidence
incriminating him in scandalous practices. The Watergate burglary took
place on June 17, 1972. But it wasn't until April 30, 1973 – eleven
months later – that his popularity finally fell below 50 percent. This
was long after the Watergate burglars had been tried and convicted and
the FBI had confirmed news reports that the Republicans had played dirty
tricks on the Democrats during the campaign. Leaked testimony had even
showed that former Attorney General John Mitchell knew about the
break-in in advance. But not until Nixon fired White House Counsel John
Dean and White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman resigned
did a majority turn against the president. And even at that point
Nixon's poll numbers stood higher than Trump's. Nixon: 48 percent;
Trump: 42 percent.
It's not just conservative voters who are
reluctant to change their minds. So are liberals. After news reports
surfaced in the 1970s proving that John Kennedy was a serial philanderer
millions of his supporters refused to acknowledge it. A poll in 2013
show a majority of Americans still think of him as a good family man.
Thus
far not even many leading Democrats have been willing to come out in
favor of Trump's impeachment. Cory Booker, the liberal senator from New
Jersey, said this past week it's simply too soon. And if a guy like
Booker is not yet prepared to come straight out for impeachment, why
should we think Trump voters would be willing to? It is only just in the
last few weeks that polls show that a plurality of voters now favor
Trump's impeachment. (Twelve percent of self-identified Trump voters
share this view, which is remarkable.)
It's no mystery why people
are reluctant to change their minds. Social scientists have produced
hundreds of studies that explain the phenomenon. Rank partisanship is
only part of the answer. Mainly it’s that people don't like to admit
they were wrong, which is what they would be doing if they concede that
Trump is not up to the job. When Trump voters hear news that puts their
leader in an unfavorable light they experience cognitive dissonance. The
natural reaction to this is to deny the legitimacy of the source of the
news that they find upsetting. This is what explains the harsh attacks
on the liberal media. Those stories are literally making Trump voters
feel bad. As the Emory University social scientist Drew Westen
has demonstrated, people hearing information contrary to their beliefs
will cease giving it credence. This is not a decision we make at the
conscious level. Our brain makes it for us automatically.
So what
leads people to finally change their minds? One of the most convincing
explanations is provided by the Theory of Affective Intelligence. This
mouthful of a name refers to the tendency of people experiencing
cognitive dissonance to feel anxiety when they do so. As social
scientist George Marcus has explained, when the burden of hanging onto
an existing opinion becomes greater than the cost of changing it, we
begin to reconsider our commitments. What's the trigger? Anxiety. When
there's a mismatch between our views of the way the world works and
reality we grow anxious. This provokes us to make a fresh evaluation.
What
this research suggests is that we probably have a ways to go before
Trump voters are going to switch their opinions. While some are
evidently feeling buyers' remorse, a majority aren't. They're just not
anxious enough yet. Liberals need not worry. The very same headlines
that are giving them an upset stomach are making it more and more likely
Trump voters are also experiencing discomfort. What might push them
over the edge? One possibility would be a decision to follow through on
his threat to end subsidies to insurance companies under Obamacare,
leading to the collapse of the system, and the loss of coverage for
millions of Trump voters. That’s become more and more likely since the
Senate is apparently unable to pass the repeal and replace measure Trump
has been counting on. So liberals just have to wait and watch. Will
the story unfold like Watergate? Every day the answer increasingly
seems yes.
An optimist would argue that social media will
help push people to change their minds faster now than in the past. But
social media could also have the opposite effect. People living in a
bubble who get their media from biased sources online may be less likely
to encounter the contrary views that stimulate reflection than was
common, say, in the Nixon years when virtually all Americans watched the
mainstream network news shows. Eventually, one supposes, people will
catch on no matter how they consume news. Of late even Fox News viewers
have heard enough disturbing stories about Trump to begin to reconsider
their commitment to him. That is undoubtedly one reason why Nate
Silver found that so many Trump voters are reluctant to count themselves
among the strongest supporters.
Inside
Russia Today’s American headquarters in Washington, across from the
receptionist’s desk stamped by a lime green “RT” banner, an ad starring
Ed Schultz and Larry King plays on a large screen TV.
Schultz and
King, whom he dwarfs, stand opposite one another, marveling at the
success of the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, which they
both agree is astounding. “Follow the 2016 campaign right here on RT
America!” Schultz says. King points at the camera and delivers the
network’s slogan, “And question more.”
Founded 11 years ago
Thursday in September of 2005, Russia Today is a Moscow-based,
English-language news outlet which is funded by the Kremlin and serves
to promote Russian state propaganda, like stories about the West
collapsing and the CIA being to blame for the downing of Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, which according to RT, Russia did not
invade.
In 2010, RT branched out to the United States, launching RT America. In a 2014 BuzzFeed investigation,
Rosie Gray reported former RT America employees describing “an
atmosphere of censorship and pressure” at the network—like orders to
report on Germany as a “failed state” despite any evidence that the
country fits the criteria.
One RT anchor, Liz Wahl, protested by
quitting live on air. She later described
herself as “Putin’s pawn.” Casual viewing of the network shows a focus
on negative stories about the U.S., from claims that American Olympians
received special treatment which allowed them to take drugs to outward
mocking of the Democrats’ presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, despite
claiming non-partisanship.
Nevertheless, the network today
broadcasts shows hosted by Schultz, a former sportscaster turned
right-wing radio host turned liberal bullhorn; King, the longtime host
of Larry King Live; and Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler and governor of Minnesota who promotes 9/11 truther conspiracies, among a handful of other less notable names.
Ventura makes sense in a way—RT is a network, after all, with an Illuminati correspondent. Schultz and King, however, are head scratchers.
Both
men left their major American networks—Schultz, when his MSNBC show was
canceled in July 2015; King, when he retired from CNN in 2010—amid
sinking ratings and dwindling popularity.
But that hardly makes them
unique in television, where hosts can come and go with the seasons.
Neither
was persona non grata in the U.S. media when they decided to work for
what amounts to an arm of the Russian government, legitimizing the
network with their presence—King, due to his long history as a reliable
and trustworthy interviewer, and Schultz, for his reputation as an
emotional, liberal populist who says what’s on his mind.
“Endorsements
from prominent people can bring legitimacy to unknown brands,” Nicco
Mele, the director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and
Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, said. “That’s true of
tennis shoes and that’s true of media properties.” Hiring King and
Schultz, Mele said, grants RT America a “patina of respectability”
although, unlike Al Jazeera English, which was initially feared to be an
extension of the Qatari government, RT America has not made it a point
to build a robust newsroom or pursue shoe-leather reporting. As for
concerns about RT, Mele said, “I don’t feel like it’s been overstated.”
Amid
Trump’s decision to appear on King’s program last week—which was
criticized by, among others, President Obama—the hosts’ strange
association with the Russian government has come into focus just as
concerns about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election have reached a
fever pitch.
RT America, with its corn fed media personalities serving to soften the blow of blatantly
anti-American Russian propaganda, now looks like proof of those
concerns, available for viewing 24 hours a day on a cable channel near
you.
And the question remains, why would any American work there if they could avoid it?
“Desperation,”
Jeff Jarvis, a professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate
School of Journalism, said. “To go on RT is—to me—primarily just a
desperate move to have a camera in front of you with willful disregard
for who’s putting that camera there.”
Schultz had initially been eager to do an interview about his role at RT and provide his own answer to that question.
He
scheduled the conversation to take place immediately at his office near
the White House after receiving the request on Tuesday afternoon.
“Your
story just got better,” he wrote in an email. “Obama just called out
Trump for doing an interview on RT. The Russian propaganda channel. We
are not propaganda. Yes, I will speak with you.”
But then something changed abruptly.
“I guess I cant do the interview, [sic]” he wrote, just 12 minutes later.
The
receptionist said he was at his usual post on the 7th floor, but he
refused to come down. “I’m sorry for this… I’m just aware of how unfair
the DB has been to RT,” he said, perhaps referring to the sometimes-stormy history between the two organizations. “I’m not willing to take that chance.
Thanks Ed.”
When
Schultz was on MSNBC, he was an enthusiastic critic of Trump, whom he
lanced as a “racist,” and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he
derisively labeled “Putie.” But since joining RT in January, The News With Ed Schultz host has been neutered.
He’s an anchor now, he stresses, not a pundit. But, as Michael Crowley noted for Politico Magazine,
his shows often focus on U.S. missteps at home and abroad, from
oversized budgets to failing policies in the Middle East. Trump, rather
than being called out, is instead given an exceedingly fair shake,
characterized as someone who’s “tapped into anger among working people.”
It’s Putin-approved programming, in other words.
Obama,
speaking in Philadelphia on Tuesday, said Trump, “just last week went
on Russian state television to talk down our military and to curry favor
with Vladimir Putin. He loves this guy!”
Trump
has repeatedly praised Putin and even parroted the Kremlin talking
point that Russia did not seize Crimea, and the Russian conspiracy
theory that Obama founded ISIS. Thousands of Twitter accounts, known for
pushing demonstrably-fake Russian news stories, are also reliably on
the #TrumpTrain.
When his campaign was run by Paul Manafort, a lobbyist who worked for
Russian oligarchs (among other unsavory characters), they took the
unprecedented step of softening the Republican Party platform’s language regarding how farthe United States would go in defending Ukraine against Russian incursion.
And
Russia has appeared to exert influence over the democratic process in
other ways. The hack of the Democratic National Committee is widely considered, within the U.S. intelligence community, to have been the work of the Russian government. Further, Wikileaks, which is suspected
of having ties to Russia, has been working overtime on behalf of Trump,
taunting the release of materials that would be damaging to Clinton’s
campaign and even, on Twitter (before deleting it), taking a poll of
which illness people thought Clinton was suffering from.
A
spokesperson for Trump attempted to quell concerns about his RT
appearance—during which he criticized the American media and said claims
that the Russians were meddling in the election were probably just
Democratic talking points—by making the dubious claim that Trump simply
didn’t know the show was for Russian state television, but thought it
was for King’s podcast. Then Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway,
said the appearance was just a “favor” to his longtime friend, whose
CNN show he frequented.
King could not be reached for an interview
as of press time, but in response to questions about his association
with RT, he’s often claimed that he is not employed by the network and
they simply license his material. That doesn’t explain why King stars in
at least two ads for the network, where he says the network’s slogan.
King’s publicist was unaware of the ads when asked about them.
One
former RT America anchor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said
King’s claim of independence from RT is suspicious, given his chummy
relationship with the Russian news director.
When the former
anchor was at RT, King taped his show “a few doors down” from the news
director’s office. “They meet and they talk,” the former anchor said. In
King’s interview with Trump, King asked questions that were, in the
former anchor’s telling, “questions that I would’ve been asked to ask if
I was interviewing a congressman or something like that.”
Before
King came onboard, the former anchor remembered, “It was kind of like a
rumor he was coming on and we were all like, ‘What? Why would Larry King
come here?’ It makes no sense.”
The former anchor said, “The Russian news director, I remember he was really, really excited to get him on board.”
For RT, King’s decision to associate with the network was “like Christmas.”
“A
big part of the strategy is to use American voices to spread these
pro-Kremlin messages or point out U.S. hypocrisy,” the former anchor
said. “So, if you have someone like Larry King do that, it really adds
legitimacy… The whole thing with RT is kind of, like, using U.S.
officials and U.S. media figures.”
Still, Trump’s greatest
defender was not a member of his campaign staff or an outside surrogate.
It was his onetime enemy, Schultz.
“It should be pointed out that
the Clinton campaign has refused interviews on RT America,” Schultz
said in a homemade video he posted online. “This is manufactured news by
the Clinton campaign to vilify Donald Trump and connect him to Vladimir
Putin, and that’s their strategy to win the election.”
He added,
“It is so sad and so small and so elementary and I think it’s hurting
Hillary Clinton, which I think is even more than sad.”
Meanwhile,
Schultz was deciding whether or not to change his mind about canceling
our interview.
“Let me think on it,” he said. “I don’t need the story. I
do this job because I love it, not to be the focus of some story.”
He then told me he could be found at the White House, where liberal activists were protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
He
stood on the grass outside the protest in a pinstripe suit and royal
blue shirt, talking on the phone.
He is a tall and broad figure, with
rust-colored hair and small blue eyes that fight against his fleshy
eyelids to make contact with the world.
“I’m sorry that it kinda
worked out that way,” he said about the inconvenience. He claimed it was
his decision to cancel the interview, not RT’s. “I have to respect the
people I’m working for,” he said.
He stared off at the protest, a troubled look on his face. “Our world is fucked up, isn’t it?” he asked.
He said he’d recently taken a “chance” by talking to TheWashington Post,
but was unhappy with the attention in the end—though he wouldn’t
divulge why, or if it had led to trouble at RT. “I’m just at a point in
time in my career where I just, I don’t need any publicity,” he said. “I
do this job ’cause I love it. I’ve never really figured out why the
media covers the media, you know? I’m a reporter just like you are.”
Just
then a protester approached with a stack of signs and asked if Schultz
would like one. “No, thank you, sir,” Schultz said. The protester looked
at him skeptically. “Your days of signs are over?” he asked. Schultz
laughed through a frown. “No, it’s not over,” he said.
Asked if it
bothered him when he was criticized for working for what almost
everyone outside of the Russian government believes is a propaganda
network, Schultz said, “Well, it doesn’t bother me because I know it’s
not the truth, you know? There’s so much in the media that’s not the
truth. You know, so I go with what I know and I go with my instincts and
I go with the facts.”
Schultz emphasized that he’s now “in a
totally different role than what I was doing at MSNBC. I was doing an
opinion show. I’m a nightly news anchor now, I don’t—if you watch my
show, at 8 o’clock—I don’t give opinions.” Although, he was eager to
give his critical opinion of Clinton after Trump’s RT interview proved
controversial.
Still, Schultz called the alleged change “rather
refreshing,” and said the reason he didn’t seek out a job on another
American network was because he wanted to do something different and he
didn’t want to rival MSNBC, where he said he still has a lot of friends.
“I feel very comfortable about being fair to Trump,” he said, “I think I’ve been very fair to him.”
Reminded
how much he used to hate Trump, Schultz said, “Um, well, then I guess
that kind of shows my opinions aren’t getting in the way, right?”
Suddenly, a look of concern spread across Schultz’s face.
He
never wanted to be interviewed, he said, and despite giving a reporter
his location and answering questions for several minutes, he didn’t want
to be quoted. He grew incensed and accusatory, but then seemed to try
to calm himself by saying he was comfortable with everything he had said
on the record.
He said he didn’t want to answer any more questions, but then he ran after me, in a state of total panic.
“I’m asking you professionally to not write anything about me,” he said.
Informed
that I couldn’t promise that, since I was there talking to him to
report a story partially about him—something he knew—his face turned
red.
He moved closer and stared into my eyes, and then he screamed
at me, divulging something personal and wholly unrelated to both RT and
the conflict at hand.
“This is a hit job, I know it is!” he screamed again.
Later,
in an email, he said, “I’m on record asking you not to do s story on
me. I did not know I was being recorded. I don’t want any coverage . I’m
professionally asking you to not write about me.
Thank you Ed [sic].”
A few hours later, he called my phone and hung up.
News broke Monday that
President Donald Trump appears to have plagiarized his family coat of
arms that appears outside of the Trump National Golf Club outside of
Washington. This weekend the Senior PGA Championship was hosted at the
golf club and the “Trump family coat of arms” was featured on signs all
over.
The actual emblem features three lions and two chevrons on a shield with a gloved hand gripping an arrow or spear, The New York Timesreported.
The coat of arms was originally granted by British authorities in 1939
to Joseph Edward Davies. He was the third husband of Marjorie
Merriweather Post, the man who built the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Ironically, he once served as the ambassador to the former Soviet Union.
The Trump Organization staged a hostile takeover of the coat of arms and replaced the Latin word for “integrity” with “Trump.”
Davies grandson Joseph D. Tydings, a former U.S. state senator from
Maryland, admitted there are members of his family who are ready to sue
Trump, but he cautioned against it. Tydings once worked for a large firm
that managed Trump. He told his family that the suit would end up
costing generations after them money.
“This is the first I’ve ever heard about it being used anywhere
else,” Tydings said of the coat of arms placement at the northern
resort.
When Trump tried to bring the American version to Scotland for his new development the authorities refused to allow the usage.
The Internet was not necessarily surprised by Trump stealing the coat
of arms. Instead of encouraging the lawsuit, the Internet sought
mockery instead:
@BraddJaffy Shall we talk about his fake ancestry in light of his "Pocahontas" jabs now?
@BraddJaffy
"Trump Org created Civil War memorial…commemorating a battle &
“river of blood” that never occurred, a plaque marking the fictitious
event…"
— Jesus McAmerican (@Jesus_McAmerica) May 29, 2017
I can't think of a better metaphor for Trump
admin. He stole his coat of arms from someone else but replaced
INTEGRITY w/ TRUMP on it–> https://t.co/Oi1CQ8Q8z5
A herald at the College of Arms, near St. Paul's,
helped me find the original coat of arms used by Trump, registered to
Joseph Davies. pic.twitter.com/zMTUkGXeA0