BUSTED: Republican Trey Gowdy Caught Using Private Email Server

By Colin Taylor

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Republicans across the country have been obsessing over former Secretary of State and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time at the State Department.

But what Republicans really should be asking is:

What about Gowdy’s private email server?

On July 5, Clinton was cleared by a team of FBI investigators led by FBI Director James Comey. Dismayed by the fact that their email-centric political witch hunt failed to indict Clinton just weeks after the Benghazi “scandal” also cleared her, they decided to investigate the investigators and take on Comey. Gowdy led a portion of Comey’s interrogation.

Which makes it all the more hypocritical to learn that Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has been exposed for having his own personal email server at treygowdy.com. AlterNet remarks that “while it’s not unusual to maintain such a thing particularly for campaign work, it’s not clear that Gowdy utilizes this email solely for political campaign work and not congressional tasks.”

Requests for comment by both Alternet and Correct The Record‘s David Brock were both ignored by the Gowdy camp, which is highly indicative that he does use his personal email for Congressional work- if he had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t he just say so? Especially with the integrity of his failed committee under such harsh scrutiny by the rest of the nation, demanding answers for the colossal misuse of public funds and time. Gowdy had better be ready to put his own actions under the microscope.

Here is the full text of David Brock’s inquiry:

Dear Chairman Gowdy:

I noted with interest your public demand that Secretary Clinton turn over her personal email server, presumably so that the committee can access some 30,000 Clinton emails deemed to be strictly private and beyond the reach of the government.

This Orwellian demand has no basis in law or precedent. Every government employee decides for themselves what email is work-related and what is strictly private. There is no reason to hold Secretary Clinton to a different standard— except partisan politics.

But since you insist that Clinton’s private email be accessed, I’m writing today to ask you and your staff to abide by the same standard you seek to hold the Secretary to by releasing your own work-related and private email and that of your staff to the public.

While I realize that Congress regularly exempts itself from laws that apply to the executive branch, I believe this action is necessary to ensure public confidence in the fairness and  impartiality of your investigation.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

David Brock
Correct The Record

The next time someone says ‘all lives matter,’ show them these 5 paragraphs

By groundloop 

I found this link from a posting on Facebook, it's very much worth reading. (I wish I could write as eloquently as this).

http://fusion.net/story/170591/the-next-time-someone-says-all-lives-matter-show-them-these-5-paragraphs/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialshare&utm_content=theme_top_desktop

This week, high-profile police killings of two black men—Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile, who was killed in Falcon Heights, Minnesota—have renewed heated debates about police violence, and brought the Black Lives Matter movement back into the spotlight.

Every time this happens, cries of “Black Lives Matter” tend to be met with the response “All Lives Matter.” Even presidential candidates have made this mistake—last year, Hillary Clinton said “All Lives Matter,” though she has since corrected herself. And lots of white people have expressed confusion about why it’s controversial to broaden the #BlackLivesMatter movement to include people of all races.

The real issue is that, while strictly true, “All Lives Matter” is a tone-deaf slogan that distracts from the real problems black people in America face.

The best explanation we’ve seen so far comes from Reddit, of all places. Last year, in an “Explain Like I’m 5” thread, user GeekAesthete explained, clearly and succinctly, why changing #BlackLivesMatter to #AllLivesMatter is an act of erasure that makes lots of people cringe.

GeekAesthete explains:

Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.” Now, that’s a wonderful sentiment — indeed, everyone should, and that was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that you still haven’t gotten any!

The problem is that the statement “I should get my fair share” had an implicit “too” at the end: “I should get my fair share, too, just like everyone else.” But your dad’s response treated your statement as though you meant “only I should get my fair share”, which clearly was not your intention. As a result, his statement that “everyone should get their fair share,” while true, only served to ignore the problem you were trying to point out.

That’s the situation of the “black lives matter” movement. Culture, laws, the arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all lives should matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our society.

The problem is that, in practice, the world doesn’t work that way. You see the film Nightcrawler? You know the part where Renee Russo tells Jake Gyllenhal that she doesn’t want footage of a black or latino person dying, she wants news stories about affluent white people being killed? That’s not made up out of whole cloth — there is a news bias toward stories that the majority of the audience (who are white) can identify with. So when a young black man gets killed (prior to the recent police shootings), it’s generally not considered “news”, while a middle-aged white woman being killed is treated as news. And to a large degree, that is accurate — young black men are killed in significantly disproportionate numbers, which is why we don’t treat it as anything new. But the result is that, societally, we don’t pay as much attention to certain people’s deaths as we do to others. So, currently, we don’t treat all lives as though they matter equally.

Just like asking dad for your fair share, the phrase “black lives matter” also has an implicit “too” at the end: it’s saying that black lives should also matter. But responding to this by saying “all lives matter” is willfully going back to ignoring the problem. It’s a way of dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means “only black lives matter,” when that is obviously not the case. And so saying “all lives matter” as a direct response to “black lives matter” is essentially saying that we should just go back to ignoring the problem.

Yep, there you go. Bookmark it, print it out, give it to your friends.

Nate Silver: 79 percent chance Clinton wins

 By Nolan D. McCaskill

Hillary Clinton has a nearly 80 percent chance of winning the White House in November, FiveThirtyEight polling guru Nate Silver predicted Wednesday.

FiveThirtyEight projected Clinton has a 79 percent chance of winning the general election against Donald Trump, who has just a 20 percent chance of succeeding President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

“Here’s how to think about it: We’re kind of at halftime of the election right now, and she’s taking a seven-point, maybe a 10-point lead into halftime,” Silver told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America.” “There’s a lot of football left to be played, but she’s ahead in almost every poll, every swing state, every national poll.”

Indeed, a Ballotpedia survey of seven swing states released Wednesday shows the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee sweeping Trump in Iowa, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia by margins ranging from 4 to 17 percentage points.

Silver, who correctly forecast 49 out of 50 states in 2008 and every state in 2012, noted that both camps “have a lot of room to grow,” but no candidate has blown a lead as large as Clinton’s advantage over Trump in nearly 30 years, when former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis lost to George H.W. Bush despite maintaining a large lead coming out of the spring and summer.

“It’s been a crazy year, politically,” Silver said, adding that more states, particularly red states, are in play in 2016 than in previous elections. “For example, Arizona looks like a toss-up. Maybe Georgia. Maybe Missouri, North Carolina again.”

“Likewise,” Silver continued, “if Trump gains ground on Clinton then maybe a state like Maine — used to be a swing state, not so recently” — could be in play, too.

Silver also defended his August forecast that gave the billionaire businessman a 2 percent chance to win the GOP nomination.

“That wasn’t based on looking at polls. Trump was always ahead in the polls, and one big lesson of his campaign is don’t try and out-think the polls and try and out-think the American public,” Silver said. “And Trump has never really been ahead of Clinton in the general election campaign. He did a great job of appealing to the 40 percent of the GOP he had to win the election, the primary — a lot different than winning 51 percent of 100 percent.”

Trump has himself to blame for GOP strife

Lawrence O’Donnell has a thorough explanation of the woes plaguing Donald Trump’s campaign as Trump complains he’s running against two parties while a new scandal develops with the ‘Trump Institute.’ Stuart Stevens and Eugene Robinson join the discussion.

The system really is rigged: Why “winner-take-all” voting is killing our democracy

The Electoral College makes it virtually impossible for a third party to challenge the system

By Sophia A. McClennen
 

 

Gary Johnson, Jill Stein   (Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Jonathan Ernst)

 

Ever since Hillary Clinton became the “presumptive nominee” for the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders supporters have been faced with a seemingly impossible dilemma: Vote for someone you hate (Clinton) or vote for someone despicable (Trump). You either cast your vote toward someone you see as a shill for corporate interests or you vote for a bigoted monster. There is a real sense that there simply is no other choice.

If you lean left and you haven’t moved from feeling the Bern to being with “her,” then you have likely been suffering from what I call “vote shaming.” Vote shaming takes place when a Clinton supporter tells you that it will be your fault if Trump wins. Vote shaming, like fat shaming and its ilk, depends on assuming that there is only one way to be—get on board or get bullied. Even Sanders himself seems to have succumbed to vote shaming, having announced he will vote for Clinton in order to help defeat Trump.

But vote shaming seems to have caused unanticipated blowback. As mind boggling as it may be to consider, many Sanders supporters are actually suggesting they will  choose Trump over Clinton. A June 14 Bloomberg Politics national poll of likely voters in November’s election found that just over half of those who favored Sanders — 55 percent — plan to vote for Clinton.

According to Bloomberg, 22 percent of Sanders supporters say they’ll vote for Trump. They quote Laura Armes, a 43-year-old homemaker from Beeville, Texas, who participated in the poll and plans to vote Trump: “I’m a registered Democrat, but I cannot bring myself to vote for another establishment politician like Hillary. I don’t agree with a lot of what Trump says. But he won’t owe anybody. What you see is what you get.”

Stop and ponder how crazy that is for a moment. Frustration with establishment politics is so high that folks will vote for a misogynistic, racist, egomaniacal buffoon over a party insider. Anger over a sense that the primary season was rigged, that Clinton lacks integrity, and that the voting process was unjust has driven supporters of a progressive candidate toward one who has been repeatedly described as fascist. For some Sanders supporters, #NeverHillary can only mean Trump.

That false logic is a clear sign of how our democracy is rigged and our system is flawed: Voters frustrated with the system are planning to cast their votes within the same system.

Armes, like many other Sanders supporters, never considered a third option. It never occurred to her to vote for Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, or Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Armes was thinking in the binary two-party logic that forces her to choose between either a Democrat or a Republican.

There is only one way to win an election for president in our country today and that is by being the nominee of one of the two principal parties. The reason for this is that we have “winner-take-all” system. In almost every state, the candidate with the majority of votes wins all of the Electoral College votes. So voting for a third party can really skew the outcome. Even worse, it usually skews it away from your likely second-choice candidate toward the person you fear winning the most.

This is why many Sanders supporters who now say they are voting Clinton have switched over. In general, they won’t be voting for Clinton because they like her; they will be voting for Clinton because they are terrified of Trump. And the same dislike is taking place on the other side of the political spectrum. Voters are supporting Trump because they deeply dislike Clinton.

In fact, as Harry Enten reports for Five Thirty Eight, “Clinton and Trump are both more strongly disliked than any nominee at this point in the past 10 presidential cycles.” So this really is the election between two evils. The only question, thus far, has been which of the two is the worst one.

Dissatisfaction with voting choices, though, may have opened a window for serious debate about an alternative voting system. In an interview with Green Party candidate Jill Stein for Redacted Tonight VIP, Lee Camp asked Stein how voters could justify “wasting” a vote on her. Stein said the answer was simple: change the system from winner take all to ranked choice voting.

As FairVote.org explains, ranked choice voting makes democracy more fair and functional. In ranked choice voting, alternatively known as instant-runoff voting, voters rank their votes. If your first choice does not win, then your vote goes to your second choice, and so on. So, under ranked voting, you could vote Stein first, then Clinton. That would guarantee that a vote for Stein could not actually help Trump. It would also guarantee that we could get a fair and accurate assessment of how many people really picked Clinton or Trump as their first choice. If it seems complicated, check out a sample ballot here.

Ranked choice voting is used in local elections throughout the country. It is also used in national elections in Ireland and New Zealand. It has a history of making elections more open and fair. Even more importantly, it encourages candidates to cultivate a broad, moderate base of support rather than intense, zealous supporters.

Proponents of the system also point out that if we had used it in the 2000 elections, Al Gore would have beaten George H. W. Bush in Florida, since most of the voters who chose Ralph Nader first would have chosen Gore second.

The mere idea that voting for Nader wrecked the election and skewed votes leading to a Bush Jr. presidency should be sign enough that we are due for change. Voters who wanted to support a splinter candidate were punished for exercising their rights. The problem is not just the anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College; it is the way the all-or-nothing system forces a two-party duopoly that can’t be challenged without grave consequences.

In the past 200 years, there have been 700 proposals introduced to Congress to change or eliminate the Electoral College. As the National Archives reports, “There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject.” Scholars also agree that the Electoral College makes it virtually impossible for a third party to challenge the system.

The reasons for considering an alternative voting system go beyond a desire to give third parties a chance for greater visibility and more votes. There is much more at stake. First of all, the winner-take-all system increases fear-based voting. Voters are more inclined to vote against a candidate than to vote for someone.

And second, our current system increases partisanship since candidates campaign more on their differences from other candidates than on their actual policies. Research by Pew shows a marked increase in political polarization. This is especially true in Congress, where “partisanship or non-cooperation … has been increasing exponentially for over 60 years with no sign of abating or reversing.”

In contrast, ranked choice voting has been proven to reduce political polarization because candidates are not simply fighting to be #1, they are also hoping to be considered as backup choices, which often means reaching across party lines. When San Francisco implemented it in 2004, observers noticed a direct decrease in hostility among rival candidates.

But the biggest reason to consider an alternative system is the health of our democracy. FairVote.org reports that according to domestic and international experts, “US elections are rated as the worst among all Western democracies.”

From the influence of big money in races to dysfunctional polling places to voters purged from rosters, this election cycle has been plagued by endless allegations of election flaws. As Matthew Cooke points out, when AP called the primary early for Clinton, that was just the frosting on a series of election disasters.

All of this points to an election cycle that offers new opportunities for a third party candidate. Johnson is polling at 10 percent nationally and appears to have about 18 percent of Sanders supporters. Stein, when she is included in polls, seems to be pulling about 5 percent of the vote. It is all very exciting for both Johnson and Stein, who have a chance to increase the visibility of their platforms, but without ranked choice voting those too afraid of Trump or Clinton will still likely vote out of fear.

So, as you ponder the two unappealing choices likely to head the November ballot, consider bucking the closed two-party system and voting a third way, but more importantly consider fighting to change the rigged system that got us into this mess.

Sophia A. McClennen is Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University. She writes on the intersections between culture, politics, and society. Her latest book, co-authored with Remy M. Maisel, is, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics. 

 

More Sophia A. McClennen.

Rep. Chaka Fattah Guilty On All Counts In Corruption Trial

A jury has convicted a veteran U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah in a racketeering case that largely centered on various efforts to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan.

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah was found guilty of all counts against him, including racketeering, fraud and money laundering. His lawyers had argued that the schemes were engineered without Fattah's knowledge by two political consultants who pleaded guilty in the case.

As he emerged from the courthouse after the guilty verdict, Fattah made a brief statement about conferring with his lawyers before continuing to walk away without answering further questions from reporters.

The 59 year old Democrat has represented West Philadelphia as well as parts of Center City, South Philly, Montgomery County and the Main Line in Congress since 1995 and served on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. But he lost the April primary and his bid for his 12th term. His current term ends in December.

Fattah's jovial and calm demeanor didn't change much as the verdict was read, said NBC10's Deanna Durante who was in the courtroom.

Fattah will remain out on bail ahead of his October sentencing.

Jurors began deliberations late Wednesday afternoon, nearly month after the trial began May 16. A juror was dismissed in the racketeering case without explanation Friday. An alternate replaced the missing member, and U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III ordered jurors to begin deliberations again.

Four co-defendants also faced numerous charges.

- Fattah's former chief of staff, Bonnie Bowser, was found guilty on some of her 21 counts.

- Fattah's friend and wealthy supporter, Herbert Vederman, was found guilty on all 8 counts.

- Political consultant Robert Brand was found guilty on all two counts.

- Former Fattah aide Karen Nicholas was found guilty on some of her seven counts.

The four-week trial concluded quicker than most observers expected and did not involve any bombshell testimony or evidence entered by prosecutors and defense attorneys.

Instead, the trial revolved around the legality of the defendants actions related to a $1 million loan made during Fattah's failed 2007 mayoral campaign.

Prior to the trial, Fattah's chief strategist for that mayoral bid, Richard Naylor, pleaded guilty to misuse of campaign funds. He testified early on in the trial as a prosecution witness.

“This charge cost him his reelection. He’d been an 11-term Congressman and did a lot of things for his constituents when he was in office,” said Howard Bruce Klein, a former federal prosecutor. “So I would say it’s a sad ending for a public servant who made scholarships available for thousands of students over the years, but now has come to a very unhappy ending, being guilty of corruption. So it’s a day for the Congressman, it’s a sad day for his constituents and it’s a sad day for Philadelphia.”

Members of the jurors didn't immediately comment as they left the courtroom Tuesday afternoon.

Fattah's son Chaka "Chip" Fattah Jr. was also found guilty of federal fraud charges.

Read more: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/politics/Chaka-Fattah-Congressman-Corruption-Verdict-383194151.html#ixzz4CEbX5xcz

 
Follow us: @nbcphiladelphia on Twitter | NBCPhiladelphia on Facebook

Could this woman really stop Trump?

Teacher and Republican convention delegate Kendal Unruh has a plan to deprive Donald Trump of the nomination on the convention floor.

Alex Jones Thinks Any Mass Shooting That Has Or Ever Will Happen Is A False Flag

In this Majority Report clip, we are lucky enough to hear the wise words of Alex Jones concerning the Orlando massacre. Jones (of course) thinks that the globalists/U.S. Government/anti-gun lobby (??)/probably the Illuminati/Obama are to blame for the mass shooting at Orlando nightclub Pulse because of immigration laws.

The shooter, Omar Mateen, was an American-born citizen, reportedly not that religious, likely mentally ill, and possibly gay himself.

These are all incredibly sound reasons to conclude that Alex Jones is wrong, as always, but here you go.  He ruins a lovely nature scene while he’s at it.

Gun Talk

Top 10 E3 2016 Game Trailers

Congresswoman Who Used To Receive Welfare Wants To Drug Test Rich People Who Get Tax Breaks

By Bryce Covert

CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) has had enough of the growing movement to drug test poor people who need government assistance. So on Tuesday, she’s introducing a bill that she says will make things fairer.

Her “Top 1% Accountability Act” would require anyone claiming itemized tax deductions of over $150,000 in a given year to submit a clean drug test. If a filer doesn’t submit a clean test within three months of filing, he won’t be able to take advantage of tax deductions like the mortgage interest deduction or health insurance tax breaks. Instead he would have to make use of the standard deduction.

Her office has calculated that the people impacted will be those who make at least $500,000 a year.

“By drug testing those with itemized deductions over $150,000, this bill will level the playing field for drug testing people who are the recipients of social programs,” a memo on her bill notes.

Moore has a personal stake in the fight. “I am a former welfare recipient,” she explained. “I’ve used food stamps, I’ve received Aid for Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, Head Start for my kids, Title XX daycare [subsidies]. I’m truly grateful for the social safety net.”

Ten states require applicants to their cash welfare programs to undergo a drug test. States are currently barred from implementing drug testing for the food stamps program, but Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has sued the federal government to allow him to do so and has gotten some Congressional Republican support.

Moore has been frustrated to witness attempts to tie those who avail themselves of the safety net to drug use. “Republicans continue to criminalize poverty and to put forward the narrative, the false narrative in fact, that people who are poor and reliant upon the social safety net are drug users,” she said.

Republicans continue to criminalize poverty

 

In fact, evidence from test results among states that test welfare recipients indicates that they are no more likely to use drugs than the general population — in fact, they may be less likely.

That didn’t stop House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) from using a drug rehab center as the backdrop while he unveiled his poverty plan last week. “I think this is what tipped me over the edge,” Moore said, “rolling out his poverty initiative in front of a drug treatment program to sort of drive that false narrative forward.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks at a drug rehab facility in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, Tuesday, June 7, 2016, where he proposed an overhaul for the nation’s poverty programs. CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Moore also wants to use her bill to question why some recipients of government aid are treated differently than others. “On the one hand, poor people…are entitled to things like Medicaid and SNAP [food stamps],” she said. “People who take tax deductions and particularly those in the top 1 percent…are not entitled to anything.” But they still benefit from a large pot of government money.

The government loses about $900 billion in revenue to tax expenditures every year, which mostly flow to the wealthy.

When it comes to drug abuse, “There are no boundaries with regard to class or race,” she said. “If these poor people who are entitled to SNAP for survival are required to be drug tested, then certainly those people who claim $150,000 or more in tax deductions should be subjected to the same in order to receive this benefit from the government.”

Moore also thinks that while there is no evidence that drug testing welfare recipients saves states any money, drug tests for wealthy taxpayers could be different. “We would save a lot of money on this,” she said. “When you add up all of the tax expenditures, all the money we give really wealthy people, it really rivals the amount we spend on Defense, Social Security, Medicare.” The mortgage interest deduction, which overwhelmingly benefits people making more than $100,000, alone cost $70 billion in 2013, or 0.4 percent of GDP.

When you add up all the money we give really wealthy people, it really rivals the amount we spend on Defense, Social Security, Medicare.

 

Her bill will also help illuminate this very fact: that so much is spent on tax expenditures, not just on direct aid programs like welfare and food stamps. “We think it’s important to engage in some transparency and accountability around tax deductions,” she said.

Moore is not the only lawmaker in Congress who has raised questions about unequal treatment between the poor who make use of government programs and everyone else who needs them. In February, Rep. Rosa DeLauro asked why only recipients of food stamps were being considered for drug testing but not the farmers who also make use of programs run by the Agriculture Department.

But Moore is very serious about pushing her bill forward. “I’m motivated,” she said. “I’m going to work on it very seriously. I’m going to try to get cosponsors.”

She also wants to “engage the wealthy in this poverty debate,” she said. “I would love to see some hedge fund manager on Wall Street who might be sniffing a little cocaine here and there to stay awake realize that he can’t get his $150,000 worth of deductions unless he submits to a drug test.”

Ed Schultz News and Commentary: Thursday the 16th of June

Why is the Ed Schultz Show hotter than a polar bear in Pensacola? Easy. Because he is so different from every other talk show hosts. He’s a straight talking, no-nonsense voice of reason in unreasonable times.

On Thursday's Show, Ed gives commentary on the Republicans predicament with Donald Trump as their presumptive nominee and the fight that his heating up over gun control. We are joined by Jane Kleeb, Director of Bold Nebraska and candidate for Nebraska Democratic Party Chair, joins the show to talk about the impact of Bernie Sanders on the Democratic platform.

The Punk Who Would Be President

By GARRISON KEILLOR

It is the most famous ducktail in America today, the hairdo of wayward youth of a bygone era, and it's astonishing to imagine it under the spotlight in Cleveland, being cheered by Republican dignitaries.

The class hood, the bully and braggart, the guy revving his pink Chevy to make the pipes rumble, presiding over the student council. This is the C-minus guy who sat behind you in history and poked you with his pencil and smirked when you asked him to stop. That smirk is now on every front page in America. It is not what anybody — left, right or center — looks for in a president. There's no philosophy here, just an attitude.

He is a little old for a ducktail. By the age of 70, most ducks have moved on, but not Donald. He is apparently still fond of the sidewalls and the duck's ass in back and he is proud as can be of his great feat, the first punk candidate to get this close to the White House. He says that the country is run by a bunch of clowns and that he is going to make things great again and beat up on the outsiders who are coming into our neighborhood. His followers don't necessarily believe that — what they love about him is what kids loved about Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, the fact that he horrifies the powers that be and when you are pro-duck you are giving the finger to Congress, the press, clergy, lawyers, teachers, cake-eaters, big muckety-mucks, VIPs, all those people who think they're better than you — you have the power to scare the pants off them, and that's what this candidate does better than anybody else.

After the worst mass shooting in American history on Sunday, 50 persons dead in Orlando, the bodies still being carted from the building, the faces of horror-stricken cops and EMTs on TV, the gentleman issued a statement on Twitter thanking his followers for their congratulations, that the tragedy showed that he had been "right" in calling for America to get "tough."

Anyone else would have expressed sorrow. The gentleman expressed what was in his heart, which was personal pride.

We had a dozen or so ducktails in my high school class and they were all about looks. The hooded eyes, the sculpted swoop of the hair, the curled lip. They emulated Elvis but only the look, not the talent. Their sole ambition was to make an impression, to slouch gracefully and exhale in an artful manner. In the natural course of things, they struggled after graduation, some tried law enforcement for the prestige of it, others became barflies. If they were drafted, the Army got them shaped up in a month or two. Eventually, they all calmed down, got hitched up to a mortgage, worried about their blood pressure, lost the chippiness, let their hair down. But if your dad was rich and if he was born before you were, then the ducktail could inherit enough wealth to be practically impervious to public opinion. This has happened in New York City. A man who could never be elected city comptroller is running for president.

The dreamers in the Republican Party imagine that success will steady him and he will accept wise counsel and come into the gravitational field of reality but it isn't happening. The Orlando tweets show it: The man does not have a heart. How, in a few weeks, should Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell teach him basic humanity? The bigot and braggart they see today is the same man that New Yorkers have been observing for 40 years. A man obsessed with marble walls and gold-plated doorknobs, who has the sensibility of a giant sea tortoise.

His response to the Orlando tragedy is one more clue that this election is different from any other. If Mitt Romney or John McCain had been elected president, you might be disappointed but you wouldn't fear for the fate of the Republic. This time, the Republican Party is nominating a man who resides in the dark depths. He is a thug and he doesn't bother to hide it. The only greatness he knows about is himself.

So the country is put to a historic test. If the man is not defeated, then we are not the country we imagine we are. All of the trillions spent on education was a waste. The churches should close up shop. The nation that elects this man president is not a civilized society. The gentleman is not airing out his fingernail polish, he is not showing off his wedding ring; he is making an obscene gesture. Ignore it at your peril.

Garrison Keillor hosts "A Prairie Home Companion." This column was provided by the Washington Post News Service.

What Is Barbecue?

Sorry, There’s Only One Legit Kind of American Barbecue

By Chris Fuhrmeister , illustrations by Hawk Krall 

 

One purist breaks down everything you’re doing wrong

Welcome to IMHO, the corner of Eater where we hand a megaphone to people with something to say about the world of food.

American barbecue is having a moment. Thanks in part to pitmasters such as Aaron Franklin in Austin and marketing campaigns from big food brands, the word "barbecue" — no matter how it's spelled — is part of this country's vernacular perhaps like never before. But for traditionalists in the South, where American barbecue flourished, there is cause for concern. Barbecue has rules, and they're being broken on a daily basis.

We should go ahead and get this out of the way: I am incredibly close-minded on the subject. In all other walks of life, I like to consider myself a progressive. There's no right way to be a person, and really, we're all just trying to figure it out as we go. No one should have to constrict their human experience just because it doesn't fit into someone else's idea of what is good and proper.

But let me tell you, when it comes to American barbecue — I certainly won't attempt to set ground rules for other barbecue cultures across the globe — there are absolute rights and wrongs. Sure, there's some room for interpretation, but good-intentioned "barbecue" lovers across this country are blaspheming day in and day out.

Before declaring what barbecue isn't, it's best to define what it is: pork that's slow-cooked with smoke. And if you think that's an idiotic opinion from someone who happens to have a keyboard and internet connection at his disposal, consider this:

Good-intentioned "barbecue" lovers are blaspheming day in and day out.

"I mean, pig and burned wood charcoal, and that, to me, is it," says John Currence, the James Beard Award-winning chef based out of Oxford, Mississippi. "If you don't have both of those things, to my mind, you don't have what constitutes barbecue."

Currence was born in New Orleans, won the 2009 James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef: South, and owns a restaurant empire expanding across the region from its home base in a small Mississippi college town. Since 2013, his City Grocery restaurant group has operated Lamar Lounge in Oxford, becoming the only smokehouse in the state to specialize in whole-hog barbecue. If anyone can claim to be an authority on the subject, it's someone with Currence's resume.

So why pork? Why does the meat have to come from a pig for a plate of barbecue to exist? Why doesn't smoked chicken, the dish that's most associated with Alabama white sauce, count? "And why in the world aren't smoked brisket and beef ribs — which have become the face of the modern barbecue movement in America — included in this conversation?" hordes of angry Texans ask as they sharpen their pitchforks.

Nope, not barbecue. Photo: m7007/Shutterstock

Southern historian Don Harrison Doyle notes the first Europeans to come in contact with the Chickasaw, a people that resided on lands that would eventually become Mississippi, were Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his crew in 1540. De Soto and his comrades introduced the low-and-slow cooking style they had learned about during their time in Mexico, and they prepared a feast of the wild hogs that were found in the area.

Writing his pro-pork manifesto for Esquire magazine in 1976, Jim Villas details how English settlers took up the method shortly after arriving in Jamestown. Pork was the obvious meat of choice during the early days of barbecue in North Carolina. Smithsonian Magazine notes pig farming was relatively cheap and low-maintenance, especially compared to the idea of domestic cattle. Carolinians didn't have to do much at all, allowing pigs to fend for themselves in the woods and then hunting them when meat was needed.

Even as the region changed over the years and cattle farming became a more reasonable proposition, I think there's a pretty clear reason why pork continued to dominate North Carolina and the rest of the South: It just tastes better. Any time I have this argument with someone who wants to extol the virtues of the cow, I see the same trump card played: "It takes a lot more talent to produce world-class smoked beef than world-class smoked pork." I will cede this point. Smoking brisket takes an incredible amount of skill, and as long as you follow a few basic rules, it isn't too hard to produce good smoked pork on your first try. But this just proves why porcine meats are so superior. They're already more delicious to begin with. Add some smoke and spice, and they're divine. Currence shared how the first taste of legendary Raleigh, N.C.-based pitmaster Ed Mitchell's ‘cue was "like a lightning bolt to my head."

Anyone traveling through the region by automobile will be able to spot endless visual cues that, despite brisket's rise in popularity around the country, pork is still king all over the South. Get off the interstate and drive around long enough, and you'll wonder how so many barbecue joints can exist within a sparsely populated area. How do you pick the best one to stop for lunch? Tradition says it's all about the human-like qualities of the pig on the sign out front. "You assign a numeric score to a barbecue joint based upon the number of human-like things the pig on the sign is doing," writes Robert Moss, author of Barbecue: The History of an American Institution. "A realistic pig just standing there: zero points. A pig standing up and wearing a hat: two points. A standing pig in a hat and overalls strumming a banjo, winking, and turning a barbecue spit (or feasting on his brethren) — well, just pull right on over. You have found a winner." You'll notice there's no mention of looking for a sign with a banjo-picking cow.

For those who worship at the Church of Carolina Barbecue, the idea of classifying anything from a cow under the barbecue umbrella makes as much sense as calling a ground turkey sandwich a burger. One must specify that this item is a "turkey burger," because a traditional burger is made of ground beef. If you must refer to brisket as barbecue, at least have the decency to call it "Texas-style barbecue" when you're outside the Lone Star State. (I respect the fact that beef-lovers believe in a slow-smoking method that transforms a cut of meat into succulence that cannot be matched.)

What I will not abide is associating hamburgers, hot dogs, direct-heat charcoal grills, and, god forbid, gas grills with the subject. How these items became linked with the idea of barbecue is beyond me. 

"It was a misappropriation of that word, and I guess it came from the barbecue pit," Currence says. "My grandfather had this giant brick barbecue pit. It had smoking chambers in it, but it also had a hot grill where you could cook hamburgers and hot dogs. It came from the cross-utilization of those implements and more processed foods: ‘We're just going to go barbecue these hamburgers.'"

"Barbecue these hamburgers" is a phrase that never should be uttered. One does not barbecue hamburgers and hot dogs. In fact, one does not really "barbecue" anything. If you're preparing barbecue — a noun — you're smoking a whole hog or ribs or pork shoulder. Even many brisket-loving Texans who are about ready to ring my neck would agree barbecue comes from indirect heat and long cooking times. When you're throwing some burgers and dogs on the hot grill for a few minutes, you're "grilling out" or "cooking out." Furthermore, a party that involves friends and family coming over to eat grilled hamburgers and hot dogs is not "a barbecue" where I'm from. That's a cook-out. Actual barbecue must be on the menu for an event to actually be a barbecue.

Yes, Merriam-Webster offers a few broad definitions of the word that seem to cover basic grilling and anything under the sun that could be thrown on a grill. Unfortunately, the brains behind the dictionary recently destroyed their credibility by attempting to define a hot dog as a sandwich. This is obviously a debate for another time, but a hot dog is its own thing. It's not a sandwich. Are you really comfortable with the idea of "barbecuing some hot dog sandwiches"? Do not trust Merriam-Webster.

CNN reporter Emanuella Grinberg, a New Yorker who now resides in Atlanta, tackled the subject of grilling vs. barbecue last year. Grinberg explains how other Southern language and comestible quirks ("y'all," sweet tea) were adopted with ease, but changing her definition of barbecue was a touch more difficult. "It would take years for me to see it [a Southerner's] way (or, more likely, give up the fight) after learning what barbecue means to the South," she wrote. And that gets to the heart of the matter. For so many Southerners, a burger or dog on the grill is all fine and good, but barbecue is something so much more.

Lest you think I'm an inflexible curmudgeon, I'm relatively open-minded when it comes to the subject of sauce. When it comes to augmenting chopped or pulled pork, I prefer the thin, sharp vinegar-and-pepper varieties of eastern North Carolina, but the inclusion of ketchup or tomato paste in the western part of the state and throughout much of the South can make for a nice accompaniment. The mustard-based products of South Carolina are tasty as well. And I would be remiss if I didn't put in a plug for white sauce, which comes from my native Alabama. Invented by Big Bob Gibson in Decatur some 90 years ago, it's based on mayonnaise, vinegar, and pepper, and it's never really been accepted outside the northern half of its home state.

Before I become Public Enemy No. 1 in the state of Texas, I will admit that smoked brisket, when done well, is phenomenal eating. It's a fact I've only learned recently. I have family in Texas, but because of my devotion to pork and poor brisket experiences, I've never bothered to give it a try in its homeland. It wasn't until an Eater event last November (in New York City of all places) that I tasted outrageously delicious brisket. John Lewis, who has experience at Austin shrines Franklin Barbecue and La Barbecue and now operates his own restaurant in Charleston, S.C., served it up. It was salty and smoky, fatty and moist. It raised my eyebrows and stopped me in my tracks. I had no idea brisket could be that good.

It was delicious, but it wasn't barbecue.

If you’re a chef, restaurant worker, or in any way involved in the food industry — or if you’re simply a smart diner with something to say — we’d love to hear from you. Send a pitch (or a completed opinion piece of 1,000-1,500 words) to imho@eater.com, along with an explanation of who you are and why your voice on this matter is an important one. Accepted submissions will go through a standard editorial process before publication, including adjustments for clarity and structure, as well as copy- and fact-checking, always with the writer’s signoff.

Chris Fuhrmeister is Eater's evening news editor and editor of Eater Atlanta. Hawk Krall is a Philadelphia-based artist, illustrator, and former line cook with a lifelong obsession for unique regional cuisine. 

Editor: Erin DeJesus

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Eater Video: American Barbecue Styles Explained in 2 Minutes

The new God of War takes Kratos to Norse mythology

Ring Of Fire: Fox News Resident PUNK Blames Obama For Orlando Massacre

By Sydney Robinson

The victims from the Orlando shooting haven’t even been completely removed from the nightclub where they died and already, news media is doing their best to politicize the issue.

There are still so many questions yet to be answered, but that didn’t stop Fox News’ Tucker Carlson from blaming Obama for the largest mass shooting in American history.

First, the segment featured an author fear-mongering about whether or not the attack was “Jihadi,” and telling regular people that they are on the “front lines” in a war against this sort of terrorism.

Carlson said that the tragedy is the fault of the president because he doesn’t regularly say the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” the talking-point repugs love to revert to when they want to blame Obama for not banning all Muslims.

For the record, there has been no confirmation that the attack in Orlando had anything to do with Islam, especially because of the added element of sexuality which appeared to be the target of the attack.

We will find out a lot more about the motives of the shooter as time goes by, but from listening to Fox, you would think we already knew.

Watch.

TOM TOMORROW: When We Were Great

Tom Tomorrow: "I didn’t have time yesterday to write anything in response to the latest horrific gun massacre, but there are relevant cartoons here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Oh, and also here. Those are just off the top of my head, I’ve undoubtedly forgotten others."

DAILY KOS LINK: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/06/13/1537198/-Cartoon-When-we-were-great

Pulse Nightclub Massacre Marks Nearly 1,000 Mass Shootings Since Sandy Hook

By Nathan Wellman

Fifty people were killed in a gay nightclub last night in Orlando, the deadliest mass shooting in US history. This marks 998 mass shootings in the 912 days since Sandy Hook.

These shooters have murdered at least 1,105 people and wounded 3,929 in just two and a half years.

These numbers come from the Gun Violence Archive, an online database that has been tracking this data since 2013, marking each time four or more people (not counting the shooter) were shot at the same time and location. These astronomically high numbers may actually be too low, Vox reports.

 

Mass shootings — defined as public shootings in which four or more people are shot, excluding domestic, gang, and drug violence — are getting progressively more frequent, according to this analysis from Harvard School of Public Health researchers. Pitifully, these increasingly common massacres are only a sliver of America’s total deaths from firearms, which are now totaling over 32,000 every year.

 

Compared to other developed countries, the US had 29.7 firearm homicides per 1 million people in 2012, whereas Switzerland had 7.7, Canada had 5.1, and Germany had 1.9.

When a mass shooting happens, conservatives viciously attack progressives for calling for more gun control. Barely a few hours after the Orlando massacre, conservative website Red State put out an article which snidely began with “It never fails. The collective stupidity of the left is never more apparent than when there is some kind of violent tragedy that takes place on US soil, particularly when it involves guns.”

And yet, research has definitively shown where there are more guns, there are more homicides. The United States possesses 42% of the entire world’s civilian-owned guns even though we only comprise around 4.4% of the world’s population.

Fifty deaths is the highest body count in a single shooting so far in the United States, but if we continue to allow bought-by-the-NRA conservatives to lead us away from real reform, it won’t take long before somebody goes for the new record.

Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright. Follow him on Twitter: @LightningWOW

Donald Trump Faces Backlash For Tweets About Orlando Shooting

By Sam Frizell

 "Appreciate the congrats," Trump tweeted




Donald Trump faced a backlash on Twitter after tweeting his response to the deadly Orlando shooting Sunday morning, when he acknowledged “congrats” for “being right” on terrorism.

Read more: What to Know About the Pulse Nightclub Shooting in Orlando

Like much of what Trump does, it inspired a wave of responses. It angered Republicans and Democrats as well as some celebrities who criticized with a familiar line: that Trump is self-centered even in moments of tragedy — the shooting killed at least 50 people and is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. The motives of suspected shooter Omar Mateen were not immediately clear.

John Legend, the singer and songwriter, Chris Sacca, the venture capitalist and George Takei, best known for his role on Star Trek, called Trump out on Twitter.

Well-known Republicans criticized Trump as well, including Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan and GOP strategist Ana Navarro.

Read more: What We Know About ISIS’s Role in the Orlando Shooting

The Clinton campaign and its allies, who are eyeing a general election strategy that seeks to hang Trump on his own words, criticized the presumptive nominee for his comments.

Others criticized him for calling it a terrorist attack before the facts of the case were fully known.

Amid several tweets about Orlando, Trump also tweeted on Sunday morning his response to the Clinton campaign’s new advertisement.

Microsoft Mistakenly Sold Fallout 4 For Free On Xbox

If you grabbed Fallout 4 for free on Xbox One yesterday, it will be disappearing from your account.

http://www.neowin.net/news/fallout-4-was-accidentally-free-to-download-but-licenses-are-being-revoked 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/167671-Microsoft-Revoking-Free-Fallout-4-Copies-Acquired-Due-to-Xbox-Store-Error-Yesterday 

The GOP Must Be Proud: When Your Party’s Nominee Is The Darling Of White Supremacists

By Alex Kotch

Racists are heavily lobbying to put Donald Trump in the White House — as the Republican Party looks the other way.

It’s no surprise that white supremacists love Donald Trump. For the first time in decades, a presidential nominee is stating explicitly what many in the Republican Party have been dog-whistling for years: that people of color are subhuman, that immigrants aren’t welcome, that white men have the divine right to run this country.

Whites are under attack, even genocide, think the white nationalists, and Trump is the man to prevent it.

William Johnson is head of the white nationalist American Freedom Party, which was formed in 2009 by “racist Southern California skinheads” and has called Trump “The Great White Hope.”

In 1985, Johnson proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would revoke the citizenship of any nonwhite or Hispanic white American. Weirdly, he studied Japanese in college and most of his corporate law firm’s clients are Japanese and Chinese. I guess it’s fine to make money off of people of color, just don’t give them citizenship — and definitely no interracial dating!

The American National Super PAC, formed last September, ran robocalls supporting Trump in Iowa, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Vermont during the first quarter of this year, spending about $13,000. Johnson personally provided most of the funding. The PAC booked $6,000 worth of robocalls in Wisconsin, coming after the first quarter, so in July we’ll find out who has funded and produced these calls.

“The white race is dying out in America and Europe because we are afraid to be called ‘racist,’” narrates Johnson in one of the calls. “Don’t vote for a Cuban. Vote for Donald Trump.”

Another call features white supremacist Jared Taylor, founder of the white nationalist think tank American Renaissance; spokesman for the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white nationalist hate group; and member of the American Freedom Party’s board of directors.

“We don’t need Muslims,” he says. “We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.”

So who made these robocalls happen? From American National Super PAC’s first-quarter report to the Federal Elections Commission, I found some interesting individuals involved in making the ads.

Connected white nationalists, people whose views align nicely with white nationalists’, or simply those who don’t mind taking a paycheck from a racist organization, are mobilizing for Trump, collaborating on political ads to support him.

Here is the cast of characters:

Besides Johnson, the only other funder of the first-quarter robocalls was Earl Holt, who contributed $500 and is president of the Council of Conservative Citizens. Dylann Roof credited Holt’s ideas for inspiring his Charleston massacre.

The super PAC paid $1,500 to Laura Burton of Columbia, South Carolina for consulting. She is the treasurer for Robert Whitaker’s presidential campaign. When you can get paid by one white nationalist, why not two?

Whitaker, once worked in the Reagan administration, was formerly the American Freedom Party’s own 2016 presidential candidate, but the party endorsed Trump because he clearly has a chance to become president. In April, after Johnson ran the robocall campaign for Trump, Whitaker withdrew as the AFP nominee. Now running as an independent, his campaign slogan remains: “‘Diversity’ is a codeword for white genocide.” His campaign site presents “The Mantra,” which eerily addresses “a final solution to the black problem.”

Sam Bushman was hired for consulting, earning $211. Bushman is a conservative radio host who had Donald Trump, Jr. on his show, interviewed by frequent host and white nationalist James Edwards. A racist and an anti-Semite, Edwards is a member of the American Freedom Party and a national board member of the Council of Conservative Citizens.

Clarence Mason, a former Black Panther, was paid $300 for consulting. The Missouri resident is a black author and speaker who now believes that liberalism is slavery and that blacks should stop “whining” about having been enslaved. He told The Daily Caller that Black Lives Matter is “garbage” and that “Barack Obama hates America.”

Johnson was in fact named a California delegate for Trump, as Mother Jones firstreported. The Trump campaign attributed this to a “database error,” and Johnsonresigned as a delegate a few days later. But Johnson has now asked the Trump campaign if he can attend the Republican National Convention as a volunteer. And the American Freedom Party claims it has more Trump delegates who have slipped through the cracks, along with other “white pride” proponents such as Chicago mortgage banker Lori Gayne.

This merry band of racists is cheering for and spending money to benefit Trump, the Republican nominee for president. And despite constant racist language from Trump himself and myriad endorsements from KKK leaders and other unsavory white supremacists, the Republican establishment quickly rallied behind him when Cruz left the race.

What a disgrace: Establishment Republicans who planned to change their tune after 2012 and appeal to Latino voters (but who thought this would really happen?) are now going all in for an outright bigot who took over their party by appealing to an angry base they created. Trump’s supporters are driven most by racial resentment, according to a recent Pew Research study. It’s an embarrassment, but more seriously, a grave danger, that the GOP is willing to rally behind someone whose campaign depends on stoking white racism. And there are more white voters than previously believed, according to an Upshot analysis.

Regardless of whether white nationalist groups continue to advertise on Trump’s behalf, the candidate desperately needs white supremacists’ votes. Many are newly registered voters, and others have never voted for a member of a major U.S. political party. Trump knows this, which explains why, as he pivots to the center for the general election, he called out a judge presiding over his Trump University case because of his Mexican heritage just days before giving what may have been his first teleprompted speech. What Trump should have made clear is, I am racist against Mexicans, and since you have Mexican heritage, you might be biased against me in the case regarding my fraudulent university. Obviously, this is an absurd, and racist, reason to remove a judge from a case.

Trump may have had to pretend on national television that he didn’t “know anything about David Duke,” the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who endorsed him, but he consistently says and tweets things (like Mussolini quotes) that keep white racists enthusiastic about his potential presidency. These statements mixed in with his proposed ban on Muslims and wall at the Mexican border conveniently resonate with the Tea Party’s racist strain as well.

While Trump’s university is being sued for fraud and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has a (very) slight chance of being indicted during an election that, perhaps, more blatantly than ever displays just how corrupt American politics are, only one candidate has the backing of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other hate groups convinced that the white race is experiencing a drawn-out genocide.

Meanwhile, for the presumptive Democratic nominee, African Americans are reliable supporters and Latinos are registering to vote like never before to cast their ballots against Trump.

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Trump's Wealth Built On Stiffing Scores Of Contractors, Businesses And Employees For Years, Report Finds

By Steven Rosenfeld

A pattern of not paying bills in full is traced.

 

Photo Credit: Albert H. Teich / Shutterstock.com
 
A major investigation by USA Today has revealed one of the sordid secrets to the profit making in Donald Trump’s business empire: don’t pay your bills in full, whether from small businesses, contractors or even the lawyers you’ve hired to stonewall them.

The overall ugly picture that emerges goes far beyond Trump’s use of bankruptcy court, where debts can be forgiven or restructured depending on their category and type of federal bankruptcy filing. What’s most provocative about USA Today’s reporting, which goes beyond previous accounts of the same tactics or his mob connections, is how Trump has a longstanding pattern of ignoring his bills and walking away from debts owed contractors and employees.

“At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments and other government filings reviewed by the USA Today Network, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work,” the newspaper wrote Friday. “Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others.”

That summation is the tip of a later iceberg, and one that should make Trump’s white, working-class followers shudder—because he has a habit of stiffing blue-collar laborers.

“In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic’s liens—filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work—since the 1980s,” USA Today wrote. “The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On just one project, Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, records released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers and plumbing.”

Trump’s real record in business matters greatly because it is the only lens into what kind of a manager and executive he actually is, rather than the made-for-reality-TV pose he strikes on the campaign trail. The same goes for Trump’s federal taxes, which he has refused to release, as those would show many other details about how he manages money and whether he even pays any income taxes. He might not, as real estate is a field filled with ways to declare losses and depreciate assets in order to offset tax liabilities.

USA Today sums up Donald Trump as an businessman who repeatedly doesn't pay his bills and relentlessly fights paying in court. It wrote, “The actions in total paint a portrait of Trump’s sprawling organization frequently failing to pay small businesses and individuals, then sometimes tying them up in court and other negotiations for years. In some cases, the Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources. Some just give up the fight, or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether.”

Trump and other family members responded to USA Today reporters, with the Republican presidential nominee characterizing the examples given as “a long time ago.” But the paper noted that's not true, as “new cases are continuing.” For example, “Just last month, Trump Miami Resort Management LLC settled with 48 servers at his Miami golf resort over failing to pay overtime for a special event. The settlements averaged about $800 for each worker and as high as $3,000 for one, according to court records. Some workers put in 20-hour days over the 10-day Passover event at Trump National Doral Miami, the lawsuit contends. Trump’s team initially argued a contractor hired the workers, and he wasn’t responsible, and counter-sued the contractor demanding payment.”

There are many such examples. Digging deeper into that one, a lawyer for the stiffed workers said this is the way the Trump organization operates. USA Today quotes Rod Hannah, of Plantation, Florida, the lawyer who represented the workers. “Trump could have settled it right off the bat, but they wanted to fight it out, that’s their M.O.”

Ivanka Trump, who works with her candidate father, told USA Today these disputes are a small slice of their thousands of monthly payments, adding, “It would be irresponsible if my father paid contractors who did lousy work. And he doesn’t do that.”

You can be sure Americans will be hearing a lot more about Trump’s real record in business in coming months, as it is a telling counterpoint to his “make America great” meme. He didn’t make the lives of these tradesmen and businesses great, he made them miserable, and in many cases these solo operators and family-owned businesses did not survive after losing thousands to billionaire Trump.

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Nina Turner blasts Elizabeth Warren: She doesn’t get ‘brownie points’ for slamming Trump

By Travis Gettys

Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner (D) speaks to Tamron Hall on May 18, 2016. (MSNBC)

A top surrogate for Bernie Sanders isn’t impressed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s attacks against Donald Trump, whom she frequently needles on Twitter and slams in speeches.

Nina Turner said she didn’t think Warren could woo Sanders supporters if Hillary Clinton chose her as running mate, saying the Massachusetts senator hadn’t done enough to help her colleague from Vermont during his primary campaign, reported The Hill.

“It’s easy for Democrats to attack Mr. Trump,” said Nina Turner, the former state senator from Ohio.

“You don’t get any brownie points from me and other progressives for getting into a Twitter war with Mr. Donald Trump. That’s easy. But when the fight was hard for Sen. Bernie Sanders, where was Sen. Warren?”

Turner said she and other Sanders supporters were disappointed that Warren, as one of the most high-profile progressive lawmakers, didn’t campaign for the Democratic challenger.

“They’re gonna attack me for saying this, but I’m a truth-teller at this point,” Turner said.

Warren announced Thursday night that she would endorse Clinton for president.