Showing posts with label The Truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Truth. Show all posts

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Donald Trump Lied About Avoiding Flood Victims In Flooded Areas

In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse Dollemore addresses the reporting from journalists with Donald Trump which refutes his claims of witnessing the 'horror' and 'devastation' caused by Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Trump's Hurricane Speech Turns Into Campaign Rally

Recently Donald Trump visited Texas and the survivors of Hurricane Harvey and couldn't resist talking about his crowd sizes.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/even-in-visiting-hurricane-ravaged-texas-trump-keeps-the-focus-on-himself/2017/08/29/3037a4a6-8cc3-11e7-84c0-02cc069f2c37_story.html

Mike Pence is trying to make people forget his heartless response to Hurricane Katrina





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, 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.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Ex-Producer Reveals The Truth About Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson is actually a terrible person.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/put-that-on-the-air-and-it-will-cost-this-ministry-millions-producer-reveals-pat-robertson-more-concerned-with-money-than-jesus/

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.

The Desperate Neediness Of Donald Trump, Even In The Midst Of A Hurricane

Posted by Rude One

(Yeah, yeah, I'll be getting to Arpaio and Russia and whatever other clusterfucks of doom happen, but first, let's deal with the big damn Harvey in the room.)

We know that Donald Trump is a man whose ego must be constantly stroked, like the head of a grumpy baby who won't go to sleep. Any chance any of his administration has to praise him, praise him they must or they will face the jowly gaze of disapproval and probably some kind of stupid-ass threat at a public gathering. They gotta blow this fuckin' guy so often that they get assigned government-issue knee pads.

So it was that during Hurricane (now Tropical Storm) Harvey, which is wrecking the fuck out of the lives of millions of Americans, Trump not only stayed for the weekend at Camp David, but he teleconferenced into situation room meetings. That gave us photos of an old man in an ill-fitting suit and stupid, over-sized "USA" hat, alone at a table, talking over speakers to those who were genuinely engaged beyond watching footage on TV and tweeting, "Wow, that's a whole bunch of rain!" or whatever the fuck Trump said.

Today. Trump's most voracious chowder-guzzler, Vice President Mike Pence, made the rounds of talk radio to show just how enthusiastically he gargles on Trump's nutsack. Seriously, the amount that Pence praised Trump for his actions during the hurricane makes it sound like the president was personally out in his yacht, rescuing people. Instead, what really is occurring is that Barack Obama's FEMA was, so far, doing a pretty good job for Texas.

But here's Pence, on a Houston news station, just licking his lips in anticipation of Trump dick. "Trump made his decision on Friday night, before landfall, to issue an emergency declaration with regard to Texas" and later, Louisiana, Pence said. "Trump and our entire administration have been working closely with Governor Abbott...Trump assembled the Cabinet twice... I can tell you that from Friday night forward, Trump has been continuously engaged in this."

Then, on another station, Pence fellated on about "the swift response by Trump" and "Trump’s direction" in the crisis. "I couldn’t be more proud of Trump’s leadership," Pence asserted, obviously.

We get it. You wanna make sure the spin is that Trump's not fucking it up like Bush during Katrina. But a real leader would tell his people to knock that praise shit off, that it's not necessary, and that, frankly, the effort to save southeast Texas and, likely, parts of Louisiana is just beginning, and there's still plenty of time to fuck it up. The nauseating amount of appreciation that his staff and cabinet heap on Trump is tough to take in non-catastrophic times. Now, it just comes across as needy and selfish on the part of Trump, putting himself at the center of the story when, at best, he's a tangential element, someone who would serve everyone best by staying the fuck out of everyone's way while grown-ups are working here.

Put him in a corner. Give him the remote. Put a big boy hat on him. And ignore him.



 

Sunday, August 27, 2017

There's a 'mountain of evidence' that Trump is unstable

  • Congresswoman calls for Trump's removal from office through the 25th Amendment
  • Democrat Jackie Speier is "concerned about him having his finger on the button that could send nuclear warheads around the world."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/23/politics/speier-trump-unstable-cnntv/index.html

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/

‘Remedy is impeachment’: Harvard Law prof blasts Trump pardoning Joe Arpaio

By Bob Brigham

Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense with his late Friday pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, according to a prominent Harvard Law Professor.

“This is the crime that Trump is suggesting he might pardon: willful defiance of a federal judge’s lawful order to enforce the Constitution,” explained Prof. Noah Feldman. “Such a pardon would reflect outright contempt for the judiciary, which convicted Arpaio for his resistance to its authority.

Trump has questioned judges’ motives and decisions, but this would be a further, more radical step in his attack on the independent constitutional authority of Article III judges.”

“An Arpaio pardon would express presidential contempt for the Constitution,” Prof. Feldman continued. “From this analysis it follows directly that pardoning Arpaio would be a wrongful act under the Constitution.”

Professor Feldman worried of a “a crisis in enforcement of the rule of law” if Republican congressional leaders refused to hold Trump to account.

“The Constitution isn’t perfect. It offers only one remedy for a president who abuses the pardon power to break the system itself. That remedy is impeachment,” Prof. Feldman concluded. “James Madison noted at the Virginia ratifying convention that abuse of the pardon power could be grounds for impeachment. He was correct then — and it’s still true now.”

Friday, August 25, 2017

A Millennial Takes On Trump, His Voters, And Whatever The Hell That Arizona Thing Was

Posted by R. Sharp

Yeah, I could rant about how the media and its loyal zombie followers (I’m looking at you, Fox) are dividing us up. I could go on and on about those deplorable Nazi-wannabes we saw in Charlottesville. But I feel I would just be adding fuel to the gigantic flaming shit storm that is America in 2017. No, I’m focusing on the ugly head of the Republican monster that’s been butt fucking us for the past 26 months (since it announced it was running). The creature is most recently responsible for giving those same hateful ideologies national attention.

On Tuesday night, the creature slithered on stage at the Phoenix Convention Center. It puffed its saggy orange chest out and smiled, knowing that the hordes of brainless morons were packed inside to see it perform. It lifted one of its tiny claws off the podium, opened its mouth, and began to spew bile all over the crowd. The loyal followers soaked up the bile and cheered the creature on. “I want more!” cried an old man with a red hat. “Soak me in your juices!” yelled the obese woman next to him. The creature gave them what they wanted. For 77 minutes, it threw up uncontrollably while the crowd licked the puke off the floor.

This horrific display of ignorance is what we’ve come to accept from the creature that calls itself resident and rhymes with "dump." This is just another distraction that this administration is creating. They’re putting up roadblock after roadblock trying to deter us from distinguishing reality from fiction. Even the kind and reasonable among us can get sidetracked. Whether it’s breaking news, an angry tirade, or a tweet, Americans are cruelly inundated with the media’s coverage of this administration. We find ourselves being enraged at one thing, and then the next day comes and something else happens. We haven’t even gotten over what happened in the first place, because we're pissed about something new. These distractions are building up, creating a seemingly impenetrable layer of bullshit.

One core issue here is the creature’s ties to Russia. Robert Mueller’s special counsel is reportedly making progress, like when they raided former campaign manager and walking cadaver Paul Manafort’s home. Unfortunately, all the distractions created by the orange creature drown out any minimal good news. The attacks on the media the creature keeps shouting are focused on the wrong thing. The mainstream media concentrates on the bullshit show at the White House to the exclusion of so much else going on because they know it will bring up ratings. You wanna say how the media is bad? That's how it's bad right now.

Which gets us back to Mueller. Even though it’s fake news, The New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz made me laugh with his piece titled, “Millions Willing to Work for Mueller for Free If That Would Speed Things Up.” But it gives me an idea for an offer:

Mr. Mueller, I’ve been looking for a fall internship and I have a psychotic obsession with ending this grotesque creature’s administration. My legal skills are nonexistent, but I can write one hell of an email. I’ll even clean up your office. Please, let me send you my resume. I’ll do anything to help hurry things up and end this clusterfuck of a residency

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.

Roland Martin To Paula White: Be A Prophetic Voice And Don't Just Be A Profitable Voice

Roland Martin rips Pastor Paula White for her partisan comments about Donald Trump: Be a prophetic voice and don't just be a profitable voice.

Trump is acting like he is running out of time



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."

Thursday, August 24, 2017

I was detained for protesting Trump. Here’s what the Secret Service asked me.






Melissa Byrne is a political strategist living in Philadelphia.

Trump at his Trump Tower news conference last week. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

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.
Secret Service: “Do you have any mental health disorders?”
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.

Fleeing Trump, Charities Cancel Events At Mar-A-Lago

Three different charities have cancelled scheduled events at Mar-A-Lago after Trump’s refusal to denounce the attacks that took place over the weekend and by aligning himself with the alt right. This is a lot of money lost for Trump, but importantly, shows that these charities understand that some money just isn’t worth it, and they’ll find new venues to host their events. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Link – http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/347068-third-charity-cancels-mar-a-lago-event

Friday, August 18, 2017

Trump Defends Confederacy More Than Southern Republican

Trump is defending Confederate monuments more than Lindsey Graham. Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.



“Washington (CNN)The feud between President Donald Trump and Sen. Lindsey Graham over the President's response to racially motivated protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, continued Thursday, with the South Carolina senator accusing Trump of stoking tensions, a claim Trump called "a disgusting lie."

"Your tweet honoring Miss Heyer was very nice and appropriate. Well done," the South Carolina lawmaker said Thursday morning, referring to Heather Heyer, the 32 year old woman who was killed in a car attack on Saturday. The man charged in her killing has been described as a Nazi sympathizer.

"However, because of the manner in which you have handled the Charlottesville tragedy, you are now receiving praise from some of the most racist and hate-filled individuals and groups in our country. For the sake of our nation -- as our President -- please fix this."

"History is watching us all," added Graham, who has been one of the few Republican lawmakers to directly denounce Trump's equivocation earlier this week between white supremacists and those who were protesting them in Charlottesville. The President blamed "both sides" for inciting violence and said there were "very fine people" protesting in the Virginia city amid the torch-bearing protesters.”

Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/16/politics/lindsey-graham-donald-trump-charlottesville/index.html

Fox News Admits They Can’t Find Republicans Willing To Defend Trump On The Air Anymore

After a string of disastrous press conferences – and an overall tanking of his presidency – Fox News host Shepard Smith admitted Wednesday that his team of producers were unable to find a single Republican willing to come on the air and defend Donald Trump’s disaster of a week.

When Fox News can’t find a pro-Trump Republican, you know things are getting bad in Trumpland.

Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



Link – http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/346867-foxs-shepard-smith-we-couldnt-find-a-republican-willing-to-come

Thursday, August 17, 2017