Jesse Dollemore discusses recent comments from both Donald Trump and Jared Kushner when they have touted themselves as having done a great job in dealing with the spread of the Coronavirus. They are moving the goalposts right before our very eyes and think we aren't paying attention!
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been more than willing to help Donald Trump get his judicial appointments confirmed and working with Mitch McConnell on stimulus bills that only help major corporations.
But when it comes to Trump putting his name on stimulus checks, Schumer has finally decided to grow a spine. Schumer has introduced legislation to stop this meaningless gesture from Trump with the "No PR Act," and Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains why this is beyond infuriating.
The Democratic leaders in Congress are patting themselves on the back today over the fact that they worked with Republicans on a new relief bill that is certain to pass.
The only problem these Democrats have is that they didn't get anything REAL for the American public in these bills, and their "concessions" were things that should have been a no-brainer to pass.
The Democrats aren't fighting for us, at all, and that isn't going to bode well come November. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.
“Nobody can deny what a force he and his supporters are, and how important of a voice they have been,” Buttigieg said. “So much now depends on us coming together.”
Buttigieg said he called Sanders yesterday after it was announced the Vermont senator was suspending his campaign.
Buttigieg said “I hope [Sanders] will take that step” to endorse Biden.
Buttigieg suspended his own presidential campaign on March 1 and endorsed Biden the next day.
“I think we have to define real progressivism not by how negative you can be on Twitter or how angry you are, but by what it is we're actually for,” he said of Sanders supporters reluctant to back Biden.
“I don't think you have to be a Democrat to be for these things like empowering workers, raising wages, holding companies accountable, making sure everybody can get health care, and for God's sake, doing something about climate change before it really is too late,” he added. “So I think the fundamental question that supporters need to ask themselves is, ‘What's really at stake here?’”
Buttigieg stressed he wasn’t asking Sanders supports to “pretend we agree on everything, but to understand the urgency of the task at hand … [it] is literally life or death for so many Americans.”
“Shame on us if we let 2016 repeat itself,” he said. “A lot of people took their ball and went home, not believing a Trump residency could actually happen. Not only did it happen, it's worse than we thought - and we're seeing now in the midst of a national crisis, just how costly that is.”
New York (CNN Business)Vice
President Mike Pence's office reversed course on Thursday afternoon,
after declining for days to allow the nation's top health officials to
appear on CNN and discuss the coronavirus pandemic, in what was an
attempt to pressure the network into carrying the White House's lengthy
daily briefings in full.
After
this story was published, Pence's office allowed for the booking of
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield
for CNN's Thursday night coronavirus town hall. Dr. Anthony Fauci was
also booked for Friday on "New Day."
Previously,
Pence's office, which is responsible for booking the officials on
networks during the pandemic, said it would only allow experts such as
Fauci or Dr. Deborah Birx to appear on CNN if the network televised the
portion of the White House briefings that includes the vice president
and other coronavirus task force members.
CNN
often only broadcasts resident Donald Trump's question and answer
session, which sometimes includes the health care officials, live
on-air.
After Trump leaves the podium, CNN frequently cuts out of the White House briefing to discuss and fact-check
what the resident has said. A CNN executive said that the network
usually returns to such programming because of the extensive length of
the full briefing that includes Pence, which can run in excess of two
hours.
CNN did, however, air the vice president's portion of the briefing Wednesday night.
Regardless,
Pence's office for several days declined to make the nation's top
health care officials available to CNN for the last seven days.
"When
you guys cover the briefings with the health officials then you can
expect them back on your air," a Pence spokesperson told CNN Thursday
morning.
Fauci,
Birx, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Surgeon General Jerome Adams
have all appeared on NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox during the last week, despite
the fact that the broadcast networks have generally not covered the
briefings that have included the vice president and health officials.
But the Vice President's office had blocked all CNN appearances since last Thursday night.
Fauci appeared on the last five weekly CNN Town Halls, with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Until this story was published, Vice President's office has refused to make him, or anyone, available for Thursday's town hall.
The
White House has made two non health care officials available to CNN in
the last week. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper appeared on "State of the
Union" on Sunday and Peter Navarro appeared on Anderson Cooper's show
on Friday and "New Day" on Monday.
Trump
has declined CNN's repeated requests for an interview, instead
appearing only on Fox News for softball interviews multiple times during
the national emergency.
A CNN spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of CNN town halls in which Dr. Fauci has appeared.
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have reached a deal on a stimulus package that provides hundreds of billions of dollars for businesses and one-time payments of $1,200 to American workers.
This package is an absolute insult to every American citizen, and it proves that no one in the leadership in DC actually cares about the plight of Americans.
We deserve better, and we have a lot of work to do in November to get there. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.
Jesse Dollemore discusses the Trump administration's plans to bail out airlines, cruise lines, hotels, oil companies, and CASINOS to the tune of 800 BILLION DOLLARS.
Republicans don't have a problem with socialism when it benefits massive wealthy multi-billion dollar corporations, but whine and complain when people struggling with poverty apply for a few meager dollars worth of food stamps.
A classified briefing to lawmakers angered the resident, who complained that Democrats would “weaponize” the disclosure.
American
intelligence agencies concluded that Russia, on the orders of President
Vladimir V. Putin, interfered in the 2016 presidential election.Credit...Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
WASHINGTON
— Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia
was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get resident Trump
re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to
Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use
it against him.
The day after the
Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, Mr. Trump berated Joseph Maguire, the
outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to
take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump cited the
presence in the briefing of Representative Adam B. Schiff, the
California Democrat who led the impeachment proceedings against him, as a
particular irritant.
During the
briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s allies
challenged the conclusions, arguing that he has been tough on Russia and
strengthened European security. Some intelligence officials viewed the
briefing as a tactical error, saying that had the official who delivered
the conclusion spoken less pointedly or left it out, they would have
avoided angering the Republicans.
That
intelligence official, Shelby Pierson, is an aide to Mr. Maguire who
has a reputation of delivering intelligence in somewhat blunt terms. The resident announced on Wednesday that he was replacing Mr. Maguire with
Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and long an aggressively
vocal Trump supporter.
Though
some current and former officials speculated that the briefing may have
played a role in the removal of Mr. Maguire, who had told people in
recent days that he believed he would remain in the job, two
administration officials said the timing was coincidental. Mr. Grenell
had been in discussions with the administration about taking on new
roles, they said, and Mr. Trump had never felt a kinship with Mr.
Maguire.
Spokeswomen for the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence and its election security office
declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond
to requests for comment.
A Democratic
House intelligence committee official called the Feb. 13 briefing an
important update about “the integrity of our upcoming elections” and
said that members of both parties attended, including Representative
Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the committee.
Image
Joseph
Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, is planning to
leave government, according to an American official.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Mr.
Trump has long accused the intelligence community’s assessment of
Russia’s 2016 interference as the work of a “deep-state” conspiracy
intent on undermining the validity of his election. Intelligence
officials feel burned by their experience after the last election, where
their work became subject of intense political debate and is now a
focus of a Justice Department investigation.
Part
of the resident’s anger over the intelligence briefing stemmed from
the administration’s reluctance to provide sensitive information to Mr.
Schiff. He has been a leading critic of Mr. Trump since 2016, doggedly
investigating Russian election interference and later leading the
impeachment inquiry into the resident’s dealings with Ukraine.
After
asking about the briefing that the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence and other agencies gave to the House, Mr. Trump complained
that Mr. Schiff would “weaponize” the intelligence about Russia’s
support for him, according to a person familiar with the briefing. And
he was angry that no one had told him sooner about the briefing, the
person said.
Mr. Trump has fixated on
Mr. Schiff since the impeachment saga began, pummeling him publicly with
insults and unfounded accusations of corruption. At one point in
October, Mr. Trump refused to invite lawmakers from the congressional
intelligence committees to a White House briefing on Syria because he
did not want Mr. Schiff there, according to three people briefed on the
matter.
Mr. Trump did not erupt at Mr.
Maguire, and instead just asked pointed questions, according to the
person. But the message was unmistakable: He was displeased by what took
place.
Ms. Pierson, officials said,
was delivering the conclusion of multiple intelligence agencies, not her
own opinion. The Washington Post first reported the Oval Office confrontation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Maguire.
The intelligence community issued an assessment in early 2017 that President Vladimir V. Putin personally ordered
an influence campaign in the previous year’s election and developed “a
clear preference for resident-elect Trump.” But Republicans have long
argued that Moscow’s campaign was designed to sow chaos, not aid Mr.
Trump specifically.
And some
Republicans have accused the intelligence agencies of opposing Mr.
Trump, but intelligence officials reject those allegations. They
fiercely guard their work as nonpartisan, saying it is the only way to
ensure its validity.
At
the House briefing, Representative Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who
has been considered for the director’s post, was among the Republicans
who challenged the conclusion about Russia’s support for the resident.
Mr. Stewart insisted that Mr. Trump has aggressively confronted Moscow,
providing anti-tank weapons to Ukraine for its war against
Russian-backed separatists and strengthening the NATO alliance with new
resources, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
Mr.
Stewart declined to discuss the briefing but said that Moscow had no
reason to support Mr. Trump. He pointed to the resident’s work to
confront Iran, a Russian ally, and encourage European energy
independence from Moscow. “I’d challenge anyone to give me a real-world
argument where Putin would rather have resident Trump and not Bernie
Sanders,” the nominal Democratic primary front-runner, Mr. Stewart said
in an interview.
Mr.
Trump believes that Russian efforts to get him elected in 2016 have
cast doubts about the legitimacy of his campaign victory. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Under
Mr. Putin, Russian intelligence has long sought broadly to sow chaos
among adversaries around the world. The United States and key allies on
Thursday accused Russian military intelligence, the group responsible
for much of the 2016 election interference in the United States, of a cyber-attack on neighboring Georgia that took out websites and television
broadcasts.
Though intelligence
officials have previously informed lawmakers that Russia’s interference
campaign was ongoing, last week’s briefing did contain what appeared to
be new information, including that Russia intends to interfere with the
ongoing Democratic primaries as well as the general election.
They
have made more creative use of Facebook and other social media. Rather
than impersonating Americans as they did in 2016, Russian operatives are
working to get Americans to repeat disinformation to get around social
media companies’ rules that prohibit “inauthentic speech.”
And
they are working from servers located in the United States, rather than
abroad, knowing that American intelligence agencies are prohibited from
operating inside the country. (The F.B.I. and the Department of
Homeland Security can, with aid from the intelligence agencies.)
Russian
hackers have also infiltrated Iran’s cyber-warfare unit, perhaps with
the intent of launching attacks that would look like they were coming
from Tehran, the National Security Agency has warned.
Some
officials believe that foreign powers, possibly including Russia, could
use ransomware attacks, like those that have debilitated some local
governments, to damage or interfere with voting systems or registration
databases.
Still, much of the Russian
aim is similar to its 2016 interference, officials said: Search for
issues that stir controversy in the United States and use various
methods to stoke division.
One of
Moscow’s main goals is undermining confidence in American election
systems, intelligence officials have told lawmakers, seeking to sow
doubts over close elections and recounts. Confronting those Russian
efforts is difficult, officials have said, because they want to maintain
American confidence in voting systems.
Both
Republicans and Democrats asked the intelligence agencies to hand over
the underlying material that prompted their conclusion that Russia again
is favoring Mr. Trump’s election.
How
soon the House committee might get that information is not clear. Since
the impeachment inquiry, tensions have risen between the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence and the committee. As officials
navigate the disputes, the intelligence agencies have slowed the amount
of material they provide to the House, officials said. The agencies are
required by law to regularly brief Congress on threats.
While
Republicans have long been critical of the Obama administration for not
doing enough to track and deter Russian interference in 2016, current
and former intelligence officials said the party is at risk of making a
similar mistake now. Mr. Trump has been reluctant to even hear about
election interference, and Republicans dislike discussing it publicly.
The
aftermath of last week’s briefing prompted some intelligence officials
to voice concerns that the White House will dismantle a key election
security effort by Dan Coats, the former director of national
intelligence: the establishment of an election interference czar. Ms. Pierson has held the post since last summer.
And
some current and former intelligence officials expressed fears that Mr.
Grenell may have been put in place explicitly to slow the pace of
information on election interference to Congress. The revelations about
Mr. Trump’s confrontation with Mr. Maguire raised new concerns about Mr.
Grenell’s appointment, said the Democratic House committee official,
who added that the upcoming election could be more vulnerable to foreign
interference.
Mr. Trump, former
officials have said, is typically uninterested in election interference
briefings, and Mr. Grenell might see it as unwise to emphasize such
intelligence with the resident.
“The
biggest concern I would have is if the intelligence community was not
forthcoming and not providing the analysis in the run-up to the next
election,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former intelligence official
now with the Center for New American Security. “It is really concerning
that this is happening in the run-up to an election.”
Mr.
Grenell’s unbridled loyalty is clearly important to Mr. Trump but may
not be ideally suited for an intelligence chief making difficult
decisions about what to brief to the resident and Congress, Ms.
Kendall-Taylor said.
“Trump is trying
to whitewash or rewrite the narrative about Russia’s involvement in the
election,” she said. “Grenell’s appointment suggests he is really
serious about that.”
The
acting deputy to Mr. Maguire, Andrew P. Hallman, will step down on
Friday, officials said, paving the way for Mr. Grenell to put in place
his own management team. Mr. Hallman was the intelligence office’s
principal executive, but since the resignation in August of the previous
deputy, Sue Gordon, he has been performing the duties of that post.
Mr. Maguire is planning to leave government, according to an American official.
Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger contributed reporting.
Adam Goldman reports on the F.B.I. from Washington and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. @adamgoldmanNYT
Julian
E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering
the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote
about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes•Facebook
Maggie
Haberman is a White House correspondent. She joined The Times in 2015
as a campaign correspondent and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer
Prize in 2018 for reporting on resident Trump’s advisers and their
connections to Russia. @maggieNYT
Nicholas
Fandos is a national reporter based in the Washington bureau. He has
covered Congress since 2017 and is part of a team of reporters who have
chronicled investigations by the Justice Department and Congress into residentt Trump and his administration. @npfandos
Oh, fuck Lisa Murkowski. Yeah, yeah, we can thank her for doing the
right thing that one time with the Affordable Care Act and still say,
"Fuck Lisa Murkowski." The Alaska senator's statement on why she won't
vote to convict resident Donald Trump of the crimes that she admits he
committed is just the fucking worst because she thinks she's making some
grand statement about the state of partisan divisions in the Congress
and the country. Really, it's just ass-covering and bullshit
justification.
She said that
"The House rushed through what should be one of the most serious,
consequential undertakings of the legislative branch simply to meet an
artificial, self-imposed deadline." That "artificial, self-imposed
deadline" is the fucking 2020 election. The rush was to make sure that
Trump couldn't game it, corrupt it, or, you know, invite foreign
countries to get involved by digging up dirt on his rivals and using
U.S. foreign policy to get his way. If you know an arsonist is about to
set a fire, you stop the fucking arsonist before shit is burned to the
ground.
Continuing her speech to the Senate, after a bunch of both-sides
garbage, she offered, "The response to the resident’s behavior is not
to disenfranchise nearly 63 million Americans and remove him from the
ballot." Except no one is talking about the disenfranchisement of voters
(well, yeah, Republicans are, but not in this case). It's one of those
idiot arguments that get the rubes to think you're standing up for them
when you're really just not making any goddamn sense. They have the
right to vote. They just couldn't vote for one particular candidate.
Murkowski is also implying that Republicans have no one else to run for
president.
Even worse is Maine's own anthropomorphic bowl of Jello, Sen. Susan Collins. Her reasoning
for not voting to remove Trump from office is as delusional as someone
investing in a Trump University education: "I believe the resident has
learned from this case...The resident has been impeached. That's a
pretty big lesson...I believe he will be much more cautious in the
future." I'm cynical enough to think that Collins knows this is
unrepentant bullshit, but if she really believes this, then, seriously,
someone should introduce her to Donald Trump because that asshole has
never felt chastened and the only "lesson" he's learned is "Say you're
right loud enough and often enough and everyone will agree just to make
you shut the fuck up about it."
Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, one of those fake moderates you
occasionally hear about but only see as unreal Bigfoot-like blurs
running past the Capitol, tried to sound rational in his declaration of
Trumpian exoneration. Look at this bastard
try to thread a rusty needle: "It was inappropriate for the resident
to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to
withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected
officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it
undermines the principle of equal justice under the law. But the
Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president
from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that
are inappropriate."
Actually, the Constitution gives the Senate the power to remove a
president if it agrees with the House and convicts that president, even
for, you know, "misdemeanors." But look at that shit. Alexander says
that Trump was undermining "the principle of equal justice under the
law." That's pretty fucking significant. And he added, just to sound
like he's a thoughtful, dignified statesman instead of the elderly
errand boy for a bloated, mad, ignorant dictator-in-waiting, "The
framers believed that there should never, ever be a partisan
impeachment." There were no goddamn political parties when the
Constitution was written. Fucking hell.
Alexander bemoans the "partisan" nature of the House vote for the
articles of impeachment, yet, weirdly, doesn't seem to have any problem
with witnesses being blocked from testifying by a vote of just
Republicans. Apparently, "partisan" only means "Democrats."
We are moving into a degradation of this country's checks and balances
the likes of which we haven't seen. Sometimes I think it's more
important for Democrats to take back the Senate than it is to win the
presidency. That way, Democrats can assert the power of the Legislative
Branch in full and restore some kind of fuckin' balance.
Jesse Dollemore discusses Wednesday's impending Senate vote on the impeachment question of removal of Donald Trump from office. Reading from multiple Republican statements wherein they admit to Donald Trump's guilt but choose cowardice over principle.
Jesse Dollemore discusses the reprehensible and shameful conduct of Donald Trump and Republicans in the Senate who are bowing and scraping in the face of threats. Included are clips of Donald Trump, Senator James Lankford, Adam Schiff, and reporting from CBS News.
In what shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, Republicans in the Senate unanimously voted to block both evidence and witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
This vote came after weeks of media speculation about Republican Senators being “on the fence” and some even openly saying that they wanted witnesses.
In the end, these Republicans showed us what they care the most about, and it isn’t the rule of law.
Jesse Dollemore discusses a recent report from Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics in Washington which uncovered the TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
which Donald Trump is personally raking in from political groups who are
staying at Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C., who in turn
get White House access to him and his Cabinet!
