If Joel Osteen and Maggie Haberman have shown anything, its that Twitter is a shaming force for good.
Showing posts with label Dirty Tricks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dirty Tricks. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Mike Pence is trying to make people forget his heartless response to Hurricane Katrina
By Oliver Willis
Mike Pence is on a media blitz to insist the Trump administration will fund Hurricane Harvey relief. But fully funded disaster relief wasn't something he supported when he was in Congress.
Mike Pence is on a media blitz to insist the Trump administration will fund Hurricane Harvey relief. But fully funded disaster relief wasn't something he supported when he was in Congress.
Mike Pence is on a self-serving blitz of
radio appearances this week, touting the Trump administration’s response
to Hurricane Harvey. That includes promises to have federal funds ready
to go for relief — something he cruelly opposed when he was in
Congress.
Pence had the nerve, during his several radio interviews Monday, to repeatedly refer to his time in Congress as proof he understands the importance of passing legislation to provide for disaster relief.
“We’re very confident that the Congress of the United States is going to be there to provide the resources necessary,” Pence told the host at Houston’s KHOU. He added that he will work with legislators to “make sure that the disaster assistance that already some 22,000 Texans have signed up for is available and is there.”
But when thousands of citizens affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 needed Pence’s help, he had other priorities. He was instead focused on bludgeoning those citizens by attaching his extremist political ideology to disaster relief bills, holding up vital support that was urgently needed.
Pence said that funding for Katrina relief should be paid for with cuts to Social Security and Medicare, ideas that the right has championed for decades, even though they have proved to be unpopular and destructive again and again.
Justifying his cruelty, Pence told reporters at the time that Katrina relief and the rebuilding of devastated areas like New Orleans just had to wait, because “it is not acceptable to take a catastrophe of nature and turn it into a catastrophe of debt.”
He also said on the floor of the House, “When a tree falls on your house you tend to the wounded, you rebuild and then you figure out how you are going to pay for it.”
Ignoring the dire situation in the region, Pence lectured victims and offered up right-wing talking points.
“Let’s pay for the cost of Katrina by reducing the size and scope of government,” he said.
Pence even said that legislators should have considered delaying a $40 billion prescription drug benefit for seniors, and use that money for Katrina relief — instead of approving new funding in Congress.
Those statements, in contrast to his platitudes during Hurricane Harvey, show how Pence and his fellow Republicans have often instigated mealy-mouthed concerns about “debt” when they are out of power, only to disregard them when they are in charge.
Pence is not alone in his hypocrisy. Other Republicans have argued that disaster relief must be “offset” by cuts to necessary programs. It’s a despicable way to exploit a national disaster to target programs Republicans have long sought to dismantle.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is pushing for hurricane relief now, but when Superstorm Sandy hit New York and New Jersey, he voted against the emergency aid package to help the victims. He complained at the time that the bill had been loaded up “with billions in new spending” unrelated to the storm. Like Pence, he also invoked worries about “debt” to justify his stance.
The claim was also untrue. Cruz recently made the same claim while defending his Sandy spin, and it was fact checked by the Washington Post, which awarded him “three Pinocchios” for his ugly lie.
“The bill was largely aimed at dealing with Sandy, along with relatively minor items to address other or future disasters,” the Post noted.
Mick Mulvaney, currently serving as Trump’s budget director, was in Congress during Sandy as well, and he was among those who also called for budget cuts to offset storm relief.
It is unlikely he will do so now from inside the White House.
Pence had the nerve, during his several radio interviews Monday, to repeatedly refer to his time in Congress as proof he understands the importance of passing legislation to provide for disaster relief.
“We’re very confident that the Congress of the United States is going to be there to provide the resources necessary,” Pence told the host at Houston’s KHOU. He added that he will work with legislators to “make sure that the disaster assistance that already some 22,000 Texans have signed up for is available and is there.”
But when thousands of citizens affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 needed Pence’s help, he had other priorities. He was instead focused on bludgeoning those citizens by attaching his extremist political ideology to disaster relief bills, holding up vital support that was urgently needed.
Pence said that funding for Katrina relief should be paid for with cuts to Social Security and Medicare, ideas that the right has championed for decades, even though they have proved to be unpopular and destructive again and again.
Justifying his cruelty, Pence told reporters at the time that Katrina relief and the rebuilding of devastated areas like New Orleans just had to wait, because “it is not acceptable to take a catastrophe of nature and turn it into a catastrophe of debt.”
He also said on the floor of the House, “When a tree falls on your house you tend to the wounded, you rebuild and then you figure out how you are going to pay for it.”
Ignoring the dire situation in the region, Pence lectured victims and offered up right-wing talking points.
“Let’s pay for the cost of Katrina by reducing the size and scope of government,” he said.
Pence even said that legislators should have considered delaying a $40 billion prescription drug benefit for seniors, and use that money for Katrina relief — instead of approving new funding in Congress.
Those statements, in contrast to his platitudes during Hurricane Harvey, show how Pence and his fellow Republicans have often instigated mealy-mouthed concerns about “debt” when they are out of power, only to disregard them when they are in charge.
Pence is not alone in his hypocrisy. Other Republicans have argued that disaster relief must be “offset” by cuts to necessary programs. It’s a despicable way to exploit a national disaster to target programs Republicans have long sought to dismantle.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is pushing for hurricane relief now, but when Superstorm Sandy hit New York and New Jersey, he voted against the emergency aid package to help the victims. He complained at the time that the bill had been loaded up “with billions in new spending” unrelated to the storm. Like Pence, he also invoked worries about “debt” to justify his stance.
The claim was also untrue. Cruz recently made the same claim while defending his Sandy spin, and it was fact checked by the Washington Post, which awarded him “three Pinocchios” for his ugly lie.
“The bill was largely aimed at dealing with Sandy, along with relatively minor items to address other or future disasters,” the Post noted.
Mick Mulvaney, currently serving as Trump’s budget director, was in Congress during Sandy as well, and he was among those who also called for budget cuts to offset storm relief.
It is unlikely he will do so now from inside the White House.
Pence, Cruz, and Mulvaney have been exposed as hypocrites. When they were out of power, they didn’t think twice about holding up disaster relief so they could engage in political experimentation for the right.
But now, when the storm is on their watch, all the hand-wringing about “debt” has evaporated into thin air. As if it was always a cynical and callous ruse all along.
Best Buy apologizes for big mistake of price-gouging Texans for water - after their stock tanks
The image, which raced across the internet, shows $42.96 cases of Dasani bottled water, next to a “limited supply” of “Smart Water” for $29.98 a case.
“As a company we are focused on helping, not hurting affected people,” Best Buy told Business Insider. “We’re sorry, and it won’t happen again.”
The company claims the “big mistake” was caused by an employee multiplying the price of a single bottle. The company says the price-gouging signage was only up on Friday and that the Cypress, TX store in question is now closed due to Hurricane Harvey.
Best Buy stock fell 11 percent Tuesday, in heavy trading.
Below is a sampling of social media criticism:
One Houston resident sent me a pic of water he saw being sold for *$42* at a nearby Best Buy. They were kind enough to offer $29 bottles too pic.twitter.com/8dKz3sJJM1— ken klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) August 29, 2017
Hey @BestBuy, check out what one of your locations in Houston is doing. Pretty sick stuff. https://t.co/WQqstnTotr— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) August 29, 2017
Rot in hell, @BestBuy. pic.twitter.com/Jj7xUfoUp4— jordan 🌹🌹 (@JordanUhl) August 29, 2017
Hey @BestBuy you want to explain why this store of yours in Houston is illegally price gouging? pic.twitter.com/803tuo4XLm— Max Cotterill 🚩 (@mcotteri) August 29, 2017
Greedy Best Buy Gouges Hurricane Plagued Texas Residents; Sells Cases of Water for $42 https://t.co/HNs8XnkEVh— Thomas Paine (@Thomas1774Paine) August 29, 2017
The @BestBuy at Houston charging $40 for a pack of water bottles is a disgrace. People are in need, shame on you #bestbuy #shame #greed— Panda (@4kec4) August 29, 2017
@BestBuy this was happening by me in Houston this past week. Safe to say I will never shop in your stores again. pic.twitter.com/1wAUhnks14— James DeCicco (@bobbyd914) August 29, 2017
Only bcause they got caught. Sum1 HAD 2 authorize the sign, sell & purchase of the #gouging , stop blaming the wrkr bees Fire Mgmt @BestBuy pic.twitter.com/OFKRfeotea— MoreMusicMoreMoney (@MoreMusicMoreMo) August 29, 2017
In response to my article, Best Buy issues apology, saying the pricing was "a big mistake" & "it won't happen again" https://t.co/AcLuHkp0y1— ken klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) August 29, 2017
Is The Street Wrong? What Best Buy $BBY Is Doing Right (video) https://t.co/sgNCaLZoXg @BestBuy #stocks #BestBuy #Retail #investors pic.twitter.com/WoL0DYuLK5— Domain Mondo (@DomainMondo) August 29, 2017
By Bob Brigham
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Donald Trump's Plans For A Russian Trump Tower In Moscow Just Revealed
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse Dollemore addresses the just revealed plans for a
Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia which were previously concealed by Donald
Trump.
Add to the mix, Felix Sater, who has deep mafia ties and connections to heavy hitters in the Russian government.
Add to the mix, Felix Sater, who has deep mafia ties and connections to heavy hitters in the Russian government.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
North Carolina County Official Indicted For Rigging The 2016 Election For Donald Trump
A former elections worker in North Carolina was indicted by a grand
jury on Monday for purposefully changing ballot results during the March
2016 primary election.
Richard Robert Rawling, 59, of Cary, was charged with felony counts of failing his duties and obstruction of justice after allegedly skewing the vote tallies to help elect Donald Trump and other conservative candidates.
Rawling allegedly ordered subordinates to run provisional ballots through tabulators more than the correct number of times, and then made manual changes so that the results of the provisional canvass would match the tally of total ballots.
Elections board officials found the smoking gun during an audit of primary results in April.
According to the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement, Rawling’s actions were a desperate attempt to hide his tampering with results. Rawling resigned less than a month after the primary results were tallied.
“The State Board’s top priority is ensuring the integrity of elections so voters have confidence in the process,” the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement said in its remarks to the media.
http://www.rawprogressive.com/2017/08/22/breaking-north-carolina-county-official-indicted-rigging-2016-election-donald-trump/
Richard Robert Rawling, 59, of Cary, was charged with felony counts of failing his duties and obstruction of justice after allegedly skewing the vote tallies to help elect Donald Trump and other conservative candidates.
Rawling allegedly ordered subordinates to run provisional ballots through tabulators more than the correct number of times, and then made manual changes so that the results of the provisional canvass would match the tally of total ballots.
Elections board officials found the smoking gun during an audit of primary results in April.
According to the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement, Rawling’s actions were a desperate attempt to hide his tampering with results. Rawling resigned less than a month after the primary results were tallied.
“The State Board’s top priority is ensuring the integrity of elections so voters have confidence in the process,” the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement said in its remarks to the media.
http://www.rawprogressive.com/2017/08/22/breaking-north-carolina-county-official-indicted-rigging-2016-election-donald-trump/
White House anti-drug office asks Mass. for medical Marijuana data
An arm of the White House’s anti-drug office has asked Massachusetts and
several other states where medical marijuana is legal to turn over
information about registered patients, triggering a debate over privacy
rights and whether state officials should cooperate with a federal
administration that appears hostile to the drug.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/08/25/white-house-anti-drug-office-asks-massachusetts-for-medical-marijuana-data/FIiAccGpbD7az3wfUyoMbK/story.html
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/08/25/white-house-anti-drug-office-asks-massachusetts-for-medical-marijuana-data/FIiAccGpbD7az3wfUyoMbK/story.html
Trump Has Now Lied To The Public More Than 1,000 Times Since Taking Office
According to a report by The Washington Post, Donald Trump has passed
the 1,000 lie milestone since being sworn in as President. Many of his
lies have been repeated so often that a majority of his supporters
actually believe them to be true, like Trump actually winning the
popular vote. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
IF TRUMP'S MOUTH IS MOVING, A LIE IS SPILLING OUT, IF HIS HAND IS MOVING, THE SATANIC 666 HAND GESTURE IS SHOWING YOU WHO HE WORSHIPS.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/22/president-trumps-list-of-false-and-misleading-claims-tops-1000/
IF TRUMP'S MOUTH IS MOVING, A LIE IS SPILLING OUT, IF HIS HAND IS MOVING, THE SATANIC 666 HAND GESTURE IS SHOWING YOU WHO HE WORSHIPS.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/22/president-trumps-list-of-false-and-misleading-claims-tops-1000/
Friday, August 25, 2017
How Bad Of A Businessman Is Donald Trump? Here’s How Bad.
How bad of a businessman is Donald Trump? Two experts, and one person
impacted by Trump’s business deals, discuss his record.
Marvin Roffman, an analyst, took Trump to court after getting fired for telling the Wall Street Journal that Trump’s plan for the Taj Mahal was financially irresponsible. Trump settled the case and Roffman won financial compensation.
Prudence Gourguechon, past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, argues that Trump views his business partners and even the banks which lend him money as expendable, since he can just use them until he gets a better deal.
“Donald Trump’s handshake, his signature and his word mean absolutely nothing in Atlantic City,” says Paul Friel, whose father’s cabinetry business was never paid in full for the work it completed on Trump Plaza.
Marvin Roffman, an analyst, took Trump to court after getting fired for telling the Wall Street Journal that Trump’s plan for the Taj Mahal was financially irresponsible. Trump settled the case and Roffman won financial compensation.
Prudence Gourguechon, past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, argues that Trump views his business partners and even the banks which lend him money as expendable, since he can just use them until he gets a better deal.
“Donald Trump’s handshake, his signature and his word mean absolutely nothing in Atlantic City,” says Paul Friel, whose father’s cabinetry business was never paid in full for the work it completed on Trump Plaza.
Trump is acting like he is running out of time
By Josh Delk
Former
Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman said Thursday that Donald Trump is
acting in regards to the Russia collusion investigation as if he knows
"time is running out."
"What we're finding is, as time goes on, we keep learning new, additional facts. But we don't know what [special counsel Robert] Mueller's staff knows. For all we know, we may just have the tip of the iceberg on this," Akerman told MSNBC's Ari Melber.
Akerman referenced a The Washington Post report that Trump had pushed back on legislation proposed in July that would block him from firing the special counsel investigating his campaign's ties to Russia without a federal judge's approval.
"Now it appears he's directly lobbying congress to try and ensure that he has a way to get rid of this investigation," Akerman said.
CNN reported this week that congressional investigators had unearthed an email from now-White House aide Rick Dearborn to campaign officials last year relaying information about a person who was trying to connect top Trump officials with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Federal and congressional investigators had already shown an interest in a meeting that Trump's eldest son Donald Jr. set up last summer between campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising damaging information on his presidential rival Hillary Clinton.
"At the same time that we keep getting more evidence, we also learn that Donald Trump has consistently, from day one, tried to stop this Russia investigation," Akerman said.
Trump harshly criticized and later fired James Comey as FBI director amid the escalating Russia probe, and slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the ongoing investigation.
"All of this comes down to one simple fact," said Akerman. "You have someone who is acting extremely guilty, someone who is acting in a way that he realizes that time is running out, and he's taking all kinds of desperate moves to try and stop this investigation."
"What we're finding is, as time goes on, we keep learning new, additional facts. But we don't know what [special counsel Robert] Mueller's staff knows. For all we know, we may just have the tip of the iceberg on this," Akerman told MSNBC's Ari Melber.
Akerman referenced a The Washington Post report that Trump had pushed back on legislation proposed in July that would block him from firing the special counsel investigating his campaign's ties to Russia without a federal judge's approval.
"Now it appears he's directly lobbying congress to try and ensure that he has a way to get rid of this investigation," Akerman said.
CNN reported this week that congressional investigators had unearthed an email from now-White House aide Rick Dearborn to campaign officials last year relaying information about a person who was trying to connect top Trump officials with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Federal and congressional investigators had already shown an interest in a meeting that Trump's eldest son Donald Jr. set up last summer between campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising damaging information on his presidential rival Hillary Clinton.
"At the same time that we keep getting more evidence, we also learn that Donald Trump has consistently, from day one, tried to stop this Russia investigation," Akerman said.
Trump harshly criticized and later fired James Comey as FBI director amid the escalating Russia probe, and slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the ongoing investigation.
"All of this comes down to one simple fact," said Akerman. "You have someone who is acting extremely guilty, someone who is acting in a way that he realizes that time is running out, and he's taking all kinds of desperate moves to try and stop this investigation."
Thursday, August 24, 2017
I was detained for protesting Trump. Here’s what the Secret Service asked me.
By Melissa Byrne August 23 at 6:00 AM
Melissa Byrne is a political strategist living in Philadelphia.
Like many events that end up with a person in handcuffs, my story begins in a bar. I was in Atlanta earlier this month for Netroots Nation, the annual meeting of progressive organizers and writers, when I overheard friends discussing how to resist President Trump’s first visit to Trump Tower. I jumped into the conversation: “Well, you call me, of course.” Twenty minutes later, we had a rough plan that we would unfurl a banner inside Trump Tower the following week. I have been to many protests since the inauguration, and I was proud to do my part.
Together with Ultraviolet and the Working Families Party, we commissioned a painted banner that simply read “Women Resist White Supremacy.” Through sheer luck, not only would Trump be in Trump Tower during my act of resistance, but he would be giving a news conference about 3:30 p.m. I knew from my previous work as a campaign advancer that the Secret Service would begin sweeps to clear the space about an hour before he spoke, so the best possible time for the action was 2 p.m.
Unlike previous presidents, Trump’s home is in a public space. You don’t have to sneak into Trump Tower. You enter via an atrium next to a Nike store. Then you pass through airport-style security run by the Secret Service. I wore my banner as a slip of sorts under my flowy dress. It was made of fabric, so it didn’t set off the metal detector.
Protesters gathered outside Trump Tower in Manhattan on Aug. 14, as Trump arrived back for the first time since being inaugurated into office. (evilevestrikesagain/Instagram)
Like every good political operative — I worked for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2016 campaign and then the MoveOn super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign — I run on coffee. Conveniently, the Starbucks inside Trump Tower is located on the second floor and overlooks an atrium — exactly where I’d want to hang the banner. I sipped a flat white and waited for the right moment, when uniformed NYPD wouldn’t be nearby. Then I unfurled the banner. A security officer grabbed it almost immediately. I ended up on the ground.
Since Starbucks is a public place and I was a paying guest, I knew I hadn’t violated any laws. At worst, I could be banned from the building. I expected from past protest actions that I’d be given a warning and a request to leave. I clearly and politely explained to the NYPD officers who detained me that the protest was done and I was heading out.
They had other ideas.
A detective grabbed my wrist and cuffed me. A gaggle of officers from multiple law enforcement agencies escorted me to a room near the atrium. A few chairs had Trump campaign materials plastered on them. Inside the room with me were more than 10 officers from the NYPD and the Secret Service.
Then the questions began, and they were bananas. A young woman from the Secret Service began the questioning; male NYPD officers tagged in and out. They never asked me whether I understood my rights, and I wasn’t actually sure at that moment what rights, if any, I had. I was focused on not getting put in a car and being whisked away.
It was clear right away that these officials wouldn’t see me the way I see myself: as a reasonably responsible, skilled nonviolent political operative who works on a mix of electoral and issues campaigns. To them, I was clearly a threat to national security. It felt like an interrogation on “Homeland.” Here are my favorite parts of the conversation, as I remember them.
NYPD: “Why would you come to the president’s home to do this?”
Me: “It was wrong for the president to support white supremacy.”
NYPD: “Don’t you respect the president?”
Me: “I don’t respect people who align with Nazis.”
Secret Service: “Do you have negative feelings toward the president?”
Me: “Yes.”
Secret Service: “Can you elaborate?”
Me: “He should be impeached and should not be president.”
They were concerned with who bought my train ticket, once they saw the receipt on my phone. The NYPD officers didn’t seem to believe me that some organizations work for justice and organize these legal protests. Each time they touched my phone, I said I don’t consent to the search of my phone. (They held my phone during the interview, and I can only hope they didn’t poke around it — although they wouldn’t have found much to interest them, unless they like Bernie GIF's.)
Secret Service: “Have you ever been inside the White House?
Me: “Yes.”
Secret Service: “How many times?”
Me: “Many. I was a volunteer holiday tour guide for the White House Visitors Center.”
Secret Service, eyes wide: “When was the last time you were there?”
Me: “December.” I explained that I probably wouldn’t be invited back until we have a new president.
The officers ran through a raft of predictable questions about firearms. (I don’t own any, and they seemed puzzled by my commitment to nonviolence as a philosophy.) They asked whether I wanted to hurt the president or anyone in his family. Obviously not. Then came the mental health questions.
Me: “No.”
Secret Service: “Have you ever tried to commit suicide?”
Me: “No.”
Secret Service: “Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?”
Me: “No.”
I was trying very hard not to roll my eyes at the repeated questions when an NYPD detective suggested my protest could be charged as a felony. In the next second, the Secret Service agents asked me to sign Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act waivers so they could gather all my medical records. My mind was still focused on the f-word: felony. But I didn’t want to sign the waivers.
I meekly asked whether I should talk to a lawyer. I was told it was my prerogative but also that it might mean I’d be held longer. Being in a room with that many enforcement agents hurt my ability to reason dispassionately, and I was now looking at a criminal record from a basic, even banal, nonviolent protest. I signed the forms.
Trump was about to start his now-famous news conference, and the Secret Service needed to resume patrols. They let me go with just a ban from the building.
Trump on Aug. 15 said that “there’s blame on both sides” for the violence that erupted in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
But a few days later, I heard they were canvassing my neighborhood, in West Philadelphia, looking for information about me, including from people I’ve never met. One woman they approached found my contact information online and told me about this exchange in a Facebook Messenger request. They asked her whether she knew me and whether I was a threat to the president. Since I live in West Philly, she replied that the only threat lives in the White House and that the president is racist.
Secret Service: “Do you know Melissa Byrne?”
Neighbor: “No.”
Secret Service: “Why would she protest President Trump?”
Neighbor: “Because he’s a fucking racist.”
Thanks, neighbor!
In the end, I couldn’t stop wondering why they were devoting so much time to me when they could be pursuing neo-Nazis. I was treated as a national security threat when all I’d done was exercise my First Amendment right to free expression. This isn’t normal, and it shouldn’t be how nonviolent protesters are treated by armed agents of the government.
Monday, August 21, 2017
Trump's Chaotic Four Weeks
CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on Friday had a priceless reaction to the news that
Donald Trump has fired chief White House strategist Steve Bannon,
reading headlines from the president’s “chaotic four weeks” that were so
long she had to stop and drink a cup of water.
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Donald Trump Responds To Barcelona Terror Attack With A Lie
Lawrence O'Donnell reacts to Donald Trump's newest lie about fighting terrorism, as well as top Republican senator Bob Corker saying Donald Trump lacks the "stability" and "competence" to be president.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Anti-Trump Site Under Seige From Justice Department
The Justice Department wants to know who’s visiting this anti-Trump
website. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, the hosts of The Young Turks,
break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below. https://tytnetwork.com/join/
“The Department of Justice has requested information on visitors to a website used to organize protests against President Trump, the Los Angeles-based Dreamhost said in a blog post published on Monday.
Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.
DreamHost claimed that the complying with the request from the Justice Department would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content and photos of thousands of visitors to the website, which was involved in organizing protests against Trump on Inauguration Day.
“That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment,” DreamHost wrote in the blog post on Monday. “That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.”
When contacted, the Justice Department directed The Hill to the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment but provided the filings related to the case.
The company is currently challenging the request. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday in Washington.”
Read more here: http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/346544-dreamhost-claims-doj-requesting-info-on-visitors-to-anti-trump-website
Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian
Cast: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian
“The Department of Justice has requested information on visitors to a website used to organize protests against President Trump, the Los Angeles-based Dreamhost said in a blog post published on Monday.
Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.
DreamHost claimed that the complying with the request from the Justice Department would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content and photos of thousands of visitors to the website, which was involved in organizing protests against Trump on Inauguration Day.
“That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment,” DreamHost wrote in the blog post on Monday. “That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.”
When contacted, the Justice Department directed The Hill to the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment but provided the filings related to the case.
The company is currently challenging the request. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday in Washington.”
Read more here: http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/346544-dreamhost-claims-doj-requesting-info-on-visitors-to-anti-trump-website
Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian
Cast: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian
Monday, August 14, 2017
Trump 'seriously considering' pardoning convicted racial profiler Joe Arpaio
According to a report from state news channel Fox News, Donald Trump is “seriously considering” pardoning Crooked Joe Arpaio, who was recently convicted
of criminal contempt of court for his racist and illegal campaign
against Latinos and immigrants in Maricopa County as sheriff.
He faces up to six months for his reign of terror.
Fox says that Trump’s interview took place on Sunday, which means that Trump prioritized speaking out about a possible pardon for Arpaio over finally saying that his KKK and Nazi supporters in Charlottesville, Virginia, were bad. Clearly, “bad hombres” will always defend “bad hombres” when it comes to terrorizing people of color:
He faces up to six months for his reign of terror.
Fox says that Trump’s interview took place on Sunday, which means that Trump prioritized speaking out about a possible pardon for Arpaio over finally saying that his KKK and Nazi supporters in Charlottesville, Virginia, were bad. Clearly, “bad hombres” will always defend “bad hombres” when it comes to terrorizing people of color:
“I am seriously considering a pardon for
Sheriff Arpaio,” the president reportedly told Fox News at his club in
Bedminster, N.J. “He has done a lot in the fight against illegal
immigration. He’s a great American patriot and I hate to see what has
happened to him.”
Arpaio is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 5
and could spend up to six months in jail. Though his attorneys are
planning on appealing the conviction, a presidential pardon would be the
swiftest exit from the case.
Trump told the network the pardon could come as early as this week.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/14/1689535/-Trump-seriously-considering-pardoning-convicted-racial-profiler-Joe-Arpaio
With his approval rate now at 34%, the end is near for this cretin. Thank God.
With his approval rate now at 34%, the end is near for this cretin. Thank God.
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
The Alt-Right And Glenn Greenwald Versus H.R. McMaster
By
Jonathan Chait
Donald
Trump has scrambled the political spectrum in certain ways, and one of
them has been to introduce a new set of players to the national scene.
“Nationalists” or “populists” (as they now call themselves), or the
“alt-right” (as they used to call themselves), have been vying with
traditional Republicans for control of the Trump administration. The
nationalists tend to be pro-Russia, virulently anti-immigrant,
race-centric, and conspiratorial in their thinking.
Their current
project is a political war against National Security Adviser H.R.
McMaster, a conventional Republican who displaced the nationalist
Michael Flynn. The nationalist war against McMaster has included waves
of Russian social-media bots, leaks placed in the nationalist organ Breitbart, and undisguised anti-Semitism.
Most
observers outside the nationalist wing have treated McMaster as the
sympathetic party in the conflict. The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald is a
notable exception. Greenwald has depicted the conflict, much like the
nationalists themselves have, as the machinations of the deep state to
prevent the authentic, democratically legitimate populist
representatives of Trumpism from exerting their rightful authority.
Greenwald himself is not a nationalist, and is certainly not a bigot,
but the episode has revealed a left-winger’s idiosyncratic sympathy for
the most odious characters on the right.
Greenwald lays out his thinking in a deeply, if inadvertently, revealing column denouncing anti-Trump saboteurs in the deep state.
The
foundation of Greenwald’s worldview — on this issue and nearly
everything else — is that the United States and its national-security
apparatus is the greatest force for evil in the world. “Who has brought
more death, and suffering, and tyranny to the world over the last six
decades,” he writes, “than the U.S. National Security State?” (This
six-decade period of time includes Mao’s regime in China, which killed
45 to 75 million people, as well as the Khmer Rouge and several decades
of the Soviet Union.)
In Greenwald’s mind, the ultimate expression of
American evil is and always will be neoconservatism. “It’s hard, for
instance, to imagine any group that has done more harm, and ushered in
more evil, than the Bush-era neocons with whom Democrats are now openly
aligning,” he argues.
The
neoconservatives have lined up against Trump, and many Democrats agree
with them on certain issues. Since the neocons represent maximal evil in
the world, any opponent of theirs must be, in Greenwald’s calculus, the
lesser evil. His construction that “it’s hard … to imagine” any worse
faction than the neocons is especially telling. However dangerous or
rancid figures like Steve Bannon or Michael Flynn may be, the
possibility that they could match the evil of the neocons is literally
beyond the capacity of his brain to imagine.
A
second source of Greenwald’s sympathy for the nationalists is their
populism. The nationalists style themselves as outsiders beset by
powerful, self-interested networks of hidden foes. And while their
racism is not his cup of tea, Greenwald shares the same broad view of
his enemies.
Trump
“advocated a slew of policies that attacked the most sacred prongs of
long-standing bipartisan Washington consensus,” argues Greenwald. “As a
result, he was (and continues to be) viewed as uniquely repellent by the
neoliberal and neoconservative guardians of that consensus, along with
their sprawling network of agencies, think tanks, financial policy
organs, and media outlets used to implement their agenda (CIA, NSA, the
Brookings/AEI think tank axis, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, etc.).”
It
is certainly true that all manner of elites disdain Trump. What’s
striking is Greenwald’s uncharitable reading of their motives, which
closely tracks Trump’s own portrayal of the situation.
Many elites
consider Trump too ignorant, lazy, impulsive, and bigoted for the job.
Instead Greenwald presents their opposition as reflecting a fear that
Trump threatens their wealth and power. (This despite the pro-elite tilt
of his tax and regulatory policies — which, in particular, make it
astonishing that Greenwald would take at face value Trump’s claim to
threaten the interests of “Wall Street” and its “financial policy
organs.”)
The
opposition to Trump naturally shares a wide array of motives, as would
any wide-ranging coalition. Greenwald’s column consistently attributes
to those opponents only the most repellant beliefs. He doesn’t even
consider the possibility that some people genuinely believe McMaster is a
safe, responsible figure who might help dissuade the president from
doing something terrible.
Greenwald emphasizes, “Hank Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO and George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary, went to the pages of the Washington Post
in mid-2016 to shower Clinton with praise and Trump with unbridled
scorn, saying what he hated most about Trump was his refusal to consider
cuts in entitlement spending (in contrast, presumably, to the Democrat
he was endorsing).” It is true that Trump promised not to cut
entitlement spending. Greenwald’s notion that this promise placed him
“presumably in contrast” with Hillary Clinton ignores that fact that
Clinton also promised to protect these programs.
The
passage about entitlements appears deep in Paulson’s op-ed, which
Paulson began by lambasting Trump for encouraging “ignorance, prejudice,
fear and isolationism,” among other flaws. Greenwald asserts that
Paulson identifies Trump’s hostility to cutting entitlements as “what he
hated most” about the Republican nominee, but nothing in the op-ed
indicates this is what Paulson hated most.
Greenwald just made that part
up.
The
same concoction of motives is at work in Greenwald’s contempt for
McMaster and John Kelly, the new chief of staff. The pair of former
generals “have long been hailed by anti-Trump factions as the Serious,
Responsible Adults in the Trump administration, primarily because they
support militaristic policies — such as the war in Afghanistan and
intervention in Syria — that are far more in line with official
Washington’s bipartisan posture,” he writes.
Note
that “primarily.” Greenwald is arguing that news coverage treating them
as competent managers, as opposed to the amateurish nationalists, is
propaganda by the elite plumping for greater war in Afghanistan and
Syria. He is implying that if Kelly and McMaster took more dovish
positions on Afghanistan and Syria, their public image would be
altogether different. Greenwald supplies no evidence for this premise.
In fact, McMaster’s most acute policy struggle has been his efforts to maintain the Iran nuclear agreement, one which has placed him on the dovish side, against an established neoconservative position. Greenwald does not mention this issue, which fatally undermines his entire analysis.
The
final point of overlap between Greenwald and the nationalists is their
relatively sympathetic view of Russia. The nationalists admire Putin as a
champion of white Christian culture against Islam, a predisposition
Greenwald does not share at all. Greenwald has, however, defended Russia’s menacing of its neighbors, and repeatedly questioned its ties to WikiLeaks.
From
the outset, he has reflexively discounted evidence of Russian
intervention in the election.
“Democrats completely resurrect that Cold
War McCarthyite kind of rhetoric not only to accuse Paul Manafort, who
does have direct financial ties to certainly the pro — the former
pro-Russian leader of the Ukraine,” he asserted last year. (Manafort did have financial ties to that leader, a fact that was obvious at the time and which Manafort no longer denies.) Democratic accusations that Trump had hidden ties with Russia were a “smear tactic,” “unhinged,” “wild, elaborate conspiracy theories,” a “desperate” excuse for their election defeat, and so on.
As
evidence of Russian intervention piled up, Greenwald’s line of defense
has continued to retreat. When emails revealed a campaign meeting by
Russians on the explicit promise of helping Trump’s campaign, Greenwald brushed it off
as politics as usual: “I, personally, although it’s dirty, think all of
these events are sort of the way politics works. Of course if you’re in
an important campaign and someone offers you incriminating information
about your opponent, you’re going to want it no matter where it comes
from.”
This
closely tracks the Trump legal team’s own defense of the Russia
scandal, a fact that is probably coincidental. (There are only so many
arguments to make.) Greenwald is not a racist, and is the opposite
of a nationalist, and yet his worldview has brought him into close
alignment with that of the alt-right. A Greenwaldian paranoid would see
this quasi-alliance as a conspiracy. The reality of his warped defenses
of Trump is merely that of a monomaniac unable to relinquish his
obsessions.
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
How Racist Can The White House Get? (Answer: Very)
Posted by Rude One
The last couple of days have been banner ones for racists of just about every stripe, from backwoods yahoo country fucks to ostensibly educated white nationalist shit crumbs, from pandering politicians to true believers. Let's just run it down:
1. The Department of Justice is exploring whether the federal government should be "suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants." It's as if they believe that diversity on college campuses is a bad thing, probably because it makes people more sympathetic to people of other races. And how can you have a race war if that happens?
2. President Donald Trump announced his support for the RAISE Act, which is an anodyne acronym masking a shitty policy. It looks to cut in half the number of legal immigrants coming into the country, and it emphasizes skilled workers who can speak English. Oh, and only spouses and children can come over with immigrants.
When nutzoid hate-filled jizz goblin Stephen Miller, a senior policy advisor and winner of "Man Who Most Looks Like a Star Trek Alien" was asked about the racist implications of the proposal, he went into an outrage froth that coated the gathered reporters in a glistening film of saliva. It reached a spittle-flecked climax when Miller attacked CNN's Jim Acosta for daring to suggest that one purpose of the bill might be to bring in more white people, saying that "it reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree." Fuck's sake, "cosmopolitan" means you give a shit about the world. The opposite of "cosmopolitan" is, more or less, "xenophobic." Or it's just an anti-Semitic dog whistle (which is extra weird since Miller is Jewish). Either way, between that and a bizarro attack on the meaning of the Statue of Liberty, it was a fucking train wreck of an appearance.
3. The Washington Post printed transcripts of Trump's late January phone calls with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. While they are masterpieces of fuckery, dickishness, and doltishness, it's also worth pointing out how fucking openly racist Trump is willing to go when talking about refugees.
When Turnbull presses Trump on honoring a deal on at least vetting refugees to possibly take them into the United States, Trump goes twitchy with paranoia. He knocks Cubans: "You remember the Mariel boat lift, where Castro let everyone out of prison and Jimmy Carter accepted them with open arms. These were brutal people." Yeah, see only 2% of the 125,000 Cubans who came here in 1980 were deemed criminals who needed to be deported. The rest fucking made Miami what it is today. (Oddly, Miller brought up the Mariel boat lift in his remarks yesterday. These Trumpers are consistent in their assholery.)
Then, after Turnbull insists that the U.S. live up to its obligations, something Trump is well-known not to give a flying rat fuck about, the president says of the refugees who have been living in horrific conditions on islands off Australia, "I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people...maybe you should let them out of prison." Who knows where all these milk jobs are, but Trump equates "refugee camp" with "prison," which would probably shock a lot of the little children who are there.
This shit is so blatant it'd make a robed KKK member say, "Whoa, a little obvious there, fella."
Look, we know Trump is racist. We knew it for years, from the Central Park Five to birtherism to the Muslim travel ban. It has been one of his most consistent traits. And we know that Trump has surrounded himself with racists, with people who are directly connected to white nationalist groups. And we know that Trump's supporters are racist (yeah, you are, fuck off).
And now we're seeing the policy implications of that. Trump used to ask various non-white groups, "What the hell do you have to lose?" in electing him.
It's pretty clear that the answer is "a future."
The last couple of days have been banner ones for racists of just about every stripe, from backwoods yahoo country fucks to ostensibly educated white nationalist shit crumbs, from pandering politicians to true believers. Let's just run it down:
1. The Department of Justice is exploring whether the federal government should be "suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants." It's as if they believe that diversity on college campuses is a bad thing, probably because it makes people more sympathetic to people of other races. And how can you have a race war if that happens?
2. President Donald Trump announced his support for the RAISE Act, which is an anodyne acronym masking a shitty policy. It looks to cut in half the number of legal immigrants coming into the country, and it emphasizes skilled workers who can speak English. Oh, and only spouses and children can come over with immigrants.
When nutzoid hate-filled jizz goblin Stephen Miller, a senior policy advisor and winner of "Man Who Most Looks Like a Star Trek Alien" was asked about the racist implications of the proposal, he went into an outrage froth that coated the gathered reporters in a glistening film of saliva. It reached a spittle-flecked climax when Miller attacked CNN's Jim Acosta for daring to suggest that one purpose of the bill might be to bring in more white people, saying that "it reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree." Fuck's sake, "cosmopolitan" means you give a shit about the world. The opposite of "cosmopolitan" is, more or less, "xenophobic." Or it's just an anti-Semitic dog whistle (which is extra weird since Miller is Jewish). Either way, between that and a bizarro attack on the meaning of the Statue of Liberty, it was a fucking train wreck of an appearance.
3. The Washington Post printed transcripts of Trump's late January phone calls with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. While they are masterpieces of fuckery, dickishness, and doltishness, it's also worth pointing out how fucking openly racist Trump is willing to go when talking about refugees.
When Turnbull presses Trump on honoring a deal on at least vetting refugees to possibly take them into the United States, Trump goes twitchy with paranoia. He knocks Cubans: "You remember the Mariel boat lift, where Castro let everyone out of prison and Jimmy Carter accepted them with open arms. These were brutal people." Yeah, see only 2% of the 125,000 Cubans who came here in 1980 were deemed criminals who needed to be deported. The rest fucking made Miami what it is today. (Oddly, Miller brought up the Mariel boat lift in his remarks yesterday. These Trumpers are consistent in their assholery.)
Then, after Turnbull insists that the U.S. live up to its obligations, something Trump is well-known not to give a flying rat fuck about, the president says of the refugees who have been living in horrific conditions on islands off Australia, "I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people...maybe you should let them out of prison." Who knows where all these milk jobs are, but Trump equates "refugee camp" with "prison," which would probably shock a lot of the little children who are there.
This shit is so blatant it'd make a robed KKK member say, "Whoa, a little obvious there, fella."
Look, we know Trump is racist. We knew it for years, from the Central Park Five to birtherism to the Muslim travel ban. It has been one of his most consistent traits. And we know that Trump has surrounded himself with racists, with people who are directly connected to white nationalist groups. And we know that Trump's supporters are racist (yeah, you are, fuck off).
And now we're seeing the policy implications of that. Trump used to ask various non-white groups, "What the hell do you have to lose?" in electing him.
It's pretty clear that the answer is "a future."
Saturday, August 5, 2017
The Making Of Donald Trump - Interview With David Cay Johnston
Randi Rhodes interviews David Cay Johnston, investigative journalist and author,
a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001
Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting about his book - The Making of Donald
Trump - Get the book here - every purchase supports the show: http://amzn.to/2cnN0z9
For the full show, get a commercial-free audio podcast at RandiRhodes.com and please subscribe to Randi's YouTube channel!
Randi Rhodes Number-one ranked progressive radio talk show host, political commentator, entertainer and writer. The Randi Rhodes Show, was broadcast nationally on Air America Radio, and Premiere Radio Networks from 2004–2014. Rhodes, represents aggressively independent media.
The Miami Herald described her as "a chain-smoking bottle blonde, part Joan Rivers, part shock jock Howard Stern, and part Saturday Night Live’s ‘Coffee Talk’ Lady. But mostly, she's her rude, crude, loud, brazen, gleeful self."
Rhodes and her show won numerous awards for journalism and broadcasting, including Radio Ink’s Most Influential Woman, Radio Ink’s Most Influential Women’s list (multiple years), TALKERS magazine’s Woman of the Year, and the Judy Jarvis Memorial Award for Contributions to the Talk Industry by a Woman.
For the full show, get a commercial-free audio podcast at RandiRhodes.com and please subscribe to Randi's YouTube channel!
Randi Rhodes Number-one ranked progressive radio talk show host, political commentator, entertainer and writer. The Randi Rhodes Show, was broadcast nationally on Air America Radio, and Premiere Radio Networks from 2004–2014. Rhodes, represents aggressively independent media.
The Miami Herald described her as "a chain-smoking bottle blonde, part Joan Rivers, part shock jock Howard Stern, and part Saturday Night Live’s ‘Coffee Talk’ Lady. But mostly, she's her rude, crude, loud, brazen, gleeful self."
Rhodes and her show won numerous awards for journalism and broadcasting, including Radio Ink’s Most Influential Woman, Radio Ink’s Most Influential Women’s list (multiple years), TALKERS magazine’s Woman of the Year, and the Judy Jarvis Memorial Award for Contributions to the Talk Industry by a Woman.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
FBI Horrified As Spy Says Russia Has Been Supporting And Cultivating Trump For Years
A "veteran" spy is alleging that Russia is cultivating, supporting and
assisting Donald Trump and has been for at least five years. The spy
said the response from the FBI was "shock and horror."
The report alleges that Trump and his “inner circle” have accepted a regular “flow of intelligence from the Kremlin and that Russian intelligence claims to have “compromised” Trump on his visits and could “blackmail him”.
http://www.politicususa.com/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/
The report alleges that Trump and his “inner circle” have accepted a regular “flow of intelligence from the Kremlin and that Russian intelligence claims to have “compromised” Trump on his visits and could “blackmail him”.
http://www.politicususa.com/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/
Trump 'personally dictated' false statement about son's meeting with Russian lawyer
Trump personally dictated a statement that was
issued after revelations that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer
during the 2016 election. The Washington Post's Philip Rucker and Carol
D. Leonnig explain.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dictated-sons-misleading-statement-on-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/2017/07/31/04c94f96-73ae-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dictated-sons-misleading-statement-on-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/2017/07/31/04c94f96-73ae-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html
Saturday, July 29, 2017
The Past 5 GOP Presidents Have Used Fraud And Treason To Steer Themselves To Electoral Victory
By Thom Hartmann
/
AlterNet
Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and author of over 25 books in print.
People are wondering out loud about the parallels between today’s Republican Party and organized crime,
and whether “Teflon Don” Trump will remain unscathed through his many
scandals, ranging from interactions with foreign oligarchs to killing
tens of thousands of Americans by denying them healthcare to stepping up
the destruction of our environment and public lands.
History
suggests – even if treason can be demonstrated – that, as long as he
holds onto the Republican Party (and Fox News), he’ll survive it intact.
And he won’t be the first Republican president to commit high crimes to
get and stay in office.
In fact, Eisenhower was the last legitimately elected Republican president we’ve had in this country.
Since Dwight Eisenhower left the presidency in 1961, six different Republicans have occupied the Oval Office.
And
every single one of them - from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump - have
been illegitimate - ascending to the highest office in the land not
through small-D democratic elections - but instead through fraud and
treason.
(And today’s GOP-controlled Congress is
arguably just as corrupt and illegitimate, acting almost entirely within
the boundaries set by an organized group of billionaires.)
Let’s start at the beginning with Richard Nixon.
In 1968 - President Lyndon Johnson was desperately trying to end the Vietnam war.
But
Richard Nixon knew that if the war continued - it would tarnish
Democrat (and Vice President) Hubert Humphrey’s chances of winning the
1968 election.
So Nixon sent envoys from his campaign to
talk to South Vietnamese leaders to encourage them not to attend an
upcoming peace talk in Paris.
Nixon promised South
Vietnam’s corrupt politicians that he would give them a richer deal when
he was President than LBJ could give them then.
LBJ
found out about this political maneuver to prolong the Vietnam war just 3
days before the 1968 election. He phoned the Republican Senate leader
Everett Dirksen – here’s an excerpt (you can listen to the entire conversation here):
President Johnson:
Some of our folks, including some of the old China lobby, are going to the Vietnamese embassy and saying please notify the [South Vietnamese] president that if he'll hold out 'til November the second they could get a better deal. Now, I'm reading their hand, Everett. I don't want to get this in the campaign.
And they oughtn't to be doin' this. This is treason.
Sen. Dirksen: I know.
Those
tapes were only released by the LBJ library in the past decade, and
that’s Richard Nixon that Lyndon Johnson was accusing of treason.
But by then - Nixon’s plan had worked.
South
Vietnam boycotted the peace talks - the war continued - and Nixon won
the White House thanks to it. As a result, additional tens of thousands
of American soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians,
died as a result of Nixon’s treason.
And Nixon was never held to account for it.
Gerald Ford was the next Republican.
After Nixon left office the same way he entered it - by virtue of breaking the law - Gerald Ford took over.
Ford
was never elected to the White House (he was appointed to replace VP
Spiro Agnew, after Agnew was indicted for decades of taking bribes), and
thus would never have been President had it not been for Richard
Nixon’s treason.
The third was Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980.
He
won thanks to a little something called the October Surprise - when his
people sabotaged then-President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to release
American hostages in Iran.
According to Iran’s
then-president, Reagan’s people promised the Iranians that if they held
off on releasing the American hostages until just after the election -
then Reagan would give them a sweet weapons deal.
In
1980 Carter thought he had reached a deal with newly-elected Iranian
President Abdolhassan Bani-Sadr over the release of the fifty-two
hostages held by radical students at the American Embassy in Tehran.
Bani-Sadr was a moderate and, as he explained in an editorial for The Christian Science Monitor earlier this year, had successfully run for President on the popular position of releasing the hostages:
"I
openly opposed the hostage-taking throughout the election campaign.... I
won the election with over 76 percent of the vote.... Other candidates
also were openly against hostage-taking, and overall, 96 percent of
votes in that election were given to candidates who were against it
[hostage-taking]."
Carter was confident that with
Bani-Sadr's help, he could end the embarrassing hostage crisis that had
been a thorn in his political side ever since it began in November of
1979. But Carter underestimated the lengths his opponent in the 1980
Presidential election, California Governor Ronald Reagan, would go to
win an election.
Behind Carter's back, the Reagan campaign worked out a deal with
the leader of Iran's radical faction - Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khomeini - to keep the hostages in captivity until after the 1980
Presidential election.
This was nothing short of
treason. The Reagan campaign's secret negotiations with Khomeini - the
so-called "October Surprise" - sabotaged Carter and Bani-Sadr's attempts
to free the hostages. And as Bani-Sadr told The Christian Science Monitor in March of 2013:
After arriving in France [in 1981], I told a BBC reporter that I had left Iran to expose the symbiotic relationship between Khomeinism and Reaganism.
Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had organized a clandestine negotiation, later known as the “October Surprise,” which prevented the attempts by myself and then-US President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages before the 1980 US presidential election took place. The fact that they were not released tipped the results of the election in favor of Reagan.
And Reagan’s treason - just like Nixon’s treason - worked perfectly.
The Iran hostage crisis continued and torpedoed Jimmy Carter's re-election hopes.
And
the same day Reagan took the oath of office - almost to the minute, by
way of Iran’s acknowledging the deal - the American hostages in Iran
were released.
And for that, Reagan began selling the
Iranians weapons and spare parts in 1981, and continued until he was
busted for it in 1986, producing the so-called "Iran Contra" scandal.
But, like Nixon, Reagan was never held to account for the criminal and treasonous actions that brought him to office.
After
Reagan - Bush senior was elected - but like Gerry Ford - Bush was
really only President because he served as Vice President under Reagan.
If
the October Surprise hadn’t hoodwinked voters in 1980 - you can bet
Bush senior would never have been elected in 1988. That's four
illegitimate Republican presidents.
And that brings us to George W. Bush, the man who was given the White House by five right-wing justices on the Supreme Court.
In the Bush v. Gore
Supreme Court decision in 2000 that stopped the Florida recount and
thus handed George W. Bush the presidency - Justice Antonin Scalia wrote
in his opinion:
"The counting of votes ... does in my
view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner [George W. Bush], and to
the country, by casting a cloud upon what he [Bush] claims to be the
legitimacy of his election."
Apparently, denying the
presidency to Al Gore, the guy who actually won the most votes in
Florida, did not constitute "irreparable harm" to Scalia or the media.
And
apparently it wasn't important that Scalia’s son worked for the law
firm that was defending George W. Bush before the high court (thus no
Scalia recusal).
Just like it wasn't important to
mention that Justice Clarence Thomas's wife worked on the Bush
transition team and was busy accepting resumes from people who would
serve in the Bush White House if her husband stopped the recount in
Florida...which he did. (No Thomas recusal, either.)
And
more than a year after the election - a consortium of newspapers
including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today did
their own recount in Florida - manually counting every vote in a process
that took almost a year - and concluded that Al Gore did indeed win the
presidency in 2000.
As the November 12th, 2001 article in The New York Times read:
“If
all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards
and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore
would have won.”
That little bit of info was slipped
into the seventeenth paragraph of the Times story on purpose so that it
would attract as little attention as possible around the nation.
Why?
because the 9/11 attacks had just happened - and journalists feared
that burdening Americans with the plain truth that George W. Bush
actually lost the election would further hurt a nation that was already
in crisis.
And none of that even considered that Bush
could only have gotten as close to Gore as he did because his brother,
Florida Governor Jeb Bush, had ordered his Secretary of State, Kathrine
Harris, to purge at least 57,000 mostly-Black voters from the state’s rolls just before the election.
So
for the third time in 4 decades - Republicans took the White House
under illegitimate electoral circumstances. Even President Carter was shocked by the brazenness of that one.
And Jeb Bush and the GOP were never held to account for that crime against democracy.
Most recently, in 2016, Kris Kobach and Republican Secretaries of State across the nation used Interstate Crosscheck
to purge millions of legitimate voters – most people of color – from
the voting rolls just in time for the Clinton/Trump election.
Millions
of otherwise valid American voters were denied their right to vote
because they didn’t own the requisite ID – a modern-day poll-tax that’s
spread across every Republican state with any consequential black,
elderly, urban, or college-student population (all groups less likely to
have a passport or drivers’ license).
Donald Trump still lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, but came to power through an electoral college designed to keep slavery safe in colonial America.
You
can only wonder how much better off America would be if 6 Republican
Presidents hadn't stolen or inherited a stolen White House.
In fact - the last legitimate Republican President - Dwight Eisenhower - was unlike any other Republican president since.
He ran for the White House on a platform of peace - that he would end the Korean War.
This from one of his TV campaign ads:
“The
nation, haunted by the stalemate in Korea, looks to Eisenhower.
Eisenhower knows how to deal with the Russians. He has met Europe
leaders, has got them working with us. Elect the number one man for the
number one job of our time. November 4th vote for peace. Vote for
Eisenhower.”
Two of his campaign slogans were "I like Ike" and "Vote For Peace, Vote For Eisenhower".
Ike
was a moderate Republican who stood up for working people - who kept
tax rates on the rich at 91 percent - and made sure that the middle
class in America was protected by FDR's New Deal policies.
As he told his brother Edgar in 1954 in a letter:
"Should
any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment
insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not
hear of that party again in our political history."
And
Eisenhower was right - the only way Republicans have been able to win
the presidency since he left office in 1961 has been by outright
treason, a criminal fraud involving conflicted members of the Supreme
Court, or by being vice-president under an already-illegitimate
president.
And that's where we are today, dealing with
the aftermath of all these Republican crimes and six illegitimate
Republican presidents stacking the Supreme Court and the federal
judiciary.
And this doesn’t even begin to tell the story of how the Republican majority in the senate represents 36 million fewer
Americans than do the Democrats. Or how in most elections in past
decades, Democrats have gotten more votes for the House of
Representatives, but Republicans have controlled it because of gerrymandering.
This raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the modern Republican Party itself.
They
work hand-in-glove with a group of right-wing billionaires and
billionaire-owned or dominated media outlets like Fox and “conservative”
TV and radio outlets across the nation, along with a very well-funded
network of right wing websites.
The Koch Network’s
various groups, for example, have more money, more offices, and more
staff than the Republican Party itself. Three times more employees and
twice the budget, in fact. Which raises the question: which is the dog, and which is the tail?
And, as we’ve seen so vividly in the “debate” about healthcare this year, the Republicans, like Richard Nixon, are not encumbered by the need to tell the truth.
Whether
it’s ending trade deals, bringing home jobs, protecting Social Security
and Medicaid, or saving our public lands and environment – virtually
every promise that Trump ran and won on is being broken. Meanwhile, the oligarchs continue to pressure Republican senators to vote their way.
Meanwhile, a public trust that has taken 240 years to build is being destroyed,
as public lands, regulatory agencies, and our courts are handed off to
oligarchs and transnational corporations to exploit or destroy.
The Trump and Republican campaign of 2016, Americans are now discovering, was nearly all lies, well-supported by a vast right-wing media machine
and a timid, profit-obsessed “mainstream” corporate media. Meanwhile,
it seemed that all the Democrats could say was, “The children are
watching!”
Fraud, treason, and lies have worked well for the GOP for half a century.
Thus,
the Democrats are right to now fine-tune their message to the people.
But in addition to “A Better Deal,” they may want to consider adding to
their agenda a solid RICO investigation into the GOP and the oligarchs
who fund it.
It’s way past time to stop the now-routine
Republican practice of using treason, lies, and crime to gain and hold
political power.
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