In this episode of "The Conversation", Jesse Dollemore discusses Joel Osteen and
his bizarre Americanized version of Jesus' Gospel message.
His inaction
in the face of the suffering caused by Hurricane Harvey was bad, but are
there more reasons his actions should be questioned and scrutinized?
As the slow disaster of Harvey continues to roll over southeast Texas
and into Louisiana, bringing record-shattering rainfall over the region,
the Republican Congress is pondering $1 billion in cuts to federal disaster response programs to fulfill Donald Trump's demands for a border wall.
The pending reduction to the Federal Emergency Management
Agency’s disaster relief account is part of a spending bill that the
House is scheduled to consider next week when Congress returns from its
August recess. The $876 million cut, part of the 1,305 page measure’s
homeland security section, pays for roughly half the cost of Trump’s
down payment on a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
It seems sure that GOP leaders will move to reverse the disaster aid
cut next week. The optics are politically bad and there’s only $2.3
billion remaining in disaster coffers.
The proposal, drawn up by the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), also would slash the budget of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, which provides disaster relief after hurricanes,
tornadoes and other natural disasters. The Coast Guard’s $9.1 billion
budget in 2017 would be cut 14 percent to about $7.8 billion, while the
TSA and FEMA budgets would be reduced about 11 percent each to $4.5
billion and $3.6 billion, respectively.
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse Dollemore addresses the reporting from journalists
with Donald Trump which refutes his claims of witnessing the 'horror'
and 'devastation' caused by Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas.
Donald Trump finally made his way to Texas on Tuesday, but instead of
touring the areas that are being ravaged by floods, he stayed completely
dry, didn’t meet with a single victim, and bragged about the size of
the crowd that showed up to hear him speak.
This man is not a leader,
and his callous response to Hurricane Harvey is just another reason why
he shouldn’t be resident. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Mike Pence is on a media blitz to insist the Trump administration will
fund Hurricane Harvey relief. But fully funded disaster relief wasn't
something he supported when he was in Congress.
Mike Pence is on a self-serving blitz of
radio appearances this week, touting the Trump administration’s response
to Hurricane Harvey. That includes promises to have federal funds ready
to go for relief — something he cruelly opposed when he was in
Congress.
Pence had the nerve, during his several radio interviews Monday, to
repeatedly refer to his time in Congress as proof he understands the
importance of passing legislation to provide for disaster relief.
“We’re very confident that the Congress of the United States is going
to be there to provide the resources necessary,” Pence told the host at
Houston’s KHOU. He added that he will work with legislators to “make
sure that the disaster assistance that already some 22,000 Texans have
signed up for is available and is there.”
But when thousands of citizens affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005
needed Pence’s help, he had other priorities. He was instead focused on
bludgeoning those citizens by attaching his extremist political ideology
to disaster relief bills, holding up vital support that was urgently
needed.
Pence said that funding for Katrina relief should be paid for with
cuts to Social Security and Medicare, ideas that the right has
championed for decades, even though they have proved to be unpopular and destructive again and again.
Justifying his cruelty, Pence told
reporters at the time that Katrina relief and the rebuilding of
devastated areas like New Orleans just had to wait, because “it is not
acceptable to take a catastrophe of nature and turn it into a
catastrophe of debt.”
He also said
on the floor of the House, “When a tree falls on your house you tend to
the wounded, you rebuild and then you figure out how you are going to
pay for it.”
Ignoring the dire situation in the region, Pence lectured victims and offered up right-wing talking points.
“Let’s pay for the cost of Katrina by reducing the size and scope of government,” he said.
Pence even said that legislators should have considered delaying a
$40 billion prescription drug benefit for seniors, and use that money
for Katrina relief — instead of approving new funding in Congress.
Those statements, in contrast to his platitudes during Hurricane
Harvey, show how Pence and his fellow Republicans have often instigated
mealy-mouthed concerns about “debt” when they are out of power, only to
disregard them when they are in charge.
Pence is not alone in his hypocrisy. Other Republicans have argued
that disaster relief must be “offset” by cuts to necessary programs.
It’s a despicable way to exploit a national disaster to target programs
Republicans have long sought to dismantle.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is pushing for hurricane relief now, but when Superstorm Sandy hit New York and New Jersey, he voted against
the emergency aid package to help the victims. He complained at the
time that the bill had been loaded up “with billions in new spending”
unrelated to the storm. Like Pence, he also invoked worries about “debt”
to justify his stance.
The claim was also untrue. Cruz recently made the same claim while
defending his Sandy spin, and it was fact checked by the Washington
Post, which awarded him “three Pinocchios” for his ugly lie.
“The bill was largely aimed at dealing with Sandy, along with
relatively minor items to address other or future disasters,” the Post
noted.
Mick Mulvaney, currently serving as Trump’s budget director, was in Congress during Sandy as well, and he was among those who also called for budget cuts to offset storm relief.
It is unlikely he will do so now from inside the White House.
Pence, Cruz, and Mulvaney have been exposed as hypocrites. When they
were out of power, they didn’t think twice about holding up disaster
relief so they could engage in political experimentation for the right.
But now, when the storm is on their watch, all the hand-wringing
about “debt” has evaporated into thin air. As if it was always a cynical
and callous ruse all along.
A
quarter of the members of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council,
whose purview includes national cybersecurity, have resigned. In a
group resignation letter, they cited both specific shortfalls in the
administration’s approach to cybersecurity, and broader concerns that
Trump and his administration have undermined the “moral infrastructure”
of the U.S.
The resignations came Monday and were acknowledged by the White House on Tuesday. Nextgov has recently published the resignation letter that the departing councilors submitted. According to Roll Call, seven members resigned from the 27 member Council.
Several of those resigning were Obama-era appointees, including former U.S. Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil and former Office of Science and Technology Policy Chief of Staff Cristin Dorgelo.
Not surprisingly, then, the issues outlined in the resignation letter
were broad, faulting both Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris
climate accords and his inflammatory statements after the
Charlottesville attacks, some of which came during what was intended to
be an infrastructure-focused event.
“The
moral infrastructure of our Nation is the foundation on which our
physical infrastructure is built,” reads the letter in part. “The
Administration’s actions undermine that foundation.”
But
the resigning advisors also said the Administration was not “adequately
attentive to the pressing national security matters within the NIAC’s
purview, or responsive to sound advice received from experts and
advisors.” The letter also zeroed in on “insufficient attention to the
growing threats to the cybersecurity of the critical systems upon which
all Americans depend,” including election systems.
While he has ordered better security for government networks, Trump has shown little understanding
or seriousness when it comes to the broader issues surrounding, in his
words, “the cyber.” Most notably, he has refused to accept the U.S.
intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia engineered a hacking and
propaganda campaign meant to subvert the 2016 presidential election,
and even floated the idea of forming a cyber-security task force with Russia. The administration also missed a self-imposed deadline for presenting a comprehensive cyber-security plan.
In a report issued just after the mass resignations, the NIAC issued a report saying that dramatic steps were required to prevent a possible "9/11-level cyberattack."
$43 pack of bottled water being sold at a Houston Best Buy (Photo via Ken Klippenstein).
Electronics retailer Best Buy is
apologizing to outraged consumers after a social media storm of
complaints against a Houston area store charging $42 for a case of case
of bottled water.
The image, which raced across the internet, shows $42.96 cases of
Dasani bottled water, next to a “limited supply” of “Smart Water” for
$29.98 a case.
“As a company we are focused on helping, not hurting affected people,” Best Buy told Business Insider. “We’re sorry, and it won’t happen again.”
The company claims the “big mistake” was caused by an employee
multiplying the price of a single bottle. The company says the
price-gouging signage was only up on Friday and that the Cypress, TX
store in question is now closed due to Hurricane Harvey.
One Houston resident sent me a pic of water he
saw being sold for *$42* at a nearby Best Buy. They were kind enough to
offer $29 bottles too pic.twitter.com/8dKz3sJJM1
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse Dollemore addresses the just revealed plans for a
Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia which were previously concealed by Donald
Trump.
Add to the mix, Felix Sater, who has deep mafia ties and
connections to heavy hitters in the Russian government.
When Hurricane Sandy caused
widespread damage in New York and New Jersey in 2012, the Senate
Republican absolutely nobody likes, Sen. Ted Cruz, was one of the
loudest voices opposing federal disaster aid for the region.
Now that he
is asking for disaster relief for his own state in very similar
circumstances, he is naturally being asked about the apparent
contradiction.
(Yeah, yeah, I'll be getting to Arpaio and Russia and whatever other
clusterfucks of doom happen, but first, let's deal with the big damn
Harvey in the room.)
We know that Donald Trump is a man whose ego must be
constantly stroked, like the head of a grumpy baby who won't go to
sleep. Any chance any of his administration has to praise him, praise
him they must or they will face the jowly gaze of disapproval and
probably some kind of stupid-ass threat at a public gathering. They
gotta blow this fuckin' guy so often that they get assigned
government-issue knee pads.
So it was that during Hurricane (now Tropical Storm) Harvey, which is
wrecking the fuck out of the lives of millions of Americans, Trump not
only stayed for the weekend at Camp David, but he teleconferenced into
situation room meetings. That gave us photos of an old man in an ill-fitting suit and stupid, over-sized
"USA" hat, alone at a table, talking over speakers to those who were
genuinely engaged beyond watching footage on TV and tweeting, "Wow,
that's a whole bunch of rain!" or whatever the fuck Trump said.
Today. Trump's most voracious chowder-guzzler, Vice President Mike
Pence, made the rounds of talk radio to show just how enthusiastically
he gargles on Trump's nutsack. Seriously, the amount that Pence praised
Trump for his actions during the hurricane makes it sound like the
president was personally out in his yacht, rescuing people. Instead,
what really is occurring is that Barack Obama's FEMA was, so far, doing a
pretty good job for Texas.
But here's Pence, on a Houston news station,
just licking his lips in anticipation of Trump dick. "Trump
made his decision on Friday night, before landfall, to issue an
emergency declaration with regard to Texas" and later, Louisiana, Pence
said. "Trump and our entire administration have been working
closely with Governor Abbott...Trump assembled the Cabinet
twice... I can tell you that from Friday night forward, Trump
has been continuously engaged in this."
Then, on another station,
Pence fellated on about "the swift response by Trump" and
"Trump’s direction" in the crisis. "I couldn’t be more proud
of Trump’s leadership," Pence asserted, obviously.
We get it. You wanna make sure the spin is that Trump's not fucking it
up like Bush during Katrina. But a real leader would tell his people to
knock that praise shit off, that it's not necessary, and that, frankly,
the effort to save southeast Texas and, likely, parts of Louisiana is
just beginning, and there's still plenty of time to fuck it up. The
nauseating amount of appreciation that his staff and cabinet heap on
Trump is tough to take in non-catastrophic times. Now, it just comes
across as needy and selfish on the part of Trump, putting himself at the
center of the story when, at best, he's a tangential element, someone
who would serve everyone best by staying the fuck out of everyone's way
while grown-ups are working here.
Put him in a corner. Give him the remote. Put a big boy hat on him. And ignore him.
Editorial: Donald Trump said he was going to pardon
former Sheriff Joe Arpaio. But knowing in advance didn't soften the blow
to Latinos - and equal justice.
While America was talking about tearing
down monuments that offend historically oppressed people, Donald Trump
effectively erected yet another one.
His pardon of Joe Arpaio
elevated the disgraced former Maricopa County sheriff to monument
status among the immigration hardliners and nationalists in Trump’s
base.
This erases any doubt about whether Trump meant to empower them after the violence in Charlottesville.
Arpaio is their darling. Arpaio is now back on his pedestal thanks to their resident.
Expecting the pardon doesn't make it better
This insult wasn’t a surprise. Trump told us it was coming during his rally-the-base speech in Phoenix Tuesday.
But that doesn’t lessen the sting or diminish the significance of Trump’s decision to put Arpaio back on the national stage.
Maricopa County had a bellyful of this showboat sheriff and voted him out of office last year.
A
federal court found Arpaio in criminal contempt for ignoring a judge's
order in a long-running case over racial profiling of Latino motorists.
It
was a dose of hard-won justice for a too-flamboyant sheriff who showed
little respect for the Constitution as he made national news as an
immigration hardliner – and let real crimes go uninvestigated.
Donald Trump’s pardon elevates Arpaio once again to the pantheon of those who see institutional racism as something that made America great.
It's a slap for Latinos - and everyone else
Many will characterize it as a slap to the Latino community – and it is.
The
vast majority of Latinos in Arizona are not undocumented, yet they all
fell under heightened scrutiny as Arpaio honed his image.
The
pardon was a slap to those who worked through the judicial system to
make Arpaio accountable, too. It robbed the people hurt by his policies
of justice – even before a judge could mete out a sentence.
The pardon was a sign of pure contempt for every American who believes in justice, human dignity and the rule of law.
This isn't about one group of people. It’s about all Americans.
Arpaio
was a lawman who scorned his duty to treat all people equally. He made
it law enforcement policy to profile people based on their heritage.
It played well in Arizona, then it turned hollow.
Arpaio
was riding high in 2010 when then-Gov. Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill
1070, a draconian law written to intimidate people. Then Arizona came to
its senses. It recognized the dangers of scapegoating – or at least the
economic risks of alienating a growing demographic group.
Institutional racism is clearly Trump's goal
Then
came Trump. He resurrected Arpaio’s rhetoric and made a hit on the
national stage. He used Arpaio as a warm-up act during campaign rallies
and modeled his own speeches on Arpaio’s rambling populist routine.
Many hoped the country would tire of this toxic folly – just as Arizona had.
After
Trump was elected, many hoped he would abandon his habit of appealing
to the worst instincts of disaffected white Americans who have been left
behind by economic changes that had little to do with undocumented
immigration.
A former elections worker in North Carolina was indicted by a grand
jury on Monday for purposefully changing ballot results during the March
2016 primary election.
Richard Robert Rawling, 59, of Cary, was charged with felony counts
of failing his duties and obstruction of justice after allegedly skewing
the vote tallies to help elect Donald Trump and other conservative
candidates.
Rawling allegedly ordered subordinates to run provisional ballots
through tabulators more than the correct number of times, and then made
manual changes so that the results of the provisional canvass would
match the tally of total ballots.
Elections board officials found the smoking gun during an audit of primary results in April.
According to the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement,
Rawling’s actions were a desperate attempt to hide his tampering with
results. Rawling resigned less than a month after the primary results
were tallied.
“The State Board’s top priority is ensuring the integrity of
elections so voters have confidence in the process,” the North Carolina
State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement said in its remarks to
the media.
An arm of the White House’s anti-drug office has asked Massachusetts and
several other states where medical marijuana is legal to turn over
information about registered patients, triggering a debate over privacy
rights and whether state officials should cooperate with a federal
administration that appears hostile to the drug.
Donald Trump wants to build a wall, Donald Trump is threatening to not
raise the debt ceiling. Both of these things are a disaster. Jeff
Waldorf breaks it down.
Donald Trump committed an impeachable offense with his late Friday pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, according to a prominent Harvard Law Professor.
“This is the crime that Trump is suggesting he might pardon: willful
defiance of a federal judge’s lawful order to enforce the Constitution,”
explained
Prof. Noah Feldman. “Such a pardon would reflect outright contempt for
the judiciary, which convicted Arpaio for his resistance to its
authority.
Trump has questioned judges’ motives and decisions, but this
would be a further, more radical step in his attack on the independent
constitutional authority of Article III judges.”
“An Arpaio pardon would express presidential contempt for the
Constitution,” Prof. Feldman continued. “From this analysis it follows
directly that pardoning Arpaio would be a wrongful act under the
Constitution.”
Professor Feldman worried of a “a crisis in enforcement of the rule
of law” if Republican congressional leaders refused to hold Trump to
account.
“The Constitution isn’t perfect. It offers only one remedy for a
president who abuses the pardon power to break the system itself. That
remedy is impeachment,” Prof. Feldman concluded. “James Madison noted at
the Virginia ratifying convention that abuse of the pardon power could
be grounds for impeachment. He was correct then — and it’s still true
now.”
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse Dollemore addresses the mass resignations of many
CEO's who were members of Donald Trump's individual Economic Advisory
Councils. He also calls on all other personnel, working in an agenda
support capacity, to resign and choose country over hate.
Social media users proudly confess to dumping Ivanka Trump fashion items
at Goodwill - many with the tags STILL ON - as one staff member reveals
huge surge in donated items from her brand.
According to a report by The Washington Post, Donald Trump has passed
the 1,000 lie milestone since being sworn in as President. Many of his
lies have been repeated so often that a majority of his supporters
actually believe them to be true, like Trump actually winning the
popular vote. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
IF TRUMP'S MOUTH IS MOVING, A LIE IS SPILLING OUT, IF HIS HAND IS
MOVING, THE SATANIC 666 HAND GESTURE IS SHOWING YOU WHO HE WORSHIPS.
Yeah, I could rant about how the media and its loyal zombie followers
(I’m looking at you, Fox) are dividing us up. I could go on and on about
those deplorable Nazi-wannabes we saw in Charlottesville. But I feel I
would just be adding fuel to the gigantic flaming shit storm that is
America in 2017. No, I’m focusing on the ugly head of the Republican
monster that’s been butt fucking us for the past 26 months (since it
announced it was running). The creature is most recently responsible for
giving those same hateful ideologies national attention.
On Tuesday night, the creature slithered on stage at the Phoenix
Convention Center. It puffed its saggy orange chest out and smiled,
knowing that the hordes of brainless morons were packed inside to see it
perform. It lifted one of its tiny claws off the podium, opened its
mouth, and began to spew bile all over the crowd. The loyal followers
soaked up the bile and cheered the creature on. “I want more!” cried an
old man with a red hat. “Soak me in your juices!” yelled the obese woman
next to him. The creature gave them what they wanted. For 77 minutes,
it threw up uncontrollably while the crowd licked the puke off the
floor.
This horrific display of ignorance is what we’ve come to accept from the
creature that calls itself resident and rhymes with "dump." This is
just another distraction that this administration is creating. They’re
putting up roadblock after roadblock trying to deter us from
distinguishing reality from fiction. Even the kind and reasonable among
us can get sidetracked. Whether it’s breaking news, an angry tirade, or a
tweet, Americans are cruelly inundated with the media’s coverage of
this administration. We find ourselves being enraged at one thing, and
then the next day comes and something else happens. We haven’t even
gotten over what happened in the first place, because we're pissed about
something new. These distractions are building up, creating a seemingly
impenetrable layer of bullshit.
One core issue here is the creature’s ties to Russia. Robert Mueller’s
special counsel is reportedly making progress, like when they raided
former campaign manager and walking cadaver Paul Manafort’s home.
Unfortunately, all the distractions created by the orange creature drown
out any minimal good news. The attacks on the media the creature keeps
shouting are focused on the wrong thing. The mainstream media
concentrates on the bullshit show at the White House to the exclusion of
so much else going on because they know it will bring up ratings. You
wanna say how the media is bad? That's how it's bad right now.
Which gets us back to Mueller. Even though it’s fake news, The New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz made me laugh with his piece titled, “Millions Willing to Work for Mueller for Free If That Would Speed Things Up.” But it gives me an idea for an offer:
Mr. Mueller, I’ve been looking for a fall internship and I have a
psychotic obsession with ending this grotesque creature’s
administration. My legal skills are nonexistent, but I can write one
hell of an email. I’ll even clean up your office. Please, let me send
you my resume. I’ll do anything to help hurry things up and end this
clusterfuck of a residency.
Erik Prince sends mercenaries around the world to kill people on your
tax dollar. Now he’s potentially involved in an international scandal
involving Trump and Russia. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks
it down.
"Though
Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team,
he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking
Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant,
according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.
Prince
was an avid supporter of Trump. After the Republican convention, he
contributed $250,000 to Trump’s campaign, the national party and a
pro-Trump super PAC led by GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, records show.
He has ties to people in Trump’s circle, including Stephen K. Bannon,
now serving as the president’s chief strategist and senior counselor.
Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos serves as education secretary in the Trump
administration. And Prince was seen in the Trump transition offices in
New York in December.
U.S. officials said the FBI has been
scrutinizing the Seychelles meeting as part of a broader probe of
Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged contacts
between associates of Putin and Trump. The FBI declined to comment.”
How bad of a businessman is Donald Trump? Two experts, and one person
impacted by Trump’s business deals, discuss his record.
Marvin Roffman,
an analyst, took Trump to court after getting fired for telling the Wall
Street Journal that Trump’s plan for the Taj Mahal was financially
irresponsible. Trump settled the case and Roffman won financial
compensation.
Prudence Gourguechon, past president of the American
Psychoanalytic Association, argues that Trump views his business
partners and even the banks which lend him money as expendable, since he
can just use them until he gets a better deal.
“Donald Trump’s
handshake, his signature and his word mean absolutely nothing in
Atlantic City,” says Paul Friel, whose father’s cabinetry business was
never paid in full for the work it completed on Trump Plaza.
Former
Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman said Thursday that Donald Trump is
acting in regards to the Russia collusion investigation as if he knows
"time is running out."
"What we're finding is, as time goes on, we
keep learning new, additional facts. But we don't know what [special
counsel Robert] Mueller's staff knows. For all we know, we may just have
the tip of the iceberg on this," Akerman told MSNBC's Ari Melber.
Akerman referenced a The Washington Post report
that Trump had pushed back on legislation proposed in July that would
block him from firing the special counsel investigating his campaign's
ties to Russia without a federal judge's approval.
"Now it appears
he's directly lobbying congress to try and ensure that he has a way to
get rid of this investigation," Akerman said.
CNN reported
this week that congressional investigators had unearthed an email from
now-White House aide Rick Dearborn to campaign officials last year
relaying information about a person who was trying to connect top Trump
officials with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Federal and
congressional investigators had already shown an interest in a meeting
that Trump's eldest son Donald Jr. set up last summer between campaign
officials and a Russian lawyer promising damaging information on his
presidential rival Hillary Clinton.
"At the same time that we keep getting more evidence, we also learn that Donald Trump has consistently, from day one, tried to stop this Russia investigation," Akerman said.
Trump
harshly criticized and later fired James Comey as FBI director amid the
escalating Russia probe, and slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the ongoing investigation.
"All
of this comes down to one simple fact," said Akerman. "You have someone
who is acting extremely guilty, someone who is acting in a way that he
realizes that time is running out, and he's taking all kinds of
desperate moves to try and stop this investigation."
There were plenty of crazy comments from Donald Trump’s rally in Phoenix
earlier this week, but one that got overlooked was the statement the
President made that showed that he has no idea how coal works.
He
mentioned in his speech that “clean coal” is when workers take the coal
and then clean it – He literally thinks that they sit there with a
bucket of soap and water and scrub the dirt off the coal!
Yeah, that’ll
fix our emissions problems. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses
this.
Melissa Byrne is a political strategist living in Philadelphia.
Trump at his Trump Tower news conference last week. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
Like
many events that end up with a person in handcuffs, my story begins in a
bar. I was in Atlanta earlier this month for Netroots Nation, the
annual meeting of progressive organizers and writers, when I overheard
friends discussing how to resist President Trump’s first visit to Trump
Tower. I jumped into the conversation: “Well, you call me, of course.”
Twenty minutes later, we had a rough plan that we would unfurl a banner
inside Trump Tower the following week. I have been to many protests
since the inauguration, and I was proud to do my part.
Together
with Ultraviolet and the Working Families Party, we commissioned a
painted banner that simply read “Women Resist White Supremacy.” Through
sheer luck, not only would Trump be in Trump Tower during my act of
resistance, but he would be giving a news conference about 3:30 p.m. I
knew from my previous work as a campaign advancer that the Secret
Service would begin sweeps to clear the space about an hour before he
spoke, so the best possible time for the action was 2 p.m.
Unlike
previous presidents, Trump’s home is in a public space. You don’t have
to sneak into Trump Tower. You enter via an atrium next to a Nike store.
Then you pass through airport-style security run by the Secret Service.
I wore my banner as a slip of sorts under my flowy dress. It was made
of fabric, so it didn’t set off the metal detector.
Protesters gathered outside Trump Tower in
Manhattan on Aug. 14, as Trump arrived back for the first time
since being inaugurated into office.
(evilevestrikesagain/Instagram)
Like every good political operative — I worked
for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2016 campaign and then the MoveOn
super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign — I run on coffee.
Conveniently, the Starbucks inside Trump Tower is located on the second
floor and overlooks an atrium — exactly where I’d want to hang the
banner. I sipped a flat white and waited for the right moment, when
uniformed NYPD wouldn’t be nearby. Then I unfurled the banner. A
security officer grabbed it almost immediately. I ended up on the
ground.
Since
Starbucks is a public place and I was a paying guest, I knew I hadn’t
violated any laws. At worst, I could be banned from the building. I
expected from past protest actions that I’d be given a warning and a
request to leave. I clearly and politely explained to the NYPD officers
who detained me that the protest was done and I was heading out.
They had other ideas.
A
detective grabbed my wrist and cuffed me. A gaggle of officers from
multiple law enforcement agencies escorted me to a room near the atrium.
A few chairs had Trump campaign materials plastered on them. Inside the
room with me were more than 10 officers from the NYPD and the Secret
Service.
Then the questions began, and they were bananas. A young
woman from the Secret Service began the questioning; male NYPD officers
tagged in and out. They never asked me whether I understood my rights,
and I wasn’t actually sure at that moment what rights, if any, I had. I
was focused on not getting put in a car and being whisked away.
It
was clear right away that these officials wouldn’t see me the way I see
myself: as a reasonably responsible, skilled nonviolent political
operative who works on a mix of electoral and issues campaigns. To them,
I was clearly a threat to national security. It felt like an
interrogation on “Homeland.” Here are my favorite parts of the
conversation, as I remember them.
NYPD: “Why would you come to the president’s home to do this?”
Me: “It was wrong for the president to support white supremacy.”
NYPD: “Don’t you respect the president?”
Me: “I don’t respect people who align with Nazis.”
Secret Service: “Do you have negative feelings toward the president?”
Me: “Yes.”
Secret Service: “Can you elaborate?”
Me: “He should be impeached and should not be president.”
They
were concerned with who bought my train ticket, once they saw the
receipt on my phone. The NYPD officers didn’t seem to believe me that
some organizations work for justice and organize these legal protests.
Each time they touched my phone, I said I don’t consent to the search of
my phone. (They held my phone during the interview, and I can only hope
they didn’t poke around it — although they wouldn’t have found much to
interest them, unless they like Bernie GIF's.)
Secret Service: “Have you ever been inside the White House?
Me: “Yes.”
Secret Service: “How many times?”
Me: “Many. I was a volunteer holiday tour guide for the White House Visitors Center.”
Secret Service, eyes wide: “When was the last time you were there?”
Me: “December.” I explained that I probably wouldn’t be invited back until we have a new president.
The
officers ran through a raft of predictable questions about firearms. (I
don’t own any, and they seemed puzzled by my commitment to nonviolence
as a philosophy.) They asked whether I wanted to hurt the president or
anyone in his family. Obviously not. Then came the mental health
questions.
Secret Service: “Do you have any mental health disorders?”
Me: “No.”
Secret Service: “Have you ever tried to commit suicide?”
Me: “No.”
Secret Service: “Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?”
Me: “No.”
I
was trying very hard not to roll my eyes at the repeated questions when
an NYPD detective suggested my protest could be charged as a felony. In
the next second, the Secret Service agents asked me to sign Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act waivers so they could
gather all my medical records. My mind was still focused on the f-word:
felony. But I didn’t want to sign the waivers.
I
meekly asked whether I should talk to a lawyer. I was told it was my
prerogative but also that it might mean I’d be held longer. Being in a
room with that many enforcement agents hurt my ability to reason
dispassionately, and I was now looking at a criminal record from a
basic, even banal, nonviolent protest. I signed the forms.
Trump
was about to start his now-famous news conference, and the Secret
Service needed to resume patrols. They let me go with just a ban from
the building.
Trump on Aug. 15 said that “there’s blame on both sides” for the violence that erupted in Charlottesville on Aug. 12.
(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
But a few days later, I heard they were
canvassing my neighborhood, in West Philadelphia, looking for
information about me, including from people I’ve never met. One woman
they approached found my contact information online and told me about
this exchange in a Facebook Messenger request. They asked her whether
she knew me and whether I was a threat to the president. Since I live in
West Philly, she replied that the only threat lives in the White House
and that the president is racist.
Secret Service: “Do you know Melissa Byrne?”
Neighbor: “No.”
Secret Service: “Why would she protest President Trump?”
Neighbor: “Because he’s a fucking racist.”
Thanks, neighbor!
In
the end, I couldn’t stop wondering why they were devoting so much time
to me when they could be pursuing neo-Nazis. I was treated as a national
security threat when all I’d done was exercise my First Amendment right
to free expression. This isn’t normal, and it shouldn’t be how
nonviolent protesters are treated by armed agents of the government.
"The Seattle livestream began in fairly typical Alex Jones style, with
the InfoWars host using a recent global tragedy (Barcelona) as an excuse
to rant about one of his favorite boogeymen (the lame-stream media).
But it soon devolved into a random dude opening up his thermos and
soaking Jones in coffee.
Who could have possibly foreseen that Jones wouldn't be greeted warmly in famously liberal Seattle?
In
response to a question about whether a wild Alex Jones unleashed on
city streets is worthy of police intervention, the Seattle PD responded
with an awe-inspiring burn.”
Donald Trump took in the solar eclipse from the Truman Balcony of the White House on Monday.
Sporting eclipse glasses — only for part of the viewing — and
standing alongside Melania Trump and their son Barron, Trump viewed what
was a partial eclipse in Washington, DC. The partial eclipse began at
1:17 p.m., peaked at 2:42 p.m., and was set to end at 4:01 p.m. ET, The
Washington Post reported. The moon covered 81% of the sun at the
eclipse's peak in Washington.
Trump, at one point, did look up at the eclipse without wearing the
glasses, which could be extremely harmful to a person's eyesight.
According to a White House pool report, one of Trump's aides shouted
"don't look" when Trump initially came out and pointed at the sky.
Much of the nation focused on the Monday event, the first total
eclipse to cross the country in nearly a century. The path of totality,
where the moon fully eclipsed the sun, stretched from Oregon to South
Carolina, but much of the rest of the country was able to view at least a
partial eclipse of the sun.
CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on Friday had a priceless reaction to the news that
Donald Trump has fired chief White House strategist Steve Bannon,
reading headlines from the president’s “chaotic four weeks” that were so
long she had to stop and drink a cup of water.
In the 80's, if you wanted extra lives, the ability to skip levels, to be
invincible, or anything that wasn't included in your console's video
game...you were out of luck. That all changed in 1990 when Codemasters
created the Game Genie, opening the world of console video games to
amazing ways to cheat and to an extent, a form of hacking.
The Game
Genie was important not only for being a groundbreaking device but also
for establishing a legal precedent. In this video we'll take a quick
look at the Game Genie's various abilities and console versions, how it
worked, as well as its fight just to make it to the market.
Lawrence O'Donnell reacts to Donald Trump's newest lie about
fighting terrorism, as well as top Republican senator Bob Corker saying
Donald Trump lacks the "stability" and "competence" to be president.
Three different charities have cancelled scheduled events at Mar-A-Lago
after Trump’s refusal to denounce the attacks that took place over the
weekend and by aligning himself with the alt right. This is a lot of
money lost for Trump, but importantly, shows that these charities
understand that some money just isn’t worth it, and they’ll find new
venues to host their events. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses
this.
FUCK STEVE BANNON - YOU LIVER SPOT COVERED MOTHER FUCKER
WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING IN THE WHITE HOUSE IN THE FIRST PLACE - YOU NO TALENT, COUPON CLIPPING, COPENHAGEN SNUFF DIPPING, CORN COB PIPE SMOKING, BISCUIT AND GRAVY SOPPING REDNECK
Trump is defending Confederate monuments more than Lindsey Graham. Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.
“Washington (CNN)The feud between President Donald Trump and Sen.
Lindsey Graham over the President's response to racially motivated
protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, continued Thursday, with the
South Carolina senator accusing Trump of stoking tensions, a claim Trump
called "a disgusting lie."
"Your tweet honoring Miss Heyer was
very nice and appropriate. Well done," the South Carolina lawmaker said
Thursday morning, referring to Heather Heyer, the 32 year old woman who
was killed in a car attack on Saturday. The man charged in her killing
has been described as a Nazi sympathizer.
"However, because of
the manner in which you have handled the Charlottesville tragedy, you
are now receiving praise from some of the most racist and hate-filled
individuals and groups in our country. For the sake of our nation -- as
our President -- please fix this."
"History is watching us all,"
added Graham, who has been one of the few Republican lawmakers to
directly denounce Trump's equivocation earlier this week between white
supremacists and those who were protesting them in Charlottesville. The
President blamed "both sides" for inciting violence and said there were
"very fine people" protesting in the Virginia city amid the
torch-bearing protesters.”
After a string of disastrous press conferences – and an overall tanking
of his presidency – Fox News host Shepard Smith admitted Wednesday that
his team of producers were unable to find a single Republican willing to
come on the air and defend Donald Trump’s disaster of a week.
When Fox
News can’t find a pro-Trump Republican, you know things are getting bad
in Trumpland.
Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, talks with
Rachel Maddow about how Congress can do more than the bare minimum of
tweeting condemnation of racism to address the actual problem with
legislation.
Trump’s response to the Charlottesville aftermath is earning him scorn
from even his own party. Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, tells
you how the moment of truth is coming.
“(CNN)Republican lawmakers and administration aides found themselves
again Wednesday weighing the costs and benefits of remaining loyal to
President Donald Trump, whose equivocal statements about neo-Nazis and
white supremacists marked a dramatic shift in presidential rhetoric.
By
Wednesday afternoon, most appeared to have made their calculation:
deserting Trump now could only harm — and not help — their agendas or
political fortunes.
Republican leaders in Congress, including
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
released statements affirming their disavowal of white supremacist
groups and neo-Nazis — but not explicitly condemning Trump, who said
Tuesday there were "very fine people" protesting in Charlottesville amid
the torch-bearing marchers.
Within the White House, Trump's
aides privately expressed indignation at the derailed news conference,
which unraveled on cable television Tuesday afternoon and has been
replayed endlessly since.
But they, too, stopped short of
declaring their consternation publicly, determined instead to remain
focused on their agenda and keep the President occupied.
Trump
himself has remained largely silent on the matter. But inside the
glassed-in confines of Trump Tower — where he remained inside for nearly
two days straight — the President was defiant in the wake of the
ensuing backlash, according to two people who visited the building on
Wednesday.”
In this ‘Dollemore Daily’ Jesse addresses Heather Heyer's memorial
service which wasn't attended by Donald Trump. Instead, he sent a
tweet... A stark juxtaposition against the actions of President Barack
Obama in the face of similar circumstances.
Roland Martin delivered a blistering commentary in response to Donald
Trump’s bizarre impromptu press conference where he doubled down on his
initial Charlottesville remarks.
Even without the violence and the tragedy, is there a lower moral
hurdle to clear than "Denounce the bastards wearing swastikas and
chanting Nazi slogans?"
And when an American citizen is killed by a terrorist in service of
one of history's most evil ideologies, is it really so much to ask of Trump, "Stand WITH us, AGAINST them?"
Apparently so.
To a nation mourning a terrorist attack, he offered neither healing
nor calm. Instead, he bragged about how well he did in the primary.
Bragged about the economy. Attacked the press. Whined. Aired old
grievances. Spit piss at John McCain for robbing him of a victory on
health care. Motherfucking boasted about owning a fucking winery in a
community still washing blood off the ground.
And all that is abominable enough.
But then he did all he could to give cover to the terrorist's
ideology. To lessen its evil. He stood at a podium adorned with the
Presidential seal, and suggested that those who opposed white supremacy
were equally as bad as those who killed in its name.
There were "very fine people" among the Nazis. The white
supremacists were the ones with the permit, so in a way, THEY have the
high ground. My God.
In his loathsome statements today, Donald Trump blamed Heather Heyer
for her own death. By standing in protest of these diseased
ideologies, Trump said, she was merely part of a regrettable morass
where everybody was a little bit right, and nobody was totally wrong.
Not even the Nazis.
Whether it's Bob Mueller dragging him out of the Oval in cuffs, or
the House GOP defensively impeaching him as his approval rating seeks
absolute zero, or H.R. McMaster slapping a straight-jacket on him before
he can order bombers to attack CNN headquarters, or even, if we
absolutely MUST wait so long, a deafening electoral avalanche in
November 2020, the day is surely coming when we will be push this
shit stain out of the People's House forever. As dark as this day is, we
WILL be rid of him.
And when he's gone, we must NEVER stop scrubbing his stink from our nation.
Every executive order will be reversed. However long it takes, we
will sandblast every molecule of his legacy from our government.
We'll rip every portrait off every wall.
Should anyone attempt to erect any monuments to this Blight on
Decency, know the sun will never set on a single one of them, we'll tear
them down so quick.
Should you break ground on a Presidential Library honoring this
indecent fuck, know that we'll salt the earth before we let you so much
as pour the foundation.
Should you slap his shitty little name on a battleship, future
generations will refuse to serve on it, and it will rust and sink,
forgotten and shunned.
We will hound Trump and Trumpism from our nation, however long it takes.
Three days after Charlottesville, Virginia, erupted into violence and racial unrest,
the family of Robert E. Lee is denouncing the white nationalist groups
who rallied and marched to preserve a statue of the long-dead Civil War
general.
"There's no place for that," Robert E. Lee V tells Newsweek,
referring to the white supremacist protesters who carried torches and
marched through Charlottesville on Friday. "There's no place for that
hate."
The statue of Lee,
which has stood in Charlottesville since 1924, is now at the center of a
racially charged conflict that has gripped the city and resulted in one woman's death. In February, the local city council decided to remove the statue from the park, noting that
for many people, such Confederate monuments are "painful reminders of
the violence and injustice of slavery and other harms of white supremacy
that are best removed from public spaces." In May, white supremacist
Richard Spencer organized a demonstration
in support of the monument, and on Friday evening, a large group of
torch-bearing white nationalist marchers descended on Charlottesville to
protest the decision to remove the statue.
Lee,
a great-great-grandson of the Confederate hero, and his sister, Tracy
Lee Crittenberger, issued a written statement on Tuesday condemning the
"hateful words and violent actions of white supremacists, the KKK or
neo-Nazis."
Then, Lee spoke with Newsweek by phone.
"We
don't believe in that whatsoever," Lee says. He is quick to defend his
ancestor's name: "Our belief is that General Lee would not tolerate that
sort of behavior either. His first thing to do after the Civil War was
to bring the Union back together, so we could become a more unified
country."
White supremacists gather under a statue of Robert E. Lee during a
rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12. Lee's descendants have
denounced the violent actions that led to a counter-protester's death. Joshua Roberts/Reuters
The
general was a slave owner who led the Confederate Army of Northern
Virginia during the Civil War and who remains a folk hero throughout
much of the South.
"We don't want people to think that they can
hide behind Robert E. Lee's name and his life for these senseless acts
of violence that occurred on Saturday," Lee says.
The Lee heir says it would make sense to remove the embattled statue from public display and put it in a museum—a view shared by the great-great-grandson of Jefferson Davis.
"I
think that is absolutely an option, to move it to a museum and put it
in the proper historical context," Lee says. "Times were very different
then. We look at the institution of slavery, and it's absolutely
horrendous. Back then, times were just extremely different. We
understand that it's complicated in 2017, when you look back at that
period of time... If you want to put statues of General Lee or other
Confederate people in museums, that makes good sense."
Lee, who
works as a boys' athletic director at the Potomac School outside
Washington D.C., says that his family was raised to believe that his
great-great-grandfather "was fighting for his homeland of Virginia" and
not for the preservation of slavery.
Historians, though, typically
agree that the Confederate cause was "thoroughly identified with the
institution of slavery," to quote from Mississippi's own declaration
of secession. The Southern states that seceded were largely motivated by
a desire to continue owning and using black slaves as property. (Lee's
own personal views on slavery are commonly debated, though the general
did own slaves and, as The Atlantic notes, "raged against Republican efforts to enforce racial equality on the South.")
The debate over Confederate monuments has erupted in other cities such as New Orleans, where a statue of Jefferson Davis was recently removed, and Durham, where protesters tore down a Confederate monument on Monday evening.
For
the Lee family, the question of Confederate iconography is complicated
as their family name becomes a rallying point for white nationalists.
The younger Lee hopes that lawmakers and citizens in individual
communities will "talk it over and [decide] what makes best sense for
them in the times that we're living in today."
Lee declined to comment on Donald Trump's administration, nor on his erratic response to Charlottesville.
Here's the Lee family's statement in its entirety:
The
events of the past weekend in Charlottesville were a terrible tragedy
for America, for the state of Virginia and for us, the descendants of
General Robert E. Lee. Our family extends our deepest condolences to the
families who lost a loved one. We send our heartfelt sympathy to those
who were injured, and pray for their recovery.
General Lee's life
was about duty, honor and country. At the end of the Civil War, he
implored the nation to come together to heal our wounds and to move
forward to become a more unified nation. He never would have tolerated
the hateful words and violent actions of white supremacists, the KKK, or
Neo Nazis.
While the debate about how we memorialize figures from
our past continues, we the descendants of Robert E. Lee decry in the
strongest terms the misuse of his memory by those advancing a message of
intolerance and hate. We urge the nation’s leaders as well as local
citizens to engage in a civil, respectful and non-hateful conversation.
As
Americans and as human beings it is essential that we respect one
another and treat others as we ourselves wish to be treated. As General
Lee wrote in his diary, “the great duty of life is the promotion of the
happiness and welfare of our fellow man.”
Robert E. Lee V Great-great-grandson of General Robert E. Lee
Tracy Lee Crittenberger Great-great-granddaughter of General Robert E. Lee
White supremacists gather under a statue of Robert E. Lee during a
rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12. Lee's descendants have
denounced the violent actions that led to a counter-protester's death. Joshua Roberts/Reuters