Why The Sally Yates Hearing Was Very Bad News For The Trump White House

The president just lost his favorite piece of spin for countering the Russia scandal.

By David Corn May 8, 2017 5:39 PM

Carolyn Kaster/AP

The much-anticipated Senate hearing on Monday afternoon with former acting attorney general Sally Yates and former director of national intelligence James Clapper confirmed an important point: the Russia story still poses tremendous trouble for President Donald Trump and his crew.

Yates recounted a disturbing tale. She recalled that on January 26, she requested and received a meeting with Don McGahn, Trump's White House counsel. At the time, Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials were saying that ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, had not spoken the month before with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, about the sanctions then-President Barack Obama had imposed on the Russians as punishment for Moscow's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Yates' Justice Department had evidence—presumably intercepts of Flynn's communications with Kislyak—that showed this assertion was flat-out false.

At that meeting, Yates shared two pressing concerns with McGahn: that Flynn had lied to the vice president and that Flynn could now be blackmailed by the Russians because they knew he had lied about his conversations with Kislyak. As Yates told the members of the Senate subcommittee on crime and terrorism, "To state the obvious: you don't want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians." She and McGahn also discussed whether Flynn had violated any laws.

The next day, McGahn asked Yates to return to the White House, and they had another discussion. According to Yates, McGahn asked whether it would interfere with the FBI's ongoing investigation of Flynn if the White House took action regarding this matter. No, Yates said she told him. The FBI had already interviewed Flynn. And Yates explained to the senators that she had assumed that the White House would not sit on the information she presented McGahn and do nothing.

But that's what the White House did. McGahn in that second meeting did ask if the White House could review the evidence the Justice Department had. She agreed to make it available. (Yates testified that she did not know whether this material was ever reviewed by the White House. She was fired at that point because she would not support Trump's Muslim travel ban.) Whether McGahn examined that evidence about Flynn, the White House did not take action against him. It stood by Flynn. He remained in the job, hiring staff for the National Security Council and participating in key policy decision-making.

On February 9, the Washington Post revealed that Flynn had indeed spoken with Kislyak about the sanctions. And still the Trump White House backed him up. Four days later, Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump White House official, declared that Trump still had "full confidence" in Flynn. The next day—as a media firestorm continued—Trump fired him. Still, the day after he canned Flynn, Trump declared, "Gen. Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he has been treated very, very unfairly by the media, as I call it, the fake media in many cases. And I think it is really a sad thing that he was treated so badly." Trump displayed no concern about Flynn's misconduct.

The conclusion from Yates' testimony was clear: Trump didn't dump Flynn until the Kislyak matter became a public scandal and embarrassment. The Justice Department warning—hey, your national security adviser could be compromised by the foreign government that just intervened in the American presidential campaign—appeared to have had no impact on Trump's actions regarding Flynn. Imagine what Republicans would say if a President Hillary Clinton retained as national security adviser a person who could be blackmailed by Moscow.

The subcommittee's hearing was also inconvenient for Trump and his supporters on another key topic: it destroyed one of their favorite talking points.

On March 5, Clapper was interviewed by NBC News' Chuck Todd on Meet the Press and asked if there was any evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. "Not to my knowledge," Clapper replied. Since then, Trump and his champions have cited Clapper to say there is no there there with the Russia story. Trump on March 20 tweeted, "James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. The story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!" White House press secretary Sean Spicer has repeatedly deployed this Clapper statement to insist there was no collusion.

At Monday's hearing, Clapper pulled this rug out from under the White House and its comrades. He noted that it was standard policy for the FBI not to share with him details about ongoing counterintelligence investigations. And he said he had not been aware of the FBI's investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia that FBI director James Comey revealed weeks ago at a House intelligence committee hearing. Consequently, when Clapper told Todd that he was not familiar with any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, he was speaking accurately. But he essentially told the Senate subcommittee that he was not in a position to know for certain. This piece of spin should now be buried. Trump can no longer hide behind this one Clapper statement.

Clapper also dropped another piece of information disquieting for the Trump camp. Last month, the Guardian reported that British intelligence in late 2015 collected intelligence on suspicious interactions between Trump associates and known or suspected Russian agents and passed this information to to the United States "as part of a routine exchange of information." Asked about this report, Clapper said it was "accurate." He added, "The specifics are quite sensitive." This may well have been the first public confirmation from an intelligence community leader that US intelligence agencies have possessed secret information about ties between Trump's circle and Moscow. (Comey testified that the FBI's counterintelligence investigation of links between Trump associates and Russian began in late July 2016.)

So this hearing indicated that the Trump White House protected a national security adviser who lied and who could be compromised by Moscow, that Trump can no longer cite Clapper to claim there was no collusion, and that US intelligence had sensitive information on interactions between Trump associates and possible Russian agents as early as late 2015. Still, most of the Republicans on the panel focused on leaks and "unmasking"—not the main issues at hand. They collectively pounded more on Yates for her action regarding the Muslim travel ban than on Moscow for its covert operation to subvert the 2016 election to help Trump.

This Senate subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), is not mounting a full investigation comparable to the inquiry being conducted by the Senate intelligence committee (and presumably the hobbled House intelligence committee). It has far less staff, and its jurisdiction is limited. But this hearing demonstrated that serious inquiry can expand the public knowledge of the Trump-Russia scandal—and that there remains much more to examine and unearth.

Eric Trump Is Staggeringly Stupid

Did Eric Trump actually think wealthy Russians were dumping money into his dad’s golf courses during a recession because they’re big golf fans? Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.

A Confederacy Of Sociopaths

Kurt Eichenwald: 'and they smiled and high-fived'

https://www.facebook.com/kurt.eichenwald.1/posts/1448157071889590

In 1986, I left a job I loved for one I hated. I had been desperately sick for seven years, with medical bills no one could possibly cover. But I was approaching the dreaded age of 25, when I would be forced off of my parent’s insurance policy. Everyone knew, without insurance, I would die. I was frequently hospitalized. My treatments were very expensive. But the job I loved offered no insurance. The one I hated did.

This was the second time insurance chose the direction of my life. I applied for the job of my dreams a year before. The boss told me he wanted to hire me, but theirs was a small company. They already had a person with high medical costs on salary. If they hired me, he said, their insurer would drop them. Insurance companies could do that back then.

But with the job I hated, I thought I was safe. Then I found out, even the group policy had a preexisting condition clause: I would not be insured for nine months. I could not stay. I would go bankrupt. And so, I went to find another job. All I wanted was insurance. It didn’t matter the job. Insurance would decide my career.
 
I had been a political writer at CBS, an associate editor at National Journal. Very successful at my age. But I only had a few weeks until I was uninsured. I begged a friend at the New York Times to help me. He offered to help me land a position as a copy boy. It was a terrible job, he knew, but it had insurance. At first, I was turned down for the job – I was way too overqualified, the HR person said. But my friend intervened and, after years of personal success, I agreed to take a job fetching people’s coffee.

There was a two-week period before I began my job when I was completely uncovered. I ended up hospitalized. By the time I was conscious, I had rung up a bill in excess of $10,000. That was almost half my expected full-year salary. I called my parents, in tears. I didn’t know what to do. They told me they would take care of it.

Nothing was more depressing than having to have given up everything for insurance, to take a job where everyone was younger than me, everyone was far less experienced than me. And I knew, if I lost my job, I would lose my insurance. And if I lost my insurance, I could die. So I worked – seven days a week, 12-18 hours a day. If nothing else, that helped me believe I would not be fired from my lousy job. But it also gave me the chance to write for various sections of the paper. I would do my copy boy job eight hours a day, then start reporting and writing. This went on for two years – no vacations, no break, terrified every day.

Then, I was offered a junior reporter’s job at the Times. One-year tryout. I worked almost every day. I rarely left the office. I knew the stakes. For me, this wasn’t about being a reporter. This was about keeping my insurance.

In my late 20's, I married. My wife is a doctor. At that point, I had greater freedom. Even if I lost my job, I could be on her insurance. Because of that freedom, I began to write books. If the Times got mad at me for it, it would be ok. But still, I could never shake the belief that I could never say no. I took every assignment. I did not take book leaves. We rarely vacationed.

I finally started to relax around 2008. I had never lost insurance for 12 years. Then, a miracle: the rules keeping people with preexisting conditions from being insured were ended under ACA. I listened to blowhards like Rush Limbaugh rage that people like me – and people with asthma and cancer and cystic fibrosis – were leeches, demanding charity. It amazed me how stupid he and his followers were, not understanding that, without private insurance, people like me would all be on government disability. We would have to stop working in order to survive. People were instilled with rage about a topic they didn’t even understand.

No matter. I knew I would never have to face that problem again. More important, I knew the millions and millions of others like me – young kids, middle aged, whatever – would never again be forced to make decisions about their lives giving up their dreams solely for the insurance. I would hear every day from my wife about people who came to her office in horrible medical shape, people who had gone without treatment or sought their medical care at emergency rooms. People who could only get care in the ER rang up giant medical bills, so expensive no one could pay them. And so the taxpayers picked up the cost. Now, those same people were getting care from my wife with insurance they purchased. Opponents raged about their taxes paying for the subsidies, so ignorant they had no idea their taxes had been paying for the far more expensive emergency room care before.

Last week, the House passed a bill that would push everyone with preexisting conditions back into the same situation. The representatives billowed and cooed that high-risk pools would protect us, fooling the same uneducated ones who didn’t know they paid for the uninsured. High risk pools had been tried before. They failed. But these members of congress probably didn’t even know that. They didn’t care enough to hold hearings to find out whether high-risk pools would work. They didn’t wait to find out how many people would lose their insurance. They had to rush it through. Then they cheered for themselves.

Meanwhile, those of us with preexisting conditions were plunged back into fear. Foundations for people with chronic diseases began receiving phone calls from panicked people. My wife and I reviewed our options if this bill became law. We are middle aged now, which presented new issues. She is four years older than me. She hits retirement age in five years. If she retired and was on Medicare, I would be clinging to a slender thread to keep my insurance. I could never write another book. It would be too dangerous. My wife said she would work until she was almost 70 to keep me safe. Guilt overwhelmed me. She was born in Britain, and we discussed her citizenship and, if necessary, we could move there if I lost my coverage. We would have to burn through our savings for a long time, but eventually I might be able to get onto national health insurance.

But I don’t want to leave America. I don’t want my wife to work until she’s almost 70. I don’t want to be guilty. And most important, I don’t want all the other people with preexisting conditions to be forced to make their life decisions based on where they can get group insurance. Or worse, to not be able to obtain group insurance, be denied private insurance and die.

I watched Fox News. They giggled and laughed that people were being hysterical about preexisting conditions. There were high-risk pools, they sneered, that states could participate in unless they didn’t want to. I watched the clip, over and over, of those self-congratulatory members of Congress, high-fiving and smiling, as I knew the situation at my house was playing out at millions of houses where talking points and rationalizations didn’t change the realities of what we would face. I commented about how terrible this was. And then I saw comments from people deriding those with preexisting conditions as wanting charity.

I thought of members of Congress who wanted prisons as brutal as possible, until they themselves were jailed; then, they became advocates for prison reform. I thought of the ones who screamed about gays until their child came out, then they became tolerant. I thought about the members of Congress who happily sent other people’s children off to fight in Vietnam, while getting their own kids deferments and spots in the National Guard or reserves, making sure they wouldn’t see battle. And then I thought of the child whose parents home I visited, who told me of their boy dying of suffocation in his mother’s arms as they rushed to the hospital. They hadn’t been able to afford his inhaler that week. They had no insurance. They planned to buy it the week that followed. Their son died two days after they decided to take the risk.

And the members of Congress smiled and high-fived.

More people’s children would die. And the members of Congress smiled and high-fived. People would be forced to take jobs they did not want or marry people they did not love. And the members of Congress smiled and high-fived. For millions, every day would be terrifying as they wondered if they would they run up bills that day that would bankrupt them or would they be unable to get treatment? Would they live through the week? And the members of Congress smiled and high-fived.

My anger exploded. I wanted them to feel the consequences of what they thought was so wonderful. Why should they be exempt from the damage they would inflict on others from their vote, votes they cast with so little concern about others that they didn’t hold hearings to find out what damage they might cause?

And so I tweeted, “As one with a preexisting condition, I hope every GOPr who voted for Trumpcare get a long-term condition, loses their insurance, and die.”

Harsh? You bet. I wanted the words to be blunt, to lay out the reality of what real people would face, people who didn’t have the ability of members of Congress to avoid the consequences they voted to inflict on real people.

Conservatives broke out the fainting couches. I was wishing Republicans to die, they moaned. I forgot we live in an era where fools will interpret it the way they are told. One of the propagandists at the Daily Caller, after emailing me for comment at 3:00 in the morning, posted a story proclaiming I wanted my political opponents to die. And the conservative trolls descended, screaming for my death.

I remain angry. I remember the tears of that woman whose son died in her arms. I remember my struggles. I remembered my fears. I remembered the fears of so many others I have spoken to over the years who struggled with preexisting conditions.

I deleted the tweet. Apparently, confronting people with the reality of what they have chosen is just too inappropriate. Voting to let people die is fine, rubbing the fact that they voted to do that is just wrong.

Do I regret what I said? No. I want those words to sink in. My tweet won’t kill anyone. But the vote from those members of Congress will.

And if they are not forced to confront what they are doing, they will just keep smiling and high-fiving.

This Monologue Goes Out To You, Mr. Trump

'Face the Nation's' 'John Dickerson had the willpower to ignore the Trump's insults during their conversation in the White House. Luckily, Stephen doesn't have that same constraint.

Under The Dome

In Brief: Pricks and the Wall

Posted by Rude One

Even though President Donald Trump has rolled over on his back and surrendered on funding for the Great Wall of Stupid on the Mexican border for now, every day, he or his administration or some damn surrogate is out there telling us how that wall will end illegal drug importation, human trafficking, undocumented immigration, and, hell, psoriasis. And every day, I get some yutz emailing or messaging me to tell me how full of shit I am because I don't want a wall to end the crisis of opioid addiction. Putting aside that, except for heroin, most opioids are from prescription meds, every one of these people is lying and/or dumb.

For one thing, despite the fondest wishes of Rep. Steve King, drugs ain't getting into the United States strapped to the luscious cantaloupe calves of immigrants. Here's how it happens, according to a 2015 report from the DEA: "Mexican criminal networks 'transport the bulk of their goods over the Southwest Border through ports of entry (POEs) using passenger vehicles or tractor trailers.' In passenger vehicles, the drugs may be held in secret compartments; while in tractor trailers, the drugs are often comingled with other legitimate goods. Less commonly used methods to move drugs include smuggling them through crossborder underground tunnels and on commercial cargo trains, small boats, and ultralight aircraft."

You got it? The drugs come in by vehicles through the goddamn border wall that's already there. More wall ain't gonna stop that. Or drones. Or tunnels. Or boats. Walls don't work that way. Say it together: The wall won't do shit to stop drugs. It's not even worth a talking point.

And while a big wall might slow human trafficking for at least a brief period, one thing is for damn sure, and that's that Trump's deportation policies are hurting the effort to stop human trafficking. Yeah, if you might be deported for going to the cops to report on sex slaves in your neighborhood, you'll probably stay silent so you're not ripped away from your family with a hearty "thanks" from the United States government.

In his ad for Trump steaks, the future president promised, "Believe me, I understand steaks." The ad shows a number of the beef slabs, and, when they're cut open, they are inevitably medium rare. Not a single steak is shown well-done, which is how Trump is said to prefer his steak, because if he did show them that way, all grey and dry, no one would trust the person flogging the steaks.

Trump's dishonesty is part and parcel of his pitchman patter. If he's gonna build a wall, then that motherfucker is gonna be the wall of your dreams, man. Not a boondoggle of epic proportions. And Trump's gonna build it because he is one egotistical dickhead. About the Trump Taj Mahal, he said, "Nobody thought it could be built. That was the biggest risk - just getting it built. But I love proving people wrong." Yeah, he got to say it got off the ground, but so did the makers of the Hindenburg.

Obama Gives Finger To Country—Takes $400,000 From Wall Street

The Jimmy Dore Show is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture featuring Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster.

With over 5 million downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the country.

It is part of the Young Turks Network-- the largest online news show in the world.

Ted Cruz, You Fucking Hypocrite, Shut The Fuck Up!

By ESME CRIBB Published APRIL 26, 2017, 10:40 AM EDT

Sen. Tex Cruz (R-TX) on Wednesday claimed that Democrats are trying to provoke a government shutdown by refusing to pass a spending bill by midnight Friday to keep the lights on.

“I think Chuck Schumer and the Democrats want a shutdown, I think they’re trying to provoke a fight,” Cruz said on “Fox and Friends,” referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

He said Senate Democrats are “terrified” of “a radical left base.”

“Schumer’s just trying to put more and more unreasonable demands, trying to force a shutdown to appease those who want total resistance, total opposition, who don’t want the Trump administration to succeed,” Cruz claimed.

Says the guy who instigated a government shut down because Obama wouldn't defund The Affordable Care Act.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-claims-democrats-want-a-shutdown

HEY, TED CRUZ!

Trump Son In Law Jared Kushner Was Just Told To Lawyer Up Because He Committed A Crime

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) told Trump son in law Jared Kushner that he better hire a lawyer, because he committed a crime when he lied about having contacts with foreign governments on his security clearance form.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/25/trump-son-law-jared-kushner-told-lawyer-committed-crime.html

Tuesday Toon Roundup

How government works now

Why Is Chaffetz Resigning? It Will All Come Out In The Laundering

Soon we hope to bid a gleeful farewell to Jason Chaffetz (R-Disgraced). To say that he’ll be leaving under a cloud would be to understate the case. He’s in trouble with both his religion and the Law which is quite an accomplishment for a mediocre House republican.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/21/1654905/-Why-Did-Chaffetz-Resign-It-Will-All-Come-Out-in-the-Laundering

Trump Makes Democrats An Offer They Absolutely WILL Refuse

Trump is now the Swamp's biggest monster

Help us cover the political revolution: http://www.patreon.com/TYTNation

"Barack Obama set a record in 2009: He raised an unprecedented $53 million to support his inauguration. That money came from thousands of contributors nationwide. Donations were capped at $50,000 — considered a high amount at the time — and, in the tradition of past inaugurations, included millions of dollars from various special interest groups.

For all the money Obama raised, Donald Trump's inauguration was something entirely different. With a fraction of the donors Obama had, Trump hauled in $107 million for his inauguration, according to a disclosure released this week. There was no limit on how much individuals and groups could contribute to the inauguration.

Trump drew $5 million from billionaire casino owner and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson — the largest single inauguration donation ever. According to the Center for Public Integrity, others who gave at least $1 million include a coal baron, Wall Street investors and fast-food CEO's. Three major health insurance companies each contributed $100,000."

https://mic.com/articles/174748/donald-trump-promised-to-drain-the-swamp-then-the-swamp-paid-him-millions-of-dollars

Jeffrey Lord Is A Village Idiot, But That’s Exactly How CNN Likes It

Jeffrey Lord has the distinct honor of being one of the dumbest people on cable news. Considering all of the simpletons currently soiling the media landscape with their stupidity, that’s no easy feat.

http://www.theroot.com/lord-sayeth-jeffrey-lord-is-a-village-idiot-but-that-1794434059

White People Still Love Trump Even As He Bumblefucks Through The Presidency

Posted by Rude One

It's now become a seemingly weekly exercise in the New York Times (motto: "Yeah, we hired a climate change denialist and fuck you for criticizing us for it"): an article checking in on some group of people or community that supported Donald Trump in the presidential election of 2016. This time around in our Jane-Goodall-among-the-apes tour of shitty parts of America, we're in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in a district that Trump won by only two-tenths of a point to see what those goddamned yokels and exurbanites think about the job President Trump is doing.

This exercise is akin to asking a chronic masturbator why he keeps jacking off. "Look at you," you can say to this compulsive onanist, "your dick is scabby and chafed, you can barely even get hard anymore, let alone ejaculate, and you're so sick of porn that it takes near-death strangle sex videos to interest you at all. You're exhausted, your friends have abandoned you, your place stinks of cum, and, c'mon, man, take a shower. Why do you keep doing it?" Of course, the wanker is gonna tell you, "Because it feels so good" even though all evidence points to the exact opposite.

So we're off to Eastern Pennsylvania to see what some white people think of Trump in a swing district. And guess what? "Many still trust him, but wonder why his deal-making instincts do not seem to be translating. They admire his zeal, but are occasionally baffled by his tweets. They insist he will be fine, but suggest gently that maybe Vice President Mike Pence should assume a more expansive role." They have their doubts, but they stand by their decision. And they're sure that Trump himself isn't solely to blame for his lack of "winning." Said one fucking idiot, "“It’s really disheartening what they’re putting him through." Yes, it's a shame that "they" demand a president act like a goddamned president and not a king.

The article by Matt Flegenheimer goes out of its way to be fairer than the usual dumbass-whites-love-Trump pieces. He includes people who oppose Trump, and he does show Trump voters who seem like they are edging towards enlightenment, although they all stop just short of regret. But even this is disingenuous because, according to polls, those dumbass whites who voted for Trump fuckin' love the guy like it was still the heady summer of 2016 when the chant of "Lock her up" was the howler monkey yawp of the damned.

Yeah, white people give him a 50% approval rating, with white men coming in at 56% approving (and white women at a disheartening 46%). Shit, 78% of white people who consider themselves the mythical "moderate Republicans" approve of Trump's job performance.

And of course it's whites. Generally middle-income, lower-educated whites, but white people. And that's because of the, yeah, you know it, racism. Say it all together because it's statistically demonstrable: Lots of white people voted for Trump because of his promises to harm people of other races. It wasn't economic anxiety. It wasn't anti-establishment. It was racism.

So every time you do an article about Trump voters and how their feeling about the president, you're pretty much validating that racism. It's more or less "Hey, let's check out what a bunch of people who are stupider than shit and hate Muslims and Hispanics and blacks think of the idiot asshole they elected and pretend that their gutter-level ignorance is hard-scrabble wisdom." Move to another area of the country and repeat.

I can't figure out why it's so fucking important for the Times to figure out what this demographic of the dumb believe about Trump. The filthy masses won't ever love the big city elites. And if you're hoping to get the scoop on some shift in attitudes, well, it ain't gonna happen in the first 100 days. Or ever for most of his voters.

This is a kind of religion. It doesn't have a rational basis. It is all faith built upon lies. The faithful will not tell you their god is false, even if you show them his many heresies.

Trump Family again profits from Presidency

"The Associated Press, via the Boston Globe, reports that earlier this month, “Ivanka Trump’s company won provisional approval from the Chinese government for three new trademarks, giving it monopoly rights to sell Ivanka brand jewelry, bags and spa services in the world’s second-largest economy.”

What’s significant is that the trademarks were awarded on April 6 — which just happened to be the same day that the Trump family entertained Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida."

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/ivanka-trump-awarded-3-china-trademarks-on-the-same-day-she-dined-with-chinese-president-report/

Rachel Maddow Has Lost Her Mind & People Are Noticing

Events in Philly on 4/20, 'National Marijuana Day'

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/Philly420_Things_To_Do_In_Philly_on_420_National_Marijuana_Day.html

Marijuana activists will pass out thousands of joints to members of Congress near Capitol Hill on 4/20

BY Chris Sommerfeldt

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Thursday, April 20, 2017, 4:56 AM

A volunteer takes a smoke break after he and friends rolled hundreds of marijuana joints last Thursday in preparation of the 4/20 Capitol Hill event. 

(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Capitol Hill is about to get a bit hazy.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans will be given the opportunity to bake out a “Joint Session” of Congress on Thursday, as Americans across the nation celebrate the unofficial weed-smoking holiday known as 4/20.

Members of DCMJ, a pro-cannabis activist group, plans to camp out near Capitol Hill to puff-puff-pass out at least 1,000 free marijuana joints to members of Congress, congressional staffers, interns and credentialed members of the press. The group offers to give out two joints per person, as long as the tokers are older than 21.

Since state law allows D.C. residents to possess, grow and give away marijuana, the group will most likely be allowed to carry out the pot-smoking event without obstruction.

Sessions calls for return to 'just say no' policy, slams pot use

The 4/20 event will kick off at "high noon."

(DCMJ)

“Americans don’t want a crackdown on legal cannabis — they want Congress to end cannabis prohibition once and for all,” Adam Eidinger, a co-founder of DCMJ, said in a statement. “Giving adults access to cannabis and individuals and small business owners legal protection in all 50 states is what the American people have been asking for — just take one look at last year’s election.”

The smoking stunt is meant to highlight the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which prohibits federal authorities from interfering with D.C. cannabis laws. The amendment is set to expire on April 28, and DCMJ hopes that its joint-giveaway will compel members of Congress to consider renewing the amendment.

The group also hopes that the “Joint Session” will butter up members of Congress enough for them to pass a full-on federal legalization of recreational cannabis.

DCMJ volounteers rolled hundreds of joints last Thursday.

(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

But, considering recent statements by Trump administration officials, DCMJ might be out of luck.

AG Jeff Sessions believes violence surrounds marijuana
 
“Let me be clear about marijuana,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said during a speech at George Washington University on Tuesday. “It is a potentially dangerous gateway drug that frequently leads to the use of harder drugs…Its use and possession is against federal law and until the law is changed by the U.S. Congress we in DHS are sworn to uphold all the laws on the books.”

Yet, Kelly’s comments come off as relatively lenient once contrasted against ones made by attorney general Jeff Sessions.

Some of the joints rolled by DCMJ volounteers. 

(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

The 70 year old head of the Justice Department has spoken favorably of bringing back the controversial Reagan-era war on drugs, and has also suggested that he wants to roll back medical marijuana legislation.

While serving as a senator of Alabama, Sessions infamously said that he was "OK" with the Ku Klux Klan

Bill O'Reilly Has A Lot Of Time To Visit Sylvia's Restaurant Now...

Bill O'Reilly Is Out at Fox - African Americans Should Watch For Who is Next 

Donald Trump In Alternate Reality With Reform Talk

Is Donald Trump in an alternate reality when it comes to touting his legislative accomplishments? The Morning Joe panel discusses Trump's remarks Tuesday about manufacturing and health care.

Hypocrite Trump Signs “Hire American” Order, Forgets His Companies Exploit Foreign Labor

Hypocrite Donald Trump signed an executive order today that will require agencies to use American goods and labor by closing certain loopholes, yet Trump himself uses overseas labor and foreign guest workers for his businesses. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

When Airlines Attack

What Happens When 'Putin's Useful Tool' Is No Longer Useful?

Georgia voters in this reliably Republican district may be preparing to ‘stick it’ to Trump

April 17, 2017

Evan Halper
Tribune Washington Bureau
Displayed with permission from Tribune Content Agency

MARIETTA, Ga. — This orderly swath of Atlanta suburbs was never supposed to worry Republicans. They've had a lock on the congressional seat since 1979, with a string of rock-ribbed conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and Tom Price.

Then Donald Trump happened.

Now the GOP is in an unexpected scramble to prevent a politically inexperienced millennial Democrat — unknown months ago — from turning their longtime stronghold blue.

Party officials are filled with angst ahead of Tuesday's special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District to replace Price, who vacated the seat to become Trump's Health and Human Services secretary.

After a scare for Republicans in Kansas last week, when a congressional race got uncomfortably close in a district Trump had dominated in the presidential election, the Georgia fight teeters on becoming a full-blown crisis for a party that should be relishing its recent success and consolidating power. A Democratic win here, unthinkable weeks ago, is now a very real possibility. It would be another indication that Democrats are not the only party hobbled by a national identity crisis in the age of Trump.

"Nothing like this has ever happened before in Georgia," Charles S. Bullock III, a University of Georgia political science professor, said of the expensive free-for-all the race has become.

With Democratic donors nationwide rallying around 30-year-old Jon Ossoff, the surprise front-runner has raised a staggering $8.3 million, dwarfing contributions to all 11 of his Republican rivals combined.

For Democrats, the allure of the district stems from voter uneasiness about Trump, who barely won here in November. By contrast, Mitt Romney, the last GOP nominee, crushed Barack Obama by double digits.

Ossoff is polling at about 40 percent, far beyond any of his contenders in the open primary. That's largely because the GOP candidates are splitting the vote.

But Ossoff is now within striking distance of winning the majority required to avoid a runoff in June, which may be his best hope, since many believe a two-candidate runoff would favor the Republican.

"Two or three months ago, nobody had a clue who this guy was," Bullock said.

As they lined up at polls last week for early voting, several residents made clear they were viewing the race as a referendum on Trump.

"The Trump administration is scary," said Jeffrey Chou, a 25 year old graduate student and Ossoff supporter voting for the first time. "I don't like what they are doing. I felt it was important to come out and send a message that we don't support it."

He was joined in line by a 60-year-old nurse who voted for Price in the past but said all the "insanity" at the White House had driven her to vote Democratic this time. Arriving soon after was a 38-year-old patent agent trainee who hadn't volunteered for a political campaign since college but said Trump's behavior pushed her to canvass for Ossoff. A physician in his 60s who said he had worked with Price professionally and voted for him declared he would cast a ballot for Ossoff to "stick it in the eyes of Trump."

"You are seeing the liberals demonstrating their total disgust for Donald Trump," said Max Wagerman, 52, a GOP loyalist who boasted of living in the same subdivision as Gingrich. "They've got all the juice now. They have the organization. Republicans here are just too lazy, and the liberals are going to get this one."
With momentum on his side, Ossoff is now everywhere: omnipresent in TV ads, his face plastered on lawn signs and car bumper stickers, talked up by the thousands of volunteers — many from out of state — knocking on doors and calling voters.

Desire by Democrats to land an electoral blow against Trump is so intense that the party is showing uncharacteristic discipline in a messy race with 18 candidates. It quickly rallied behind Ossoff, with liberal bloggers setting in motion a Bernie Sanders-style fundraising operation that has resulted in a frenzy of small-dollar donations, the largest number of which are coming not from Georgia but California.

Ossoff is no Bernie Sanders. He is a cautious, scripted moderate who spends much less time on the campaign trail whipping up rage against Trump than carefully calculating remarks that avoid offending the area's upscale suburban electorate.

"Folks here are excited now for fresh leadership presenting a substantive message about local economic development and talking about core values," he said at his Marietta campaign office, just before a crowded candidate forum where Ossoff was the only one who ended some of his answers without using the full minute allotted. "They are tired of partisan politics."

But partisan politics is what they are getting. First, there is his deluge of outside cash. Republican groups have countered by pouring millions of dollars into ads attacking Ossoff as a political neophyte aligned with rioting protesters. One even made ominous insinuations about Ossoff's past work as a filmmaker for cable channel Al-Jazeera.

Republicans are focusing their attacks on one another. They are slugging it out for what they hope will be a spot on the runoff ballot against Ossoff. The intensity of their attacks lay bare how much Trump has complicated Republican politics.

Establishment favorite Karen Handel, the former Georgia secretary of state, has watched her strong lead diminish amid an assault from the conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth and others who question her ideological purity. One ad depicts her as a stumbling elephant in pearls; others accuse the fiscal conservative of recklessly spending tax dollars.

"All you need to know about this district is Mitt Romney won it by 22 points and Trump won it by 1 { points," said GOP pollster Whit Ayres, who is working as a consultant for Handel. "This defines the kind of upscale suburban district where Trump struggled. Karen is the type of person this district has tended to support."

One Trump loyalist who threatens to overtake her is Bob Gray, a telecom executive backed by the Club for Growth. He dismissed as hype the chatter that the local electorate is so uneasy with Trump that it could go blue. "I don't think it's in the cards," Gray said. "This is a conservative seat. Let's be real: Newt Gingrich, Tom Price. The district hasn't changed that much."

Gray stars in his own not-so-subtle TV ad wearing a pair of vibrant camouflage waders and fueling a giant motorized pump, which he then uses to "drain the swamp" — a nod to Trump's catchphrase.


Many of the leading candidates chafed when asked whether the race had become a referendum on Trump.

Said Judson Hill, an anti-tax advocate and GOP candidate: "Donald Trump is not on the ballot here."

But as residents stood in line a few miles away to cast ballots in early voting, it was undeniable that Trump was on their minds.

Monday Toon Roundup

Trump















Spicer




Bannon



Billo




Corporations



English





Korea











Turkey




Syria



I/P

 

Putin Addressing G-A-S Attack Using Logic & Facts

MIT Professor Debunks Media & White House & On S-Y-R-I-A G-A-S Attack

Geraldo Nuts In Pants Watching Video Of M-O-A-B

In Travis County custody case, jury will search for real Alex Jones

Highlights

Alex Jones and his ex-wife, Kelly, will be locked in a child custody trial the next two weeks in Austin.

Alex Jones’ lawyers will make the case that their client should not be judged by his on-air persona.

Lawyers for Kelly Jones will maintain that Jones’ public outbursts suggest he is not a fit parent.

By JONATHAN TILOVE  

At a recent pretrial hearing, attorney Randall Wilhite told state District Judge Orlinda Naranjo that using his client Alex Jones’ on-air Infowars persona to evaluate Alex Jones as a father would be like judging Jack Nicholson in a custody dispute based on his performance as the Joker in “Batman.”

“He’s playing a character,” Wilhite said of Jones. “He is a performance artist.”

But in emotional testimony at the hearing, Kelly Jones, who is seeking to gain sole or joint custody of her three children with Alex Jones, portrayed the volcanic public figure as the real Alex Jones.

“He’s not a stable person,” she said of the man with whom her 14 year old son and 9 and 12 year old daughters have lived since her 2015 divorce. “He says he wants to break Alec Baldwin’s neck. He wants J-Lo to get raped.

“I’m concerned that he is engaged in felonious behavior, threatening a member of Congress,” she said, referring to his recent comments about California Democrat Adam Schiff. “He broadcasts from home. The children are there, watching him broadcast.”

Beginning Monday, a jury will be selected at the Travis County Courthouse that in the next two weeks will be asked to sort out whether there is a difference between the public and private Alex Jones, and whether, when it comes to his fitness as a parent, it matters.

For Naranjo, who has been the presiding judge of the 419th District Court since January 2006, it is about keeping her eyes, and the jury’s eyes, on the children.

“This case is not about Infowars, and I don’t want it to be about Infowars,” Naranjo told the top-shelf legal talent enlisted in Jones v. Jones at the last pretrial hearing Wednesday. “I am in control of this court, not your clients.”

But for Alex Jones, at the peak of his power and influence, what emerges from the art deco courthouse on Guadalupe Street might shape whether he comes to be seen by his faithful as more prophet or showman.

Infowars as evidence
 
Alex Jones is an Austin original who, 21 years after he got his own show on Austin public access television, has become an unlikely popular and political force in the Donald Trump era, an ingenious and indefatigable conjurer of conspiracy theories about sinister global elites seeking to enslave the masses, who found, in Trump, a hero open to his shadowy narratives.

“Alex Jones and his Infowars’ umbrella of radio shows, YouTube and Facebook broadcasts, Internet website and tweets turned out to be Trump’s secret weapon,” Roger Stone, probably Trump’s oldest and closest political confidant, wrote in his book “The Making of the President 2016.” “His fiery words have struck a chord in the nation and he speaks for millions. In fact, more people follow Alex than watch Fox News or CNN.”

In addition to broadcasting his radio show on some 150 stations, Infowars.com had 7.6 million global unique visitors between March 16 and April 14 according to Quantcast, which measures web audiences and ranked Infowars.com 387th among all U.S. websites, not far behind Texas.gov, MLB.com and PBS.org.

The Alex Jones YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers and more than 1.2 billion video views.

But Jones’ most important listener is the president of the United States.

During the campaign and into his presidency, many of Trump’s most defining themes and questionable assertions either originated with or were popularized by Infowars: Hillary Clinton for prison. Hillary Clinton is gravely ill. Bill Clinton is a rapist. President Barack Obama founded ISIS. The election is rigged. Millions of immigrants voted illegally. The news media covers up terrorist attacks. The “fake news media … is the enemy of the people.” Obama spied on Trump.

In December 2015, thanks to Stone, Trump appeared via Skype on Jones’ show.

“Your reputation is amazing,” Trump told Jones. “I will not let you down.”

Since Trump became president, Jones has purported on air to be in regular direct telephone contact with the president, apologizing for not always being able to answer the phone when the president calls. Last week, Jones said that the president had invited him to Mar-a-Lago but that he had to beg off because of family obligations.

Recently, Jones faulted Trump for falling for the “false flag” that it was the Syrian government, and not its enemies, that deployed chemical weapons against civilians, but he says he understands the political expedience involved and remains hopeful that Trump will reclaim the anti-globalist mantle.


Naranjo, meanwhile, said she had never seen or heard Jones on Infowars until Wednesday’s hearing, when Kelly Jones’ legal team started previewing Infowars videos it would like to play for the jury.

The first was a clip from a July 2015 broadcast in which Jones had his son, then 12, on to play the latest of some 15 or 20 videos he had made with the help of members of the Infowars team who, Jones said, had “taken him under their wing” during summer days spent at the South Austin studio between stints at tennis and Christian camps.

“He is undoubtedly cut out for this, and I intend for him to eclipse what I’ve done. He’s a way greater person than I was at 12,” said Jones, turning to his son. “I love you so much, and I didn’t mean to get you up here, sweetheart, and tell people how much I love you, but you’re so handsome, and you’re a good little knight who’s going to grow up, I know, to be a great fighter against the enemy.”

“So far this looks like good stuff,” Wilhite said. Naranjo OK’d it for viewing by the jury.

But Bobby Newman, the attorney for Kelly Jones guiding the court through the Infowars clips, was laying the groundwork for the argument that there is no separation between Alex Jones, father, and Alex Jones, Infowarrior.

“This is the world he has planned for his kids,” said Newman, quoting Alex Jones at a recent hearing insisting that what he says on the air is what he believes.

Next up was a video of a recent conversation between Jones and Stone on Infowars that quickly escalated into an expletive-studded, gay-bashing rant by Jones directed at Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee investigation of Trump’s Russia ties, in which, Schiff has suggested, Stone and Jones might be entangled.

Jones’ rant ends: “You got that, you goddamn son of a bitch? Fill your hand,” echoing John Wayne’s warning in True Grit” to a man he’s about to shoot and kill.

“This is nothing but a response to a congressman who called him a Russian spy,” said David Minton, another lawyer representing Alex Jones.

“What possible relevance does that have?” Minton asked. “They want to throw the stench in the jury box and never get the stench out. It has nothing to do with parenting.”

A few days after his Schiff riff, Jones characterized it on-air as “clearly tongue-in-cheek and basically art performance, as I do in my rants, which I admit I do, as a form of art.”

“When I say, ‘I’m going to kick your ass,’ it’s the Infowar,” Jones said. “I say every day we’re going to destroy you with the truth.”

Jones’ rhetoric is perpetually at a pugilistic fever pitch.

Back in March, after Baldwin, playing Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” said he got his information on aliens from Alex Jones, Jones challenged Baldwin to a million-dollar charity bout — “I’ll get in the ring with you, and I will break your jaw, I will knock your teeth out, I will break your nose, and I will break your neck.”

When, just after the election, Jennifer Lopez lamented about Trump at the Grammys, Jones responded that Trump “doesn’t want to bring people in from Somalia where women are sold on slave blocks. Why don’t you go to Somalia for five minutes, lady; you’ll be gang-raped so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

Naranjo said she wouldn’t allow the jury to hear the Schiff diatribe, but she allowed two other clips, including one showing Alex Jones smoking marijuana in California, where it is legal. Naranjo didn’t review the Baldwin and Lopez clips, and it’s not clear whether Kelly Jones’ attorneys will seek to include them in the trial.

Big legal bills 
 
Every record in the Jones case has been under seal since the divorce proceeding was initiated in Hays County in 2013. In January, the court denied Kelly Jones’ motion to unseal the record, granting a motion by Alex Jones — or simply A.J., as he is known in all the court filings — to keep them sealed.

For good measure, Naranjo said last week she was placing a gag order on all the litigants.

At the previous pretrial hearing, on April 7, Naranjo ruled against Kelly Jones and her lawyers on a couple of key motions.

Earlier this year, her lawyers had moved to add to the trial a $7 million emotional distress tort claim against Alex Jones.

His lawyers said it was too late to prepare a defense against a new claim with 172 separate allegations. Naranjo agreed and promised to expedite a second trail on the tort claim.

“They’d like to drag it out for two years, and she’ll be crushed and she’ll be bankrupt,” said Robert Hoffman, the Houston attorney who is Kelly Jones’ lead counsel, in arguing for rolling the tort claim into the trial.

“She already is, for all practical purposes,” said Hoffman, who said she owed his firm $200,000, about all she had in the bank.

Her attorneys also filed a motion to require Alex Jones to help pay her interim legal fees to better enable her to rescue her children from his clutches.

“I don’t think there’s another case in Travis County with three children whose welfare hangs in the balance like this, except maybe a (Child Protective Services) case,” Hoffman said.

“This is a wonderful mother who has had her kids turned against her,” Hoffman said.

Wilhite said the crux of Kelly Jones’ problem is that she has gone through one set of lawyers after another and some $3.5 million since her divorce settlement, much of it pursuing fruitless motion after motion that actually cost her access to her children each step of the way.

And she already receives $43,000 a month from her ex-husband.

Naranjo rejected the motion that Alex Jones should have to contribute more, noting that the average Travis County juror won’t understand why Kelly Jones’ monthly stipend is not enough to cover her legal bills.

“It is not within the realm of experience of their lives,” Naranjo said.

”They are not going to believe the amount of money that has been spent on this,” the judge said.

“This case is not about Infowars,” Naranjo said. “But, for some reason, this family has done very well. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be five lawyers on one side of the table and three over here, because of the business this family is in.”

Meanwhile, Alex Jones has remarried, and his new wife is expecting a child, who, his lawyers said, might arrive during the trial.

Trump is starting to show his true colors on why he ran for President.

By shockey80

From the very beginning many of us saw right through this SOB. Trump made a big pivot last week. Trump is not extremely smart , but he is sly as a fox.

Trump pushed Bannon to the side. Why? He got what he wanted from him. Bannon can't help trump with his main goal. To enrich himself and people like him. He wants giant tax cuts for the rich and he wants to deregulate business. Deregulate the banks, the real estate market. Trump wants to build towers and resorts with his name on it around the world. I don't think trump will get rid of Bannon completely, because he made need him again to keep their dumb ass base happy.

Goldman Sachs is now in the Whitehouse helping trump. Trump made his move. He is now doing what he always wanted to do. They are going to rig the game. Legalized corruption. Trickle down. Screw the working man.

Trump never cared about the working man. He never cared about healthcare. Sometimes when trump lies the truth slips out. He told us why he wanted to pass a so called healthcare bill. He said it would make tax reform easier. He wants to save money by throwing millions of Americans off of medicaid and by taking away their Obamacare.

Trump has already started to deregulate everything he can by executive order. There is a lot more to come.

Trump is a very evil person. He uses people to get what he wants and then tosses them away. He turns on people if he feels they are not completely loyal. He is driven by greed. He ran for president to enrich himself. He is now putting in a system that will help him do just that.

There is a reason trump did not show his taxes. Trump must of took a big hit in 2008 when the real estate market crashed. He must of hated Obama for putting in tough regulations that made it harder for corrupt people like trump to do business. There may be another reason trump ran for president. Revenge. Narcissists blame people for there failures.

So, while everyone is watching trump drop bombs, having fake meetings with labor, listening to his tweets. He and his Goldman Sachs buddies are rigging the game and they are going to bleed us dry.

Ex-MI6 Chief: Trump Borrowed Money from Russia

The former head of MI6 has said Donald Trump borrowed money from Russia for his business during the 2008 financial crisis.

Richard Dearlove told Prospect Magazine that "what lingers for Trump may be what deals - on what terms - he did after the financial crisis of 2008 to borrow Russian money" when other banks and lenders would not risk the money, given Trump's history of bankruptcy.

Dearlove alleged the money was used by Trump to prop up his real estate empire, which was hit hard by the financial crisis.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/richard-dearlove-mi6-trump-russia-money-2008-financial-crisis-us-election-a7684341.html

Democrats Abandon Winnable Seat In Kansas

The Jimmy Dore Show is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture featuring Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster.

With over 5 million downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the country. It is part of the Young Turks Network-- the largest online news show in the world.

Social Security safe? Here's the double-talking regime's plan to gut it

By Meteor Blades

 

Heather Digby Parton at Salon writes—Donald Trump is coming for your Social Security: How the GOP plans a bait and switch to cut taxes — and pensions:

It seems like a lifetime ago that Republican National Committee chief Reince Priebus brokered a meeting between the unexpected presidential nominee Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan to try iron out their differences. But it was just a little less than a year ago in a world that seems more and more distant by the minute. They spoke of many things, with Ryan desperately trying to convince Trump that he needed to adopt the GOP agenda and Trump telling him he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Bloomberg reported one particular exchange in the meeting that stuck in my mind:

According to a source in the room, Trump criticized Ryan’s proposed entitlement cuts as unfair and politically foolish. “From a moral standpoint, I believe in it,” Trump told Ryan. “But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, ‘We’re going to cut your Social Security’ and the Democrat is saying, ‘We’re going to keep it and give you more.’”

Trump may not have realized it, but Republicans have never won the presidency by explicitly saying they were going to make cuts to Social Security. They have always used euphemisms, saying they were going to “privatize it” or promising to “save it” from itself. The reason Democrats continually win the day (if not the office they are vying for) is because people don’t trust Republican double-talk on the subject and for good reason. They have been trying to destroy Social Security since it was enacted.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote in “The Coming of the New Deal” that President Franklin Roosevelt knew that creating a dedicated funding stream gave workers the “legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions.” He said, “With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.” Schlesinger also noted that Republicans and business leaders at the time were appalled, with one warning that the program would “undermine our national life by destroying initiative, discouraging thrift, and stifling individual responsibility.”

Donald Trump’s comment in that meeting last year that he agreed with Ryan on a “moral basis” indicated that he was on the same page as those earlier plutocrats even if he sings a different tune in public. [...]

Comedian Charlie Murphy dead at 57 after leukemia battle

Charlie Murphy, Chappelle Show star and older brother of Eddie Murphy, has died, publicist Domenick Nati told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 57.

Murphy died from leukemia on Wednesday, Nati said.

Murphy became a household name through Dave Chappelle's Comedy Central skit show thanks to his amazing stories of interactions with other celebrities during the height of his brother's fame in the 1980's. The most popular short turned into a skit about Rick James.



http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/comedian-charlie-murphy-dies-at-57/ar-BBzLJum

Another insane goddamn day

By TheFerret

Well folks, while not quite up to standards of some of the more chaotic trips around the sun since the Marmalade Shartcannon took office, I hope everyone invested in fertilizer manufacturers, because today was another Bat Guano Nutty Day.

We all woke up and immediately checked in on that deleted scene from V FOR VENDETTA where the guy gets bloodied in the process of being dragged off an airplane by law enforcement for refusing to give up his seat when the airline wanted to give it to an employee on an overbooked flight after he'd already boarded.

Wait, what? That was real life? You're shitting me.

Anyhow, we all watched in awe as the brass at United took the, shall we say "novel" approach of blaming the dude they had the cops beat the shit out of for the ass-kicking they ordered to be administered to him.

In the background, maybe you saw some of the pieces that rounded up the responses to a PRIVATE FUCKING CORPORATION ENLISTING TAXPAYER FUNDED LAW ENFORCEMENT TO BEAT THE FUCK OUT A PRIVATE CITIZEN BECAUSE THEY APPARENTLY RESERVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO TAKE BACK THE SEAT YOU PAID FOR AT ANY POINT PROBABLY UP TO AND INCLUDING THIRTY THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE ROCKIES HOW THE FUCK DID WE LET IT COME TO THIS from supporters of the man we all pay to golf and periodically sign executive orders, and, surprise surprise, THEY TOOK THE AIRLINE'S SIDE. We didn't know just how much hunger there was in this country for a strong, sadistic, authoritarian state, did we? In related news, I'm launching a kickstarter to fund a series of dominatrix parlors in the Rust Belt. HILLBILLY ELEGY PART TWO, BITCHES.

Of course the same little Shartkins are apparently flocking to Bill O'Reilly's show, actually BOOSTING his ratings in the midst of the revelations that Fox has settled a number of sexual harassment suits against an old man who very clearly has to pay for sex. I tell you, folks, the Deplorable economy offers a number of unique opportunities. It's like "Well, I'm looking for someone to redo the shingles on my roof, but I'm hoping to hire somebody reprehensible. Do you have any multiple rapists on staff?"

And we all had a laugh that the congressman who is famous for screaming YOU LIE at President Obama going home to a town hall where a bunch of his constituents screamed YOU LIE at him, which has a fun sense of comeuppance to it. This congressman likely has a name, but I don't give a flying fuck what it is.

We learned that the Shart may have bombed Syria (or at least some useless gravel in Syria, since the Syrian military launched strikes from the base we bombed less than 24 hours after we hit it, can't these people even blow up a stationary target without fucking it up?) because his daughter told him to, which is a totally normal thing that happens in all developed countries with strong constitutional democracies. OR IS IT? Maybe Ivanka will get equally upset at all the children who were killed in the recent Mosul air strike or the botched Yemen raid, and Dorito Mussolini will order a strike on the perpetrators, without realizing exactly what he's done until the sandtrap on the 8th hole at Marmalago gets an unplanned expansion.

The President's Loyal Huntin' Dawg Beauregard, our Yokel General, was all over the news again today. A couple of days back, he made it clear that he didn't want our Justice Department focusin' on no civil rights, and today he ordered them to instead focus all available energies on punishing brown-skinned people for the high crime of not being white. Much was made of how his prepared remarks used the word "filth" to describe his preferred targets, but how he declined to actually call them "filth" in the delivering of the speech. Because that's the state of the immigration debate in American today, right? Whether or not we call our fellow human beings "filth." Anyhow, Sessions got a good sturdy taint punt today when a federal judge struck down Texas' super-racist voter ID law just for being ridiculously super-racist. Because we still have to argue about poll taxes. In the United States of America. In the 21st century. Sleep tight. By the end of the day, Ol' Beauregard was assurin' the press that the cawngruss would mos' happily make Americuhns pay for that big 'ol border wall, because...well, because there's no reading test to run for the Senate in Alabama, I guess. After giving his last interview, Sessions returned to chewin' on an old shoe by the fireplace.

Rex Tillerson, who is our Secretary of State because he's a rich guy who...(shit, man, I need Mad Libs to finish that sentence because I've never found one halfway compelling reason this Oil Stooge was made our top diplomat) made some headlines by wondering aloud "Why should U.S. taxpayers be interested in Ukraine?" I'll tell ya, Rex, there are a lot of reasons American taxpayers don't want to see the world on fire, at the very least we should understand that we can't sell PAUL BLART: MALL COP DVDs to residents of a war-torn wasteland. (This was probably the moment the day tipped officially into madness for me. Just one year ago, a mind-bogglingly asinine statement like this from our chief diplomat would've been headline news, a major international scandal. Today, you probably didn't even notice it. It was on page twelve. You did the crossword, read your Garfield, and moved on.)

And then ALONG CAME SPICEY. Sean Spicer rode into the White House Press Room on a steam shovel and declared "today I will dig myself into the deepest hole in human history, and before the sun sets not even Jules Verne will be able to find me," and Sweet Christ did he deliver. The lead spokesman for the President of the greatest nation on Earth stood in front of the assembled media of the world and engaged in some light Holocaust denial ON FUCKING PASSOVER and for a minute we were all like "Of course he did, this is just what life is like now," but after a second we realized this was crazy shit even by our ever-plummeting standards. And poor Spicey squirmed and shifted, issuing clarifications that got edited every eleven seconds (no, I mean Hitler didn't kill his own people, he just killed Jews, NO WAIT, I mean he didn't gas innocent people NO WAIT I mean he gassed innocent people he just didn't drop gas on them, he invited them to HOLOCAUST CENTERS and we all have to thank him for introducing "Holocaust Center" to the culture lexicon, right?). And we all laughed until he issued an apology which is what any normal human being would do immediately, without hesitation, if they FUCKING DENIED THE HOLOCAUST ON PASSOVER.

Just when the madness was starting to take over, right when you're thinking about how you'd look with half a pound of pickled beets stapled to your face, WaPo breaks the story that the FBI obtained a FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page, a foreign policy advisor to Toupee Fiasco's (That one's not mine, but it's good, isn't it?) campaign. And then you noticed that WAIT HOLD ON WHAT DID YOU FUCKING SAY? A lot of wacky terms have been thrown around over the last few months, like "emoluments" and "Defending World Champion Chicago Cubs," but this is what the poet would call a Big Fucking Deal. You have to demonstrate to a FISA court that there is PROBABLE FUCKING CAUSE to believe that a dude is acting as a FUCKING AGENT OF A FOREIGN FUCKING POWER to get one of these things. And Carter Page, he of the Steele Dossier, he who was cultivated as an unwitting asset by Russian intelligence not so long ago, passed the test. Drip drip.

Before you even finished that article, you got your CNN push notification (God bless this era in which our news outlets compete to scoop one another with stories that undermine the Clowncar Full of Assholes that governs us) for the story showing that Devin "Pigfucker" Nunes essentially made his whole bullshit story up, between the fucking of various pigs. The CNN story featured a few quotes from Sebastian Gorka, which is surprising since his face melted off during the climax of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

By the end of the day, Bill O'Reilly announced that he was going on a vacation for a spell, which was totally planned all along and has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that so many advertisers have ditched him that he has to shorten his show and broadcast ads from companies that convert your MP3 files into 8-track tapes and offer to take care of your pets after you've been raptured. Anyway, Bill O'Reilly's gonna go somewhere quiet and focus on just sexually harassing Bill O'Reilly for awhile, know what I mean?

And then SCROTUS made some surprisingly negative comments about Steve Bannon in an interview, downplaying his role in the campaign and suggesting he might not be around much longer. My Shart House sources tell me that upon hearing this news, Bannon shrieked and expelled ink on several aides through previously-undisclosed orifices.

Meanwhile there was a special election in Kansas' Fourth Congressional District to fill the seat vacated by Mike Pompeo, who left it to join the Dick Tracy rogue's gallery known as our President's cabinet. Despite being one of the safest GOP seats in the country, the Democratic candidate threatened to pull off an upset. How red is this district? Before Pompeo won the seat, Kansas' Fourth was represented for seven terms by a VHS copy of BEDTIME FOR BONZO (look it up). Anyhow, the republican won, but by a shockingly low margin, and folks, if a Berniecrat can get within 8 of getting a house seat in Wichita, KS, where it's illegal to make eye contact with a member of the opposite sex without a permission slip signed by at least 9 apostles, then we need to pour money into the upcoming special elections in Montana and Georgia, and the midterms are gonna be Little Bighorn 2.0.

There's more. There's really more. They're still engaged in a dick-measuring contest with North Korea, and trying to pass some version of their Let's All Murder the Poor, excuse me "Health Care" bill, and they're even fucking up the Easter Egg Roll (google it, seriously) but I am now tired, you're on your own.

In the end...shit be cray, folks. Shit be cray.

This post was brought to you by Big Earl's Holocaust Center and Water Park! Come on down to Big Earl's for all your Holocaust needs! Ten dollars off with specially marked Pepsi cans.

Chris Christie is most unpopular governor in US

By Mallory Shelbourne

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is the most unpopular governor in the U.S., a new poll finds.

71 percent of New Jersey votes disapprove of Christie while just 25 percent approve, according to the Morning Consult poll released Tuesday.

Christie edged out Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) as the nation's least popular. Brownback had a 66 percent disapproval to 27 percent approval, the poll found.

Christie's numbers decreased after he dropped out of last year's GOP presidential primary and became a surrogate for then-candidate Donald Trump, the poll said.

On the flip side, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) was rated the most popular governor, with 75 percent approval to 17 percent disapproval. Following Baker on the list were Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R).

Morning Consult surveyed 85,000 registered voters across the country from January 2017 through March 2017. The poll asked voters about the job performance of their local politicians, including the governor, two senators, and representative.

The results are emblematic of Christie's poor numbers in the last year.

A December poll found that 71 percent of New Jerseyans thought Christie should be a defendant in the "Bridgegate" scandal that has plagued his governorship. Two of the governor's aides were sentenced last month for arranging the 2013 lane closure on the George Washington Bridge as political payback for a New Jersey mayor who didn't endorse Christie in his re-election bid.

Christie's approval rating has continued to drop in various polls over the last year, reaching record lows.

Angela Rye pounds Jeffrey Lord with common sense about Trump’s first 100 days

By David Edwards

CNN contributor Angela Rye on Tuesday pointed out that President Donald Trump had been plagued with “many epic fails” during his first 100 days in office.

During a discussion on CNN, ardent Trump backer Jeffrey Lord asserted that Trump’s critics could no longer suspect Donald Trump’s campaign of colluding with Russia after the president ordered an attack on Syria that reportedly angered Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“So much for the idea that Vladimir Putin was blamed to give Donald Trump the presidency,” Lord quipped. “It is not possible that Vladimir Putin preferred Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.”

Reflecting on the president’s first 100 days in office, Rye argued that the White House had a misguided view of success.

“Wins are determined by how they impact the American people,” she explained, noting the disparity with President Barack Obama, who in his first 100 days signed an equal pay law and a law to create jobs and build infrastructure.

“And then I think you compare that to what I think I would characterize as many epic fails by the Trump administration,” she continued. “The Muslim ban and the various iterations of that. The [border] wall, the fact that he said to taxpayers, ‘Okay, I’m just kidding. Actually, you all will pay for the wall.’ The number of moments where they’ve had to pivot.”

“I think the only real thing where Donald Trump has won… is golfing. He is winning on golfing.

He’s 28 days out of 100 into golfing. And it’s so funny because he was the critic-in-chief about Barack Obama’s golf game.”

CNN host noted that Trump was on track to spend more on travel in his first year in office than Obama had spent during his entire eight years.

“Eh, I don’t think so,” Lord replied dismissively. “Did President Obama donate his first month’s salary to the National Parks Service? I don’t think so. Did he play golf on his own golf course? I don’t think so.”

“Three million dollars per golf trip!” Rye shot back. “Melania staying in New York City — a million dollars a day… I am so surprised that you won’t even agree with me on this point. You’re talking about wins for the American people. I would push back. Climate change is a real thing.”

“You talk about me and my friends, tell your friends that there are icebergs melting, okay! And your guy is dialing back regulations that are harmful, not just to the American people, but globally.”

Watch the video below from CNN, broadcast April 11, 2017.

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Is Trump planning to kill North Korea’s Kim Jong Un?

April 9, 2017

By Suman Varandani
Displayed with permission from International Business Times 

 

President Donald Trump may be considering to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as nuclear threats from the reclusive country continues to be on the rise. According to recent reports, U.S. National Security Council suggested Trump that either assassinating Kim or deploying nuclear weapons in South Korea could help end the potential war in the Korean Peninsula.

One option “is to target and kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other senior leaders in charge of the country’s missiles and nuclear weapons and decision-making,” NBC news reported, quoting multiple top-ranking intelligence and military officials.

Read: North Korea's Kim Jong Un Will Destroy US With A Nuclear Bomb If He Feels Threatened

The report was followed by news that a U.S. aircraft carrier, which was scheduled for a port call in Australia, has moved towards the Korean Peninsula amid growing concerns of a nuclear threat from North Korea.

A U.S. defense official said Saturday that the strike group will provide a show of presence in the region.

Moving the carrier strike group was a "prudent measure to maintain readiness and presence in the Western Pacific," Dave Benham, a spokesman for U.S. Pacific Command, reportedly said. "The number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible, and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability."

North Korea has continued its threat against the U.S. and South Korea despite several warnings from the international community. In March, North Korea carried out two ballistic missile tests. The reclusive country has so far conducted five suspected nuclear tests, including two last year. Analysts believe that a possible sixth nuclear test is being planned by Pyongyang for April 15, which is the 105th birthday of North Korea’s founding president.

On Saturday, Trump and South Korea's acting President Hwang Kyo-Ahn spoke by phone, agreeing in close contact about North Korea and other issues.

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