February 20th-21st, 2017 continued. It's been 465-466 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 393-394 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
Melania the rich asshole’s immigrant parents become US residents
Viktor and Amalija Knavs, the parents of US First Lady Melania the rich asshole, are seen walking across the South Lawn of the White House on June 18, 2017 AFP/File / MANDEL NGAN
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First lady Melania the rich asshole’s parents have become permanent US residents, their lawyer said Wednesday, apparently taking advantage of a family unification program pilloried by the president.
“I can confirm that Mrs. the rich asshole’s parents are both lawfully admitted to the United States as permanent residents,” lawyer Michael Wildes said in a statement.
Viktor and Amalija Knavs, like their daughter, are from Slovenia. They appear to have taken advantage of a system that some rich asshole has dubbed “chain migration” and has promised to end.
The program allows naturalized citizens, in this case likely the first lady, to sponsor visas for close family members.
The news, first confirmed by the Washington Post, prompted allegations of White House hypocrisy Wednesday.
“Almost every US family is connected to immigration programs the rich asshole wants to kill, including his own,” said Democratic congressman Luis Gutierrez.
the rich asshole has made a hardline stance on immigration part of his core electoral message.
He has railed against migrants from Muslim countries and Latin America.
The First Lady’s office has for months ignored requests for comment on the status of Viktor and Amalija Knavs.
“The family, as they are not part of the administration, has asked that their privacy be respected so I will not comment further on this matter,” said Wildes.
US hate groups proliferate in the rich asshole’s first year, watchdog says
Charlottesville white nationalist (Twitter)
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The number of U.S. hate groups expanded last year under President some rich asshole, fueled by his immigration stance and the perception that he sympathized with those espousing white supremacy, the Southern Poverty Law Center said on Wednesday
There were 954 hate groups in the country in 2017, marking a 4 percent increase over the previous year when the number rose 2.8 percent, the civil rights watchdog said in its annual census of such groups.
Since 2014, the number has jumped 20 percent, it said.
Among the more than 600 white supremacist groups, neo-Nazi organizations rose to 121 from 99. Anti-Muslim groups increased for a third year in a row, to 114 from 101 in 2016, the report said.
Last year brought “a substantial emboldening of the radical right, and that is largely due to the actions of President the rich asshole, who’s tweeted out hate materials and made light of the threats to our society posed by hate groups,” Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, told reporters.
the rich asshole, who took office in January 2017, was elected in November of the previous year. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded in 1971, defines hate groups as organizations with beliefs or practices that demonize a class of people.
In the past, some groups have criticized the Alabama-based organization’s findings, with skeptics saying it has mislabeled legitimate organizations as “hate groups.”
In August, the rich asshole came under fire for saying “both sides” were to blame for violence at a white supremacist rally in Virginia where a counter-protester was killed.
The Republican president was also criticized for a string of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim comments, including using a vulgar term to describe Haiti and African countries last month.
In a backlash to the rich asshole, the number of black nationalist groups such as the Nation of Islam increased by 20 percent last year, to 233, the non-profit’s report said. It added two male supremacy groups to its census for the first time.
A separate investigation by the group showed that people linked to white supremacy killed 43 people in the last four years, including 17 in 2017. white supremacy movement believes that white identity is under attack by multicultural forces.
The report identified 689 groups associated with the anti-government “Patriot” movement, with about 40 percent of them armed militias.
SPLC acknowledged that its report likely failed to capture the full extent of hate-group activity. It said many of them, especially from white supremacy, operate mainly online.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Frank McGurty and Tom Brown)
GOP senator issues dire warning about the rich asshole triggering ‘one of the worst catastrophes in history’
some rich asshole speaking at the Iowa Republican Party's 2015 Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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During a weekend meeting, a Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that President some rich asshole’s increasingly hostile stance towards North Korea may have historically catastrophic results.
The Intercept reported Wednesday that Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) told the Munich Security Conference that the rich asshole has “at his fingertips” the ability to trigger “one of the worst catastrophic events in the history of our civilization.”
the rich asshole, the Idaho Republican warned, is poised to start a “very, very brief” offensive war with North Korea to prevent their leader from “developing the capacity to deliver a nuclear warhead to the U.S. via an intercontinental ballistic missile,” the Intercept noted.
Rather than utilizing diplomatic measures, the president may cause “mass casualties the likes of which the planet has never seen,” Risch continued.
“There is no more dangerous place on the earth than the Korean peninsula right now,” the senator told the German conference. “The president of the United States has said, and he is committed to, seeing that Kim Jong-un is not able to marry together a delivery system with a nuclear weapon that he can deliver to the United States.”
The report went on to note that Risch is likely to become the chair of the Senate’s foreign relations oversight panel if Republicans maintain control of the Senate and the current chairman, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), retires.
You can watch Risch deliver his comments below:
Ali Velshi rips apart Parkland ‘secret earpiece’ conspiracy theory: ‘I’m wearing one right now’
MSNBC's Ali Velshi showing an IFB earpiece (Screen capture)
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On Wednesday, MSNBC host Ali Velshi blasted conspiracy mongers who are attacking the students who survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL as “crisis actors” perpetrating a government hoax.
“This is typically beneath us to even report,” said Velshi’s co-anchor Stephanie Ruhle.
“But it’s important right now,” Velshi said, “because it’s happening in real time. You are seeing the spreading of fake news in real time around a tragedy that I was physically at.”
The anchors brought up some rich asshole Jr.’s promotion of a tweet attacking 17-year-old David Hogg and highlighted social media posts claiming that Hogg is actually a Los Angeles resident and pointing to his use of an Interruptible Foldback (IFB) earpiece in a TV interview.
“I’m wearing one right now,” said Velshi, indicating that the IFB is not some kind of secret communications through which Hogg was being fed cues. It’s a commonly used way for TV personnel to communicate on camera. “This is how my producers talk to me.”
Watch the video, embedded below:
Here’s why the rich asshole associates should think twice before accepting presidential pardons in Mueller probe
File picture taken on August 11, 2017 shows White House adviser Jared Kushner listening as US President some rich asshole speaks to the press on at his Bedminster National Golf Club in New Jersey (AFP Photo/JIM WATSON)
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Right-wing allies are encouraging President some rich asshole to issue pardons to anyone — including himself — implicated in the special counsel investigation, but legal experts say that won’t come without significant risk.
Some of the president’s top campaign aides have already either pleaded guilty to federal charges or have been indicted in the probe, and his son and son-in-law Jared Kushner also face potential legal jeopardy, but a former Defense Department attorney urged them all to think twice before accepting pardons.
Ryan Goodman — co-editor-in-chief of Just Security and former special counsel for the Department of Defense — pointed out that presidential pardons don’t cover state charges, but accepting one would make state prosecution more likely.
“The dilemma for these the rich asshole campaign affiliates is not simply that a presidential pardon would fail to erase the risk of a state prosecution, but rather that their acceptance of such a pardon may significantly increase the prospect that state prosecutors will both pursue a case and secure a conviction,” Goodman said.
That’s because state attorneys general such as New York’s Eric Schneiderman could perceive their acceptance as an admission of guilt.
“What the rich asshole campaign affiliates have to fear is that acceptance of a pardon could add booster rockets to the state prosecutors’ efforts for closely related state crimes,” Goodman said. “Officials like New York’s Schneiderman may feel they have an ace in hand if they can walk into a state courthouse with a defendant’s admission of guilt implied by having accepted a presidential pardon. This get-out-of-federal-jail card comes at a price.”
The 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Burdick v. United States established that individuals may refuse pardons because acceptance carries a “confession of guilt,” and former President Gerald Ford ensured Richard Nixon understood the stakes when he offered a pardon for Watergate.
“The acceptance of a pardon, according to the legal authorities — and we have checked them out very carefully — does indicate that by the acceptance, the person who has accepted it does, in effect, admit guilt,” Ford testified before the House Judiciary Committee.
Some potential openings remain to be discovered or utilized, but Goodman warned those are still a risky bet given the stakes.
“Regardless of how lawyers may ultimately decide on the proper legal understanding of such an act, the American people may look to it as an implicit admission of wrongdoing— especially with this president and if his close family members are involved,” Goodman said. “If they find themselves in this situation, Kushner and others will need to consider their odds—fight the federal rap and potentially be exonerated or end up in a Manhattan courthouse with prosecutors holding a much stronger hand.”
‘Don Jr is afraid of the FBI’: View’s Joy Behar roasts the rich asshole son for hyping Parkland conspiracy theories
Joy Behar (ABC)
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The hosts of “The View” took aim at the president’s son for promoting conspiracy theories about the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
some rich asshole Jr. signaled his approval for a tweet accusing outspoken Douglas High School student David Hogg of helping to cover up the FBI’s failures in stopping the gunman, who had been reported as a potential threat months before the massacre that left 17 dead.
“Could it be that this student is running cover for his dad who Works as an FBI agent at the Miami field office Which botched tracking down the Man behind the Valentine day massacre?” tweeted talk show host Graham Ledger, which the rich asshole Jr. then “liked.” “Just wondering. Just connecting some dots.”
“View” host Whoopi Goldberg said the president’s son and others were attempting to discredit survivors who are now calling out for new gun safety regulations, but her co-host Joy Behar said the rich asshole Jr. was covering for his own father.
“Don’t you think that Don Jr. is afraid of the FBI?” Behar said. “They’re breathing heavily on his and his father’s back now. He’s trying to discredit the FBI just like the rich asshole is doing.”
New US criminal charges filed under seal in Paul Manafort case
Paul Manafort (Youtube)
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New sealed criminal charges have been filed in federal court in the criminal case brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller against President some rich asshole’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and campaign aide Rick Gates, a court record indicated on Wednesday.
The single-page document, filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, did not reveal the nature of the new charges.
Its inclusion in a binder in the court clerk’s office that is routinely updated with new criminal charges signals that Mueller’s office may have filed a superseding indictment replacing a previous one from last year against the two men.
Manafort, who was the rich asshole’s campaign manager for almost five months in 2016, and Gates, who was deputy campaign manager, were indicted by Mueller’s office in October. They face charges including conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to defraud the United States and failure to file as foreign agents for lobbying work they did on behalf of the pro-Russian Ukrainian Party of Regions. Both have pleaded not guilty.
It was unclear when any new charges would be announced publicly.
Last Friday, Mueller’s office revealed in a court filing that it had uncovered “additional criminal conduct” by Manafort in connection with a series of “bank frauds and bank fraud conspiracies” related to a mortgage on his property in Fairfax, Virginia, a Washington suburb.
The Special Counsel’s office declined to comment on the new court filing. Attorneys for Manafort and Gates could not be immediately reached for comment. A spokesman for Manafort declined to comment.
Mueller is probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, whether the rich asshole’s campaign colluded with Russia and whether the Republican president has unlawfully sought to obstruct the investigation. Russia denies the allegations. the rich asshole denies any collusion.
Manafort has been under house arrest since he was charged. He and prosecutors have struggled to agree on bail terms to permit him to leave his home, though some of those details have remained under seal.
However, on Friday, Mueller’s office revealed that it is concerned about alleged bank fraud in connection with one of the properties that Manafort pledged as collateral.
In Friday’s filing, prosecutors claimed that Manafort secured his mortgage from the Chicago-based Federal Savings Bank by doctoring profit and loss statements from his lobbying firm and “overstating its income by millions of dollars.”
Prosecutors said they plan to offer the court more evidence about the alleged misconduct at the next bail hearing.
The Federal Savings Bank is led by Stephen Calk, who served on a the rich asshole campaign economic advisory panel. Calk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mueller on Tuesday stepped up pressure on Manafort and Gates to cooperate in his investigation, unsealing a criminal charge against a Dutch lawyer, Alex van der Zwaan, for lying to Mueller’s investigators.
The charge arises from work that van der Zwaan, the son-in-law of one of Russia’s richest men, did on a 2012 report about the trial of Ukraine’s former prime minister while he was employed as a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.
The report was used to justify the pre-trial detention of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko by her rival, and Manafort’s client, pro-Russian former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Manafort and Gates lobbied in connection with the rollout of the report, and are accused by Mueller’s office of facilitating secret payments for the report through off-shore bank accounts.
Mueller’s office last Friday also indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies for their alleged involvement in a criminal and espionage conspiracy to tamper in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign to support the rich asshole and disparage Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Website advertising the ‘official credit card of the NRA’ mysteriously disappears
First National Bank of Omaha offered two versions of the card to NRA members.
The website advertising an NRA-branded Visa credit card issued by First National Bank of Omaha disappeared on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after ThinkProgress reported the bank’s support of the gun lobby.
The bank is one of 22 companies that the NRA uses to promote its membership by touting discounts and special offers. On Tuesday, a website emblazoned with the NRA logo encouraged customers to “carry the official credit card of the NRA.” The site promoted two cards — one offering five percent back on gas and sporting goods store purchases, and another offering a low intro APR.
By midday on Wednesday, the website was gone with an error message appearing in its place.
Representatives for First National Bank of Omaha, its credit card division First Bankcard, and Visa did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
On Twitter, the bank responded to dozens of customers who threatened to cancel their accounts or expressed disappointment in the relationship.
Any comment @FNBOmaha? I’m not afraid to switch my accounts back to my previous financial institution. twitter.com/thinkprogress/…
We appreciate you taking the time to voice your concerns. First National Bank issues the NRA Visa Card to the organization members. I will make sure to pass your feedback on to our leadership team.
“Y’all support children being murdered at rapid rates,” one Twitter user wrote. The bank responded: “We appreciate you taking the time to voice your concerns. We value you as a customer and your opinions are important.”
ThinkProgress asked the 22 corporations that the NRA says offer incentives to NRA members whether they plan to continue their relationships with the gun lobby. Some denied a relationship, despite the NRA’s messaging, and many others have not responded.
The NRA, a group with an uncompromising stance on gun safety legislation, has been under increased scrutiny since a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida left 17 people dead. The mayor pro tem of Dallas said Tuesday that the NRA will be “met with opposition” if it goes forward with plans to hold its annual conference, scheduled for May, in the city. In an unusual move, the group agreed this week to participate in a CNN forum on the shooting alongside student advocates for gun control.
‘I’m wearing a ribbon in remembrance’: Florida GOPer votes down AR-15 ban — then backs Parkland teens with ribbon
Matt Caldwell speaks to CNN (screen grab)
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Republican Florida state Rep. Matt Caldwell insisted on Wednesday that he supported the students who survived the mass shooting in Parkland even though he opposes banning military-style assault weapons and has called to end gun-free school zones.
CNN host John Berman asked Caldwell in an interview on Wednesday why Republicans voted down a proposed ban on the type of gun used to kill 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Caldwell claimed that the bill was rejected because it was a “ban on all guns,” not just AR-15s and other weapons with high-capacity magazines.
“We need to be focused on real solutions,” Caldwell opined. “These maniacs that attack our schools, they’re essentially lone wolf terrorists. And we have to have strategies to focus on that. You’ve got a great example here of where the FBI had been reported to, the school had been reported to, the local law enforcement had been reported to. They did not communicate effectively. They did not understand that this guy was a real threat.”
According to the Florida Republican, lawmakers need to “focus on that side of the equation” instead of passing gun safety laws.
“We need to respond with tools that are going to make a difference,” he remarked. “We know for a fact that these schools get targeted because they’re gun-free zones. Ninety-five percent plus attacks happen in gun-free zones.”
“Do you know for a fact that that’s what happened in this case?” Berman asked. “We don’t know for a fact that’s what happened. We don’t. Correct?”
“All across the country, these maniacs, they plan, they plot, they practice, they know what they want to do and they know what they want to achieve,” Caldwell stated.
“You just said, we know for a fact these schools are targeted,'” Berman interrupted. “We don’t know, in fact, that this school was targeted because it was a gun-free zone. It appears it was targeted because this student [shooter] went there.”
“These students from Stoneman Douglas High School, they are all around you, I think I see them around you as we speak,” the CNN host continued. “They are passionate, they are hurting so much.”
Berman wondered if the presence of the students was having an “impact” on lawmakers like Caldwell who voted down the bill to ban assault weapons.
“They’re grieving, I get that,” Caldwell replied. “The absolute worst scenario is we go out an ban guns and we tell everybody that we’ve solved this problem and we haven’t.”
“You see I’m wearing the ribbon for Parkland, in their remembrance,” he added.
Watch the video below from CNN.
Parkland survivor shrugs off conspiracy theories: ‘It makes me know that what I’m doing is right’
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg gets interviewed by CNN (Screen cap).
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David Hogg — son of retired FBI agent Kevin Hogg and a survivor of the horrific massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — told The Daily Beast that the people calling the Parkland, FL tragedy a conspiracy are only helping him and his fellow students.
“It makes me know that what I’m doing is right,” the 17-year-old said by phone from Los Angeles. “We get more publicity that way. They’re only helping our cause.”
Hogg and his fellow survivors are organizing a march to Washington, D.C. to call the world’s attention to the issue of gun control and to compel Congress to take action to prevent future gun massacres.
“Where we come together as Americans to help save people’s lives,” Hogg told The Daily Beast’s Michael Daly.
Conservatives and right-wing media have accused the Parkland survivors of being “crisis actors” and paid shills for liberal billionaire George Soros.
The teen said he was “disgusted” by President some rich asshole’s weekend Twitter rant attacking the FBI. the rich asshole accused the agency of missing warnings about 19-year-old gunman Nikolas Cruz because it was too busy investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
When the rich asshole went golfing on Monday, miles away from where Parkland families were laying their children to rest, Hogg lambasted the president on Twitter.
Sarah Sanders to join Ivanka the rich asshole representing United States at Olympics closing ceremony
Ivanka the rich asshole and Sarah Sanders (screen grab compilation)
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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will reportedly represent the United States at the Olympics closing ceremony.
OANN revealed on Wednesday that Sanders would be part of the U.S. delegation traveling to Pyeongchang, South Korea to attend the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
The delegation is being led by Ivanka the rich asshole, a White House aide and daughter of President some rich asshole.
Parkland shooting survivors respond to smear campaign calling them actors
"No one is paying us to do this. We want to do this because we love our city and school so much."
In the wake of last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, scores of students began rallying in support of stricter gun control measures, many of them citing the tragic deaths of their classmates as motivation for them to speak out. Now, those same survivors are being forced to push back against claims by certain right-wing circles that they’re “crisis actors” or paid activists working for the Democratic Party.
“No one is paying us to do this. We want to do this because we love our city and school so much,” student Lizzie Eaton told CNN on Wednesday. “We just want to make a difference.”
Eaton, a junior at Stoneman Douglas, spent most of Tuesday in Tallahassee, lobbying state legislators for increased gun control measures with her fellow student activists. Though she says she’s traditionally camera-shy, she “wanted to be [there]” to help her hometown of Parkland, Florida recover from last week’s shooting, where 17 of her classmates were killed.
“I’m never in front of the camera. I just wanted to be up here and help my city,” she said. “We never thought something like this would happen to us. We learn about this every day in school. …It really touched all of our hearts. The 3,000 kids in our school, the middle school, the whole community is coming together. We just want to make a change. We’re not actors.”
Eaton is one of several Parkland survivors addressing the handful of abhorrent conspiracy theories floating around following last week’s shooting. Those theories include claims that the students were never enrolled at Stoneman Douglas and unfounded rumors suggesting that they are “FBI plants” whose job is to defend the bureau, which came under fire after officials revealed they had received tips about the shooter prior to the February 14 tragedy. Others have claimed, without proof, that the students are anti-gun crusaders being funded by liberal billionaire donor George Soros to stir up political animosity.
“I am so sorry that these people have lost their faith in America,” 17-year-old student David Hogg told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday, addressing the groups behind those conspiracy theories. “I know I certainly haven’t. …These people saying this is absolutely disturbing and I am not an actor. I am a son of a former FBI agent…. I am not a crisis actor. I am somebody who had to live through this and witness this.”
Additional conspiracy theories about the Stoneman Douglas students began been cropping up across social media this week, including a YouTube video featuring an older media clip of Hogg speaking to reporters about a confrontation he had witnessed in Redondo Beach, California in 2017; according to Motherboard, the video was originally uploaded by user “Mike m” with the caption, “DAVID HOGG THE ACTOR….” Many of the user comments beneath it claimed that Hogg was “bought and paid by CNN and George Soros.”
The video has since been removed by YouTube because it violated the platform’s harassment and bullying policies, however it’s since been uploaded by multiple other users across several sites.
This video suggesting that David Hogg is a paid actor is now the No. 1 trending video on YouTubeyoutube.com/watch?v=-hg9t3…
Another Twitter account recently posted a photo of a yearbook page containing Hogg’s school picture, claiming that Hogg had actually attended Redondo Shores High School in California and had graduated in 2015. However, that theory was quickly debunked by Twitter user @_joey_wong, who posted a video of himself opening up the 2017 Marjory Stoneman Douglas yearbook to Hogg’s photo 11th grade photo.
A number of high-profile conservatives have willingly jumped on these conspiracy theories as well: former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke suggested on Twitter that the student activism was part of a “well ORGANIZED effort” by Soros and retweeted others suggesting that the students’ messages should be ignored due to their ages. Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe claimed on his public Facebook page that “‘students’ [were] being bused in to the Florida Capitol” to rally for gun control. In Florida, an aide to Republican state Rep. Shawn Harrison was quickly fired after he suggested to reporters that the students being interviewed on television were “crisis actors.” (Harrison later released a statement apologizing to the students and saying that he was “appalled” by the comments.)
Many of the students have so far taken the criticism and conspiracy-mongering in stride.
“@davidhogg111 is smart, funny, and diligent, but my favorite thing about him is undoubtedly that he’s actually a 26 year-old felon from California,” joked Stoneman Douglas student Cameron Kasky, remarking on the video of Hogg in Redonodo Beach.
“I honestly cannot stop laughing about it, that [conspiracy theory is] my favorite,” fellow student survivor and activist Emma González tweeted in response.
@davidhogg111 is smart, funny, and diligent, but my favorite thing about him is undoubtedly that he’s actually a 26 year-old felon from California.
The majority of students are also seizing on the opportunity to deliver an impassioned message.
“I’m not getting paid for this,” said student Rachel Catania, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday. “I want to come out here on behalf of my city and my town and just spread the message on behalf of those who can’t. And I’m going to make sure that those 17 innocent people who had their lives taken from them did not die for no reason.”
Constituents bury GOP lawmaker after he mocks anti-gun student protesters on Facebook
Republican Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (Facebook photo).
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Republican Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe faced blowback from some of his constituents on Wednesday when he mocked students who are protesting gun violence in the United States.
Writing on Facebook, Metcalfe suggested that the student protesters demonstrating against gun violence were not genuine American teenagers, as he sarcastically used quotation marks every time he referred to them as “students.”
“This morning I was working out and listening to the news about ‘students’ being bused in to the Florida Capitol,” Metcalfe wrote. “The hypocrisy of the left struck me! They expect lawmakers to listen to the policy advice of 18 year old and younger ‘students’ who are advocating for gun control, but they do not believe 18 year olds who are old enough to serve on the battlefields of Afghanistan are old enough to purchase a rifle.”
Metcalfe, who last year made headlines for telling a male colleague to not touch his arm because he was a heterosexual, saw his Facebook post get flooded with angry comments from constituents shortly after it went live.
“Let’s just stop with ‘students,'” wrote constituent Maureen Owns Byko. “What are you saying about these kids who were lucky enough to walk through blood and past corpses of friends slaughtered by an AR15? Please remove the quotations and be specific. Are you a denier? Are you accusing them of not being students?”
“Doubt he would care if his own kids got slaughtered as long as he gets those NRA checks to keep rolling in,” commented constituent Brent Wise.
“No one of any age needs to purchase an assault rifle,” wrote constituent Teresa Meyer Kissinger.
And constituent Janice Fenk unloaded on Metcalfe and said she hoped he would soon be booted out of office.
“You are a gigantic idiot!” she wrote. “Just listen to yourself! You have been in office far too long and I pray you are voted out!”
the rich asshole staffers knowingly ignored accused wife beater’s security clearance to avoid scrutiny of Kushner: report
Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to President some rich asshole. (DoD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Dominique A. Pineiro)
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Members of the rich asshole White House knowingly chose not to address Rob Porter’s security clearance because it would have reflected badly on President some rich asshole’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has also failed to pass an FBI background check, according to a report on Wednesday.
A White House source told CNN that many in the White House knew that Porter had not received his security clearance. Porter was eventually forced to resign after two of his ex-wives came forward with domestic abuse allegations.
“One White House official said that, although unspoken, it was clear that other staffers were worried about raising questions about Porter’s clearance issues because they were concerned it would resurrect scrutiny surrounding Kushner’s own issues,” CNN reported.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has issued a memo last week saying that employees with interim security clearances would no longer be permitted to receive top secret information.
While Kushner is said to fall in this category, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders insisted that Kushner’s work to solve the Mideast peace crisis and other projects would not be impacted by the change, suggesting that the rich asshole may make an exception for his son-in-law.
NRA board member Ted Nugent promotes ‘crisis actor’ conspiracy theory following Parkland shooting
The far-right musician also "liked" several comments claiming that Facebook was censoring the conspiracy.
Longtime National Rifle Association (NRA) board member Ted Nugent became the subject of controversy on Wednesday after sharing an article on his official Facebook page that promoted a conspiracy theory about the victims of a school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Seventeen people were killed and 15 others were injured when a lone gunman entered the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus on February 14 and opened fire. The alleged gunman, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, used an AR-15 style rifle which he had purchased legally one year earlier, officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said.
In the wake of the shooting, scores of Stoneman Douglas students have begun passionately lobbying for tighter restrictions on gun sales and stricter background check requirements. Teens across the country have followed suit, staging walkouts and holding rallies at various state capitol buildings and the White House, to protest gun violence and call for change.
In certain right-wing circles, their efforts have been maligned and the students themselves mocked as “crisis actors” — paid demonstrators who supposedly show up at the scenes of tragic shootings to promote an anti-gun agenda.
On Wednesday, Nugent, a former hard rock musician who has gained notoriety over the years for his far-right views, joined the growing chorus of conservative figures promoting that conspiracy, sharing an article by Natural News, titled, “It’s all THEATER: Florida high school shooting survivor caught on video rehearsing scripted lines, coached by camera man.” The article alleged, without any proof, that Stoneman Douglas student and shooting survivor David Hogg, who has been interviewed by several mainstream news outlets, was a paid “crisis actor.”
Beneath the article, Nugent appears to have “liked” a comment from a follower, which read, “He is NOT a student! He is 26 years old and is a paid crisis actor. News organizations hire him to be a scripted witness or survivor. He has been at multiple shootings as a ‘survivor’. He is also a meth user recently arrested in South Carolina.”
Nugent also “liked” several other user comments, including one that claimed Facebook was erasing stories about the “crisis actor” conspiracy theories because the social media platform “does not like it when liberals get caught using tragedies for their political agendas,” as well as another that claimed, “Something [fishy] is going on here… SMH.”
Nugent shared the post on the eve of a CNN town hall for the Parkland shooting survivors, at which the NRA was slated to be in attendance.
The NRA itself has so far maintained a low-profile and avoided commenting on the shooting directly, opting instead to share articles on its social media channels meant to counter the arguments being made by student activists.
The organization’s decision to appear at the CNN town hall, then, is a break from tradition.
“I just hope that people are respectful and that it’s a civil discussion,” NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch told NRA TV this week. “We’re not going to get anywhere in this country by screaming at people and impugning their characters simply because they believe as they do. …I hope we can be respectful and have a civil debate without anyone screaming murderer at me.”
.@DLoesch joins @stinchfield1776 to discuss her participation in the tonight’s @CNN Town Hall, and our focus on protecting the safety and freedom of every American. #NRA
The NRA has given hundreds of millions of dollars to various political candidates over the years, lobbying hard for pro-gun efforts and staunchly opposing any efforts to study or regulate firearms or gun violence. It spent more than $31 million on the 2016 presidential race alone, with at least $11 million of that sum going to then-candidate some rich asshole. The NRA conversely spent more than $19 million in opposition of the rich asshole’s rival, Hillary Clinton, according to OpenSecrets.
The NRA has also given around $10,000 to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) in the past few years alone. Rubio is expected to make an appearance at Wednesday’s CNN town hall.
Spokespersons for Nugent and the NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Controversies pile up for White House, alarming GOP
BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 02/21/18 06:00 AM EST
President the rich asshole’s White House is consumed by controversies on several fronts, putting the administration on the defensive at a time when Republicans are increasingly worried about their electoral prospects.
Republicans would be content to spend every day between now and Election Day focused on the GOP’s tax-cut bill and the economy. But those efforts are complicated by the sheer volume of controversies the White House is juggling.
“Every day they are working on another crisis is another day lost for pushing their agenda,” said one former White House adviser. “At the same time, they’ve been doing this since day one, so it’s not too unusual that they are engulfed in another crisis.”
The growing list of controversies dogging the White House touch on everything from the Russia investigation to allegations that the rich asshole has not been faithful to his wife.
Chief of staff John Kelly is on thin ice for his handling of a senior aide who resigned after his ex-wives accused him of domestic abuse, which has sparked a congressional investigation into the White House’s national security clearances process.
The churn has become so extreme that news that the White House fired a fleet of drivers it paid to taxi reporters and aides around Florida because one of them was found to be carrying a gun barely cut through the noise.
The White House has hunkered down amid the storms, going a full week without briefing the press. At Tuesday’s terse briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was pelted with a week’s worth of pent-up questions from frustrated reporters. Sanders left the lectern after only 20 minutes. Reporters shouted questions and sarcastic remarks at her as she walked away.
The appearance of a White House in a constant state of chaos is frustrating to Republicans, who feel pressure to make the most of their majorities in the House and Senate before the midterm elections in November.
Some credit congressional Republicans for moving the rich asshole’s tax agenda through Congress despite the daily din.
“some rich asshole was a ‘chaos candidate’ and his presidency is no less chaotic — but other Republicans have learned to tune out the noise and focus on the American peoples’ priorities,” said Michael Steel, a former senior aide to former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “That’s why we have seen progress on big issues like tax reform, despite the daily distractions from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Those close to the White House say the staff is used to working in the pressure cooker and that it’s business as usual whether they’re juggling one controversy or many.
“If you don’t have the stomach to work inside the eye of the hurricane, then you don’t have what it takes to work in this White House,” said one GOP operative with close ties to the White House. “Anyone who has been there for any length of time is used to doing this nonstop and knows how to work under pressure and get their job done.”
There’s also a general belief among the rich asshole’s allies that the frenzy in Washington does not cut through to most Americans.
“A lot of this isn’t normal, but America didn’t vote for normal because they had normal for the last 16 years and it sucked,” said one GOP lobbyist.
Still, many Republicans believe the controversies are hurting their party ahead of the midterms.
“Every day where they have another crisis, they’re not promoting what they have done,” the White House adviser said.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe tops the list of White House worries. The investigation is intensifying, with new indictments and revelations about the extent of Russian meddling dropping on a near-daily basis.
the rich asshole has been lashing out on Twitter, casting blame for the meddling on the Obama administration, even as the White House has been forced to reckon with the growing scope of Russian influence on the 2016 election.
Senior officials in the intelligence community testified last week that the U.S. remains vulnerable to Russian interference. Sanders argued that the administration has taken measures to ensure that wouldn’t happen in 2018, but critics say they’re not doing enough and that the rich asshole is focused on blaming the Obama administration rather than addressing the problem.
The controversy surrounding White House security clearances has drawn the attention of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which announced an investigation after former White House staff secretary Rob Porter resigned because his former wives accused him of physical abuse. Porter had an interim security clearance.
The White House has announced changes to its security clearance process but insisted Tuesday that the changes will not impact the rich asshole’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has an expansive portfolio of responsibilities but has been operating on a temporary clearance.
“Nothing that has taken place will effect the valuable work that Jared is doing,” Sanders said.
The White House is juggling so many controversies that some have fallen to the wayside.
Reporters did not ask Sanders about the women who have accused the rich asshole of inappropriately touching and kissing them. One of those women was spotlighted in a front-page Washington Post story on Tuesday, provoking angry denials from the president over Twitter.
And two members of the president’s Cabinet — Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt — are dealing with allegations they have been misusing taxpayer money for personal vacations or to fly first-class for government business.
Sanders said Tuesday that both matters are under review but that the president still has confidence in both men.
Republican bill seeks to revoke citizenship of immigrants who don’t ‘exhibit good moral character’
This is dangerous. What you want to bet it will be used exclusively for nonwhite people?
A New York congressman this week proposed a bill to allow the federal government to revoke the citizenship of naturalized U.S. citizens within ten years if they are involved in gang activity.
The bill, “Protecting our Communities from Gang Violence Act of 2018,” would strip citizenship from people affiliated with a criminal gang either ten years before or within ten years of becoming a U.S. citizen, the Washington Examiner reported. The proposal would bar immigrants who do not “exhibit good moral character” because of gang membership, association, affiliation, or provision of material support from becoming citizens. According to the proposal, “good moral character” is based on “relevant information or evidence, including classified, law enforcement sensitive, or national security information and shall be binding upon any court regardless of the applicable standard of review.’’
“From the vicious machete attack of four young men in Central Islip, to the childhood best friends brutally murdered by MS-13 in Brentwood, our community has witnessed the indiscriminate brutality of gang violence firsthand,” Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) wrote in a press release. “Every level of government has a role to play in combating the rise of MS-13 and other gangs, and we must crack down on the aspects of our nation’s broken immigration system and other policies that have allowed MS-13 and other gangs to take hold in our communities and stay there.”
As Riverhead Local reported, there are four ways to revoke citizenship: “if the person has procured naturalization illegally; or willfully concealed a material fact on his naturalization application or in the subsequent interview; or if the person becomes a member of, or affiliated with, the Communist party, other totalitarian party, or terrorist organization within five years of his or her naturalization; or if a person became a U.S. citizen through naturalization on the basis of honorable service in the U.S. armed forces and subsequently separates from the armed forces under other than honorable conditions before serving honorably for at least five years.”
It’s unclear that Zeldin’s bill would pass with any Democratic support.
Zeldin’s bill comes as the rich asshole administration has imposed harsher restrictions on immigration from Latin American countries. The MS-13 gang — which originated in Los Angeles, California and has a large membership in El Salvador — does pose some threat in America, but experts say the administration is targeting the wrong people. As ThinkProgress reporter Yvette Cabrera previously pointed out, advocacy groups have noticed an increase in the number of detained immigrants on alleged gang involvement as well as Central American children seeking asylum being labeled as gang members. But advocates also worry that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses unknown criteria to define “gang affiliation,” “gang membership,” or “gang associate” during arrests. Federal agents then use gang enforcement as a “pretext to arrest immigrants,” an allegation that an ICE agent appeared to substantiate to CBS News in mid-November, thereby making it harder for immigrants to prove their innocence.
the rich asshole demands to know why ‘Jeff Session’ isn’t investigating Obama for Russian meddling in crazed tweet
Pres. some rich asshole gives an angry response during an interview (Screen capture)
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President some rich asshole on Wednesday once again attacked his own attorney general and asked why he isn’t investigating former President Barack Obama for alleged Russian election meddling.
Writing on Twitter, the rich asshole told his followers to ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions — whose name the president misspelled as “Jeff Session” — why Democrats weren’t being investigated for “crimes” related to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
“Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren’t they the subject of the investigation?” the president asked. “Why didn’t Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren’t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Session (sic)!”
This is not the first time that the rich asshole has publicly called out Sessions for not doing his bidding.
Over last summer, for example, the rich asshole called Sessions “beleaguered” and “weak” because he was not sufficiently investigating former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
the rich asshole has also raged against Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after it was revealed that Sessions falsely told the Senate during his confirmation hearing that he had never met with any Russian government officials during the campaign.
Rights group tells the rich asshole to show ‘some spine’ after Bahrain sentences activist to five years
State Department expressed "serious concern" over Nabeel Rajab's sentencing, but President the rich asshole has remained silent.
A Bahraini human rights activist has been sentenced to five years in prison on Wednesday for tweeting critical statements about Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes on Yemen and saying that Bahrain tortures prisoners.
Reuters reports that Nabeel Rajab, who has been in and out of prison in the Gulf Arab Kingdom for years now, was convicted on charges of “insulting a neighboring country” and “insulting national institutions.” His son, Adam, tweeted that Rajab laughed in the courtroom upon hearing the verdict.
While U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert expressed “serious concern” over Rajab’s treatment, the fact is, Bahrain is a U.S. ally, hosting the U.S. Fifth Fleet, a crucial naval base across the Persian Gulf from Iran — the only state in the region President some rich asshole truly views as a enemy state.
“It’s time the the rich asshole administration showed some spine in standing up to the dictatorship in Bahrain,” Brian Dooley, a senior adviser at the U.S.-based group Human Rights First told the Associated Press (AP). “It should take punitive action over this verdict and send the American ambassador to visit Rajab in prison to tell him that the U.S. is on his side and against this reckless repression.”
When Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa visited Washington in November, President the rich asshole focused on investments and weapons sales, making no public mention of human rights issues in Bahrain. Reporting the visit, the AP quoted the rich asshole as saying that the relationship between the two countries will only improve with Bahrain “doing a lot of business” in the United States and “buying a lot of things.”
Today, it was my great honor to meet with the Crown Prince of Bahrain at the @WhiteHouse. Bahrain and the United States are important partners.
During the Crown Prince’s visit, he is advancing $9 BILLION in commercial deals, including finalizing the purchase of F-16’s...
Rajab is not counting on the rich asshole’s support for human rights activists in Bahrain. In December, he wrote a letter from prison, drawing a direct line between the rich asshole’s support for Bahrain and the increasingly bloody crackdowns in his country:
Two weeks ago, I watched from my cell as President the rich asshole gleefully announced the sale of $9 billion worth of arms to Bahrain, including finalizing the purchase of American F-16 jets. At a time when Bahrain faces serious economic challenges partly due to the slump in oil prices, this deal comes as a great comfort to human rights abusers. It is a political signal from Washington that the Bahraini regime can continue to commit atrocities at home and abroad and still receive American support. Under President Barack Obama, a sale of American F-16s to the Bahraini government was made conditional upon the improvement of the regime’s human rights record. Now, the Bahraini government knows it can do what it wants with impunity. It will continue to receive U.S. support no matter how bloody its hands become.
Bahrain is also part of the Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen’s Houthi rebels since 2015. Bahrain is part of the Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT), made up of the Saudi coalition of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates. JIAT has a a clear pattern of clearing Saudi Arabia of blame for civilian deaths in Yemen, for which it is now nonetheless being investigated by the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The two Gulf kingdoms are also part of the axis participating in a blockade against Qatar since June 2017 in the so-called Gulf Crisis.
Bahrain, a Shia majority island state run by the al-Khalifa Sunni monarchy, does not accept any form of dissent, frequently locking up pro-democracy activists and Shia politicians alike. Rajab’s run-ins with the authorities have been well documented, and almost farcical at times. For instance, in January of 2012, he was beaten by riot police, who then arrested him claiming they’d found him “lying down.”
“No, I’m not lying down – you’re beating me,” Rajab said at the time.
idiot some rich asshole Jr. makes embarrassing comments about India while promoting the rich asshole property
"You go through a town, and I don't mean to be glib about it, but you can see the poorest of the poor and there is still a smile on a face."
While hawking upward of $1 billion in luxury condos in India, some rich asshole Jr. complimented poor people living in the country for their smiles, saying there’s “something unique” about them.
Speaking during an event hosted by CNBC’s India affiliate, the rich asshole Jr. said, “I think there is something about the spirit of the Indian people that is unique here to other parts of the emerging world.”
“You go through a town, and I don’t mean to be glib about it, but you can see the poorest of the poor and there is still a smile on a face, you say hello — it is a different spirit than that which you see in other parts of the world where people walk around so solemn, and I think there is something unique about that,” he added.
the rich asshole Jr. went on to say that the smiles “speak to the future potential of what this country could do,” which “is everything” to him. Financial disclosures indicate that in 2016, the rich asshole family earned as much as $3 million from royalties associated with projects in India, and the rich asshole Jr.’s trip is aimed at making the country even more lucrative for the rich asshole Organization, which President the rich asshole still directly profits from.
“That doesn’t exist elsewhere, and it always struck me as — I know some of the most successful businessmen in the world, and some of them are the most miserable people in the world also, right?” the rich asshole Jr. continued. “And there’s that spirit that really shines through, and I think that speaks to the future potential of what this country could do, because that to me is everything, and it’s always been amazing to see, because I couldn’t even understand it until you keep coming back and it’s there and it’s not a show.”
But the president’s eldest son — trying to sell luxury condos that cost as much as $1.6 million in a country where the per capita income in 2016 was $1,670 — did eventually mention India’s “hardships.”
“Not to say that there aren’t hardships — I understand that and fully recognize that,” the rich asshole Jr said. “But there is something that’s different about the people here that I have not seen to the same level in other parts of the emerging world.”
the rich asshole Jr.’s trip to India consists of a “weeklong itinerary of cocktail parties, dinners and events with real estate brokers, business leaders and prospective buyers,” according to the New York Times, which reports that he’s traveling with a Secret Service detail.
Thanks for a great lunch at the iconic Birla House, adjoining Gandhi Smriti. I enjoyed meeting New Delhi’s business leaders. Thanks to the hosts - Shobhana Bhartia, Deepak Parekh and Milind Deora @milinddeora
Potential buyers of properties in a residential tower in Guargaon, a city outside New Delhi, can purchase direct access to the president’s eldest son, who’s running the rich asshole Organization with his brother Eric during their father’s tenure as president.
“Book your the rich asshole Towers’ residence before 21st February 2018 and join Mr. some rich asshole Jr. for a conversation and dinner on 23rd February 2018,” a full-age ad in The Times of India said.
TRUMP INC's INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION: Prospective buyers of condos at TRUMP TOWERS DELHI offered chance to meet @DonaldJTrumpJr next week for "a conversation & dinner," per full page ads in @timesofindia. Sales campaign slogan:"TRUMP HAS ARRIVED. HAVE YOU?" nytimes.com/2018/02/17/wor…
The president upended decades of precedent when he refused to divest from his business interests upon becoming president.
the rich asshole Jr. and Eric the rich asshole promised to stay out of their dad’s politics so their family could avoid conflicts of interests, but they’ve since emerged as two of their fathers most loyal and dogged defenders on national television, where they regularly conflate business and politics.
‘How gullible is he?’ CNN panel mocks Don the rich asshole Jr’s ‘brainpower’ after he falls for Parkland conspiracies
some rich asshole Jr., left, and CNN's Alisyn Camerota, right.
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CNN’s Alisyn Camerota raked some rich asshole Jr. over the coals on Wednesday after noting that he had given a thumbs-up on Twitter to conspiracy theories that attacked Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg for allegedly being a pawn of the FBI.
During a panel discussion with Brian Stelter, Camerota flayed the president’s son for seemingly embracing conspiracy theories about students who were traumatized just last week by a school shooting that left 17 people dead.
“Don Jr., the president’s son, liked some of these on Twitter — how gullible is this guy?” she asked. “He’s falling for these conspiracy theories that these kids who watched their friends be slaughtered and escaped with their lives?”
Stelter said that conspiracy theories about shooting victims were like “pollution” that is “making our society sick.” Camerota then added that this pollution isn’t just relegated to online fever swamps, as an aide to Republican Florida state Rep. Shawn Harrison on Tuesday sent out an email to reporters claiming that two of the school shooting survivors who are regularly interviewed on cable news are really paid actors.
“It’s making it to the White House in the form of Don Jr., and it’s making it to the Florida statehouse,” she said of conspiracy theories about Parkland students. “The good news is that that state rep’s aide was fired right after this because it was so appalling that he fell for this.”
She concluded that people like some rich asshole Jr. and the fired aide who fall for such conspiracy theories have a “lack of brainpower” and a “lack of critical thinking.”
Watch the video below.
some rich asshole Jr says presidency is costing the family firm
some rich asshole Jr speaking at the 2016 RNC Convention in Cleveland that awarded his father the Republican Party nomination for President.
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some rich asshole’s presidency has cost the family firm “millions of dollars” in lost business, his son told an Indian newspaper during a visit aimed at drumming up sales of new luxury apartment complexes.
some rich asshole junior told the Times of India that the rich asshole Organization was turning down new business opportunities around the world because of his father’s position.
“We are refraining from doing new deals while my father is in office,” he said in an interview published on Wednesday.
“We are turning down deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars around the world.”
the rich asshole junior is in India to promote a series of luxury apartment developments being marketed under his father’s name.
On Friday he will have dinner with dozens of people who have bought into a development in Gurgaon, a satellite of the capital where many major companies have their offices.
The 47-storey towers will comprise 250 homes and are expected to be completed by 2023, with price ranging from 55-110 million rupees ($850,000-$1.7 million).
The Indian developers say the high-rise apartment complex boasting floor-to-ceiling windows, state of the art amenities and a “lifestyle concierge” has already clocked up sales worth nearly $80 million.
the rich asshole junior is on an unofficial visit to India, but will address a business conference on Friday on the subject of Indo-Pacific ties. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the keynote speaker at the event.
The US president has ceded control of the rich asshole Organization to his adult sons, but refused to divest his assets, sparking concerns about a conflict of interest.
Critics say the rich asshole family’s continued involvement could allow the firm to profit from foreign governments eager to curry favour in Washington.
But the rich asshole junior said the firm was focusing on existing developments rather than seeking new business opportunities in India, its biggest market outside the United States.
He praised Modi’s economic reforms and said India was a better place to do business than regional rival China.
The rich asshole family earned $3 million in royalties in 2016 from ventures in India, according to a New York Times report.
The rich asshole Organization has also lent its brand to developments being built with local partners in Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. It does not invest directly, but takes a share of the profits in return for the use of the rich asshole name.
Fox News smears survivors of Parkland shooting
A more polite version of the recent right-wing smear campaign comes to America's most-watched news network.
The unifying principle of the right-wing smear campaign against the student survivors of the Parkland massacre is that they are puppets of larger, nefarious forces. The attacks first gained prominence on Monday on the pro-the rich asshole blog Gateway Pundit which claimed, without any evidence, that student David Hogg was a pawn of the FBI and was “merely reciting a script” in media interviews. By Tuesday, as the initial attacks gained support from some rich asshole Jr. and a former congressman, Gateway Pundit escalated the attacks, suggesting Hogg and other students were crisis actors recruited from the school’s theater department by far-left groups controlled by George Soros. Similar outlandish claims went viral on Facebook.
“[M]any of these other students are being used as marionettes by the far left and deep state because they were able to run out of a building. There is no credibility there and it’s disgusting to watch,” Lucian Wintrich, who authored the pieces for Gateway Pundit, told The Wrap.
A more polite version of the same smear quietly made its way to Fox News.
On Fox News’ The Five, Greg Gutfeld dipped his toe in by offering some “advice” to the students. “You’ve got to beware of when other groups co-opt your protest,” Gutfeld warned. Then, mirroring the argument of Gateway Pundit, Gutfeld decried the involvement of “far left” groups in a rally the students are organizing in Washington next month. “If you are a protester, you have to maintain an independence,” Gutfeld said, objecting to the participation of Women’s March organizers. Joining forces with like-minded groups, of course, is a fundamental tactic of political organizing. But in an effort to discredit the students’ activism, it has turned into something nefarious.
Later on Fox News, host Martha MacCallum asked one of her guests, Mollie Hemingway, an editor at The Federalist, what she thought about the suggestion that the students who survived the Parkland massacre had been “co-opted.” Hemingway said there has been “some unfortunate media handling of these traumatized children.” She was not, however, criticizing Gateway Pundit. Hemingway said that the students are being used “to enact a gun-control agenda” and “shut down debate.” MacCallum, however, rejects Hemingway’s suggestion that the students are being co-opted.
Perhaps the best example of the way Fox News approaches the smear was on Tucker Carlson, Fox New’s 8 p.m. host. Carlson begins by talking about a “huge controversy online” that he says he is “hesitant even to weigh in on” about the protests being organized by the students. Carlson starts by saying that “all of us feel terrible.”
But then Carlson pivots to note that “all of a sudden you’re seeing these kids involved in calls for very specific pieces of legislation.” Carlson, switching to the passive voice, says “the allegation has been that they are in some way in contact with organized anti-groups” and notes that the people making those allegations “have been denounced as immoral and heartless.” Carlson, in the middle of this attack on the students states, “for the record,” that he is “certainly not” attacking the students. But Carlson says he thinks that these allegations raise “interesting questions about how we make our law.”
Carlson’s guest, Dan Bogino, agrees. After some boilerplate about how the students voices “should be heard,” he then switches gears dramatically and blasts the media for paying attention to “a teenager’s expertise in supply-side control measures for guns.”
“Tucker, let’s be candid. They probably have not studied a very complicated layered issue,” Bogino said. He suggested that, instead, the media should quiz students about how they “missed the signs” that Cruz, the Parkland shooting suspect, was a threat.
Carlson then bookends these attacks by saying that “as the father of four” the last thing he would ever do is attack the students.
The segments reveal how Gateway Pundit fits into the right-wing media infrastructure. The wild and outlandish claims could not be made, in whole cloth, on Fox News. But by creating a “huge controversy,” Wintrich and others give more mainstream conservative voices, like Carlson, both an excuse to extend the attacks and position themselves, relatively speaking, as responsible. Gutfeld is not accusing the students of being crisis actors but simply providing them with advice.
But the overall thrust of the argument is the same. Fox News viewers are being told that these students are being co-opted by nefarious forces and should be ignored. It is a more polite smear, but it is intended to bring people to the same conclusions for the same reasons.
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle connects the dots in latest Mueller indictment to tie the rich asshole directly to Putin
MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle explains Russia connections (Screen capture)
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On Wednesday, MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle laid out how special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is becoming “clearer by the indictment.”
Tuesday’s guilty plea by Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan, she said, reveals direct connections between President some rich asshole and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Van der Zwaan, 33, is married to the daughter of Russian oligarch German Khan, a close Putin confederate and ally. He formerly worked at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which lobbied U.S. officials on behalf of exiled Ukrainian ex-president Viktor Yanukovych — at the request of former the rich asshole 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort.
“I want to bring your attention to the men outlined in red,” Ruhle said, indicating George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn, van der Zwaan and Rick Gates. The Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend that Gates will soon join the other three men in entering guilty pleas to Mueller’s investigation.
Van der Zwaan’s father in law, German Khan is the head of Russia’s Alfabank, which was named in the Steele dossier as a major launderer of Russian mob money.
Flynn, Ruhle said, lied about his contacts with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, “but we don’t even need to go that far. Flynn attended a paid speaking event in Russia without getting permission from the proper authorities.”
At that engagement — also attended by the Green Party’s Jill Stein — Flynn sat at the same table as Pres. Putin.
Watch the video, embedded below:
Parkland conspiracy nut accuses CPAC of ‘taking orders from Chelsea Clinton’ after conference bans him
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the rich asshole supporter Jim Hoft was scheduled to speak at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference — but that was before his Gateway Pundit website posted articles smearing students who survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
As reported by The Hill’s Will Sommer, Gateway Pundit said on Wednesday that Hoft had been uninvited from CPAC because many people took offense to articles in which his website accused 17-year-old Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg of being used by the FBI to cover up for the agency’s failures to stop school shooter Nikolas Cruz last week.
“They [said] the Gateway Pundit’s articles on the child activists attacking the NRA, and gun owners and some rich asshole were inappropriate,” the website wrote. “CPAC takes marching orders from Chelsea Clinton.”
Hoft had originally been scheduled to speak at a Friday CPAC panel on conservatives being censored on social media. His articles attacking Parkland shooting survivors were flagged by former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton, who asked Hoft to “please return to attacking me (or really any grownup) instead of the courageous Parkland students” on her Twitter account this week.
Jim - could you please return to attacking me (or really any grownup) instead of the courageous #Parkland students? Thank you. twitter.com/gatewaypundit/…
‘It must be so dirty’: MSNBC’s Mika says Russian blackmail seems to be driving the rich asshole ‘nuts’
Mika Brzezinski (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski marveled at President some rich asshole’s subserviant behavior toward Russia — even as his presidency is consumed with investigations into possible illegal collaboration with the Kremlin to win the election.
The “Morning Joe” co-host pointed out that the rich asshole refused to enact sanctions against Russia imposed by broad congressional majorities, and she said the only explanation was the blackmail alleged in the Steele dossier.
“What I find incredible is the question though, what does Russia have on some rich asshole?” Brzezinski said. “It must be fantastic, it must be so dirty. It must just be unbelievable, just wrenching to him, to think that they are holding this information about him that they have on him and they just at any point could drop it if he says the wrong thing. It must drive him nuts. What do they have on him? He’s being driven crazy.”
Joe Scarborough giggled uncomfortably, and asked if he somehow had been transported to the set of “Saturday Night Live,” but he hinted he’d made the same points the night before while talking to his co-host and fiancée.
“Listen, what I said last night when we were talking in private, alone, was that I just said — I just listened to all these clips and I said, ‘My god, we are going to find out in five, maybe 10 years exactly what Vladimir Putin has on some rich asshole, and when we do, it will be like the end of a movie,'” Scarborough said. “It’ll be like the end of the ‘Sixth Sense.'”
Brzezinski said that looming revelation was soaked the rich asshole in terror.
“That’s the other thing he knows — we’re going to find out,” she said. “It’s all going to come out like a waterfall.”
‘Cruel hypocrisy’: Morning Joe hosts blast conservatives for attacking Parkland survivors to defend guns
Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski hammered Fox News commenters and other conservatives for attacking Parkland students who became gun safety activists after surviving a school shooting that killed 17 classmates and teachers.
The “Morning Joe” hosts called out the attackers for demanding free speech rights for themselves to make comments they euphemistically term “politically incorrect” while personally attacking children for exercising the same constitutional rights.
“Among the most brutal was from author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza,” Brzezinski said. “After the Florida House voted down consideration of assault weapons ban, he tweeted quote, ‘Adults one, kids, zero.’ He also mocked the student who wept after the vote, tweeting, quote, ‘Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs.'”
Brzezinski said she’d known D’Souza, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to campaign finance fraud, since his days at the conservative Dartmouth Review, and she doesn’t understand why he has a platform anymore.
“I still don’t understand him,” she said. “I don’t even know why his voice is allowed out there, and there’s two other people like this be that at some point need to get a life and figure out something else to do with their time.”
some rich asshole Jr. clicked his approval of a tweet smearing one Douglas High shooting survivor as an FBI stooge, and an aide to a GOP state lawmaker was fired after calling two outspoken students “actors.”
Scarborough then went after ubiquitous Fox News guest Dan Bongino, who told the networks’s Tucker Carlson the teens should have done more to warn authorities — who had been repeatedly been made aware of concerns about the gunman.
“These people are freaking out,” he said. “They’re attacking victims.”
The hosts agreed gun proponents were trying to drive opposing voices out of the public debate by personally attacking children who survived a mass shooting — and Brzezinski said she was disgusted.
“The other side on this is showing such a lack of humanity, no matter what your views are, just, you know what, think about it,” she said. “You have been fighting so hard for free speech so you can write some of the most astounding things I’ve ever read over the last few decades, and yet you won’t give them a moment to use their voices? That’s cruel hypocrisy. It’s wrong and this is where we’re at. These kids can’t even get our support universally at this time?”
Veteran White House press secretary nails Sarah Sanders on national TV
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Watch Sarah Sanders have to answer for the White House's "war on the press."
Hostility toward the free press, from the rich asshole and his White House, has earned the administration international notoriety, and his press secretary is taking well-deserved heat for it.
During a White House Correspondents’ Association forum on the press and the presidency Tuesday afternoon, former Clinton White House press secretary Mike McCurry confronted Sarah Huckabee Sanders over the rich asshole’s attacks on the free press.
“You cannot do this job in an environment in which you are belligerent and saying we’re at war with these people every day,” McCurry said, and added that the rich asshole “has got to change the way he talks about the media.”
Sanders made several excuses, including the “natural level of tension between the White House and the press that’s always existed.”
“But the difference is, we still understood and respected that they were the fourth estate,” McCurry said, describing the role of the press and adding “but we did not declare war on them.”
“Um, we did not declare war on the press,” Sanders insisted.
If anything, McCurry is being generous to the rich asshole.
He has attacked reporters to their faces, declared them the “enemy,” demanded firings for exercising free speech, threatened to shut down news organizations, and incited violence against them.
But Sanders is no better than the rich asshole in this regard. In addition to routinely lying for him and defending his incitements, Sanders has also called for firings and carried out vicious feuds with reporters.
Unfortunately, the White House seems likely to “roll back” its war on the press any time soon. Until it does, journalists and longtime political veterans like McCurry will continue to criticize the rich asshole and the people who speak on his behalf for creating such a dangerous and hostile relationship with the fourth estate.
the rich asshole accuser challenges president: ‘By all means, release the footage’
Rachel Crooks has accused the rich asshole of forcibly kissing her in the rich asshole Tower.
Political hopeful and candidate for the Ohio state legislature Rachel Crooks, who has accused President some rich asshole of sexual misconduct, called on the rich asshole to release video footage from the day the alleged incident occurred outside an office at the rich asshole Tower in New York City.
Crooks called the rich asshole’s bluff Tuesday after the president claimed in a series of tweets that he doesn’t know Crooks and had never met her — referring to the existence of video footage as proof that Crooks is lying.
“Who would do this in a public space with live security… cameras running. Another False Accusation,” the rich asshole wrote on Twitter in an apparent response to a Washington Post profile of Crooks detailing her efforts to speak out about a 2006 encounter where she alleges that the rich asshole forcibly kissed her and grabbed her hand.
Shortly after the rich asshole’s tweet, Crooks fired back: “Please, by all means, share the footage from the hallway outside of the 24th floor residential elevator bank on the morning of January 11, 2006.” At the time, Crooks worked as a secretary for an investment firm in the rich asshole Tower and she recounted in the Washington Post story how the rich asshole grabbed her hand, wouldn’t let go, and kissed her on the lips.
In an Access Hollywood video obtained by the Washington Post, the rich asshole was caught on a hot microphone in 2005 bragging about “kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women.”
“Let’s clear this up for everyone,” Crooks wrote in the tweet directed at the rich asshole. “It’s liars like you in politics that have prompted me to run for office myself.”
Please, by all means, share the footage from the hallway outside the 24th floor residential elevator bank on the morning of January 11, 2006. Let’s clear this up for everyone. It’s liars like you in politics that have prompted me to run for office myself. secure.actblue.com/contribute/pag… twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
Earlier this month, Crooks declared her candidacy for a seat in Ohio’s state legislature and told Cosmopolitan magazine that she was inspired to run “because the president has escaped the consequences of his alleged sexual abuse.”
Crooks, a Democrat and first-time candidate, went public with her accusation in the fall of 2016 during the presidential campaign.
“I think my voice should have been heard then,” Crooks told Cosmopolitan. “And I’ll still fight for it to be heard now. Americans are really upset with politics as usual, and I want to be a voice for them.”
Crooks also told the Washington Post that she is running for office in part so she can speak out and share her story more widely with Ohio’s voters.
Thanks to the rich asshole’s Twitter attack, Crooks’ campaign got an unexpected boost on Tuesday as thousands flocked to her website to learn more about candidacy, according to BuzzFeed reporter Henry J. Gomez.
Crooks is one of 19 women who have stepped forward to publicly accuse the rich asshole of sexual assault or harassment. the rich asshole has repeatedly dismissed these allegations as “fake news,” and last fall White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said that the White House’s official position is that the women are liars.
Some rich asshole appointed HUD dept is failing to manage key public housing program, government watchdog finds
New GAO report finds 39 housing authorities failed to distribute over $800 million in federal housing vouchers to their tenants.
Over the past 20 years, dozens of housing authorities across the country have been allowed to skirt federal regulations and were given extra discretion in how they spend millions in federal funds through an experimental low-income housing program.
Under the watchful eye of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 39 housing authorities created policies that limited the time low-income tenants could live in a public housing complex, established work requirements, or set higher rents through a program called Moving to Work Demonstration (MTW). However, HUD hasn’t been properly monitoring the policies and regulations, and those 39 agencies have failed to distribute over $800 million in federal housing vouchers to their tenants and served fewer families than required, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Over the next seven years, another 100 housing authorities will be added to the MTW program, but HUD does not have a plan or the staff to monitor its expansion, according to the report.
“This really confirms our concerns and experiences with HUD’s implementation, oversight, and expansion of the MTW program,” said Jessica Cassella, a staff attorney with the National Housing Law Project. The program is “supposed to test out alternative policies but when you are testing out alternative policies you need to oversee and evaluate them, but what this report shows is HUD failed to do that.”
The program, which was created under the Clinton administration in 1996, has given 39 different housing authorities in more than 20 different states and the District of Columbia flexibility on how they can distribute federal funds or what policies they want to enforce, rather than abide by standard federal regulations.
That means housing authorities have discretion on how to spend federal funds that normally would have been marked for capital funds, operating funds, and housing choice vouchers, for instance. Or authorities can implement different work requirements for their tenants, change rent levels, or limit the amount of time a tenant can receive housing assistance.
But HUD staff have not been properly monitoring those programs and failed to enforce the few requirements those authorities are required to follow, according to the new GAO report, which was requested by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in 2015.
The report offered a number of different recommendations for HUD to resolve the issues, including: creating a plan to properly staff the implementation of 100 new housing authorities being added to the program, collecting better data on how those agencies spend their federal funds, creating clear guidance on how those agencies report and analyze their policies, and monitoring how those policies affect tenants.
HUD, in its response that was published in the study, accepted most of the GAO recommendations. But the agency said implementing some of the recommendations would hinder the intent of the program, which is designed to give the state authorities flexibility regarding specific rules and funding.
“HUD must consider both the extensive MTW flexibilities and the locally-designed nature of each MTW agency’s program in administering the demonstration,” the agency said in its response. “For this reason, HUD does not agree with the recommendations that restrict an MTW agency’s ability to exercise its MTW flexibility and respond to variations within local markets.”
Cassella said housing advocates are “troubled” by HUD’s response.
“We are very troubled by HUD’s disagreement with three of GAO’s recommendations given that those three recommendations only seek to further increase accountability and oversight of MTW agencies,” Cassella said.
While the agency emphasized its commitment to ensuring the program “is beneficial to and does not harm the low-income families that it ultimately serves,” the GAO report found those housing authorities were not serving the same number of low-income families they would have normally served without the program, one of the few restrictions on the program.
Additionally, those housing authorities often hoarded large amounts of federal housing vouchers they were supposed to distribute to low-income families. As of last June, the 39 agencies had put a combined $808 million in housing vouchers into their voucher reserve accounts, according to the report. By comparison, that’s more than the combined $737 million worth of housing vouchers the other 2,166 nationwide housing authorities not part of the program had stored up in reserves.
While HUD has taken steps to address some of the staffing needs for overseeing the program, it does not have a plan to accommodate the massive seven-year expansion of the program, according to the report.
Also, HUD has failed to collect the proper data needed to analyze the performance of those housing authorities in relation to the number of tenants served, program expenses, occupancy rates, and voucher utilization rates, the GAO found.
The report also found that while those housing authorities have lower occupancy rates than other agencies, they had higher yearly median program expenses. HUD also does not give those agencies clear and proper guidance on how to report an analysis of their policies, nor does the department even analyze them.
Florida House votes down assault weapons ban debate as students watch on
Every single Republican in Miami-Dade county voted no.
Not even a week has passed since Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was the site of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, but lawmakers in Florida have already demonstrated their complete unwillingness to tackle the issue of gun control.
On Tuesday afternoon, the state House of Representatives voted down a measure to discuss re-implementing the assault weapons ban. The vote was on a procedural move that would have allowed the House to debate and consider a motion to ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines — in effect, just a preliminary discussion about the possibility of banning assault weapons.
But the Republican-controlled state House won’t even consider the debate, defeating the motion 36-71 and effectively killing it for this legislative session. The no votes included seven Republican representatives from Miami-Dade County, despite the fact that last week’s shooting took place within the Miami metropolitan area.
#StonemanDouglas students react in the #Florida House gallery as a motion to revive legislation to ban assault weapons is shot down by the chamber's majority Republicans #guncontrol #ParklandShooting
Watching the motion fail from the House gallery in Tallahassee: students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Dozens of students traveled to the state capitol in an attempt to revive the national debate about gun control after a former student killed 14 children and three adults with an AR-15 at their high school.
“We don’t want to take away people’s guns,” senior Jose Iglesias, 17, told the Sun Sentinel. “But no one needs an AR-15. They are only used to kill.”
Several of the students expressed their outrage at the House’s refusal to even consider the assault weapons ban. “That’s kind of just a big screw you,” student Daniel Bishop told the New York Times. “They know that multiple kids… are coming up to the state capitol, which by the way is extremely fair, just to talk to them, and they are not even considering the bill to stop things like this… it’s like they don’t even care.”
How could they do that to us ? Are you Kidding me ??? #NeverAgain We are not forgetting this come Midterm Elections - the Anger that I feel right now is indescribable twitter.com/aletweetsnews/…
Last week’s shooting brought out some depressingly familiar stories that seem to circulate after every mass shooting — like politicians offering vacuous “thoughts and prayers”, far-right media spreading fake news, and survivors of the massacre being smeared by conspiracy theorists. However, a shred of optimism can be seen in the reactions from students at Marjory Stoneman who, fed up with adult inaction on gun control, have begun protesting and organizing themselves.
Students in high schools across the country have planned a series of walk outs to protest the latest shooting, with a march on Washington planned for March 24, while survivors have begun to organize in grassroots gun control groups. On Saturday, one of the organizers, 17-year-old senior Emma Gonzalez, delivered a fiery speech at the high school calling for action.
“Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS,” Gonzalez said. “They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS.”
The the rich asshole administration, meanwhile, has cautiously indicated it would be willing to discuss some policy proposals that would restrict gun ownership in wake of the tragedy. On Tuesday, the rich asshole said he was ordering the Department of Justice to draft a rule banning bump stocks, devices that turn legal weapons into fully automatic ones, used to mow down 58 people in October in Las Vegas. But the ban might be easier said than done, since the ATF is unsure whether it has the authority to ban bump stocks outright, instead of Congress passing legislation on it. The administration has also discussed improving the federal background check system, but it remains to be seen if any sort of meaningful change will be enacted this time.
Americans Are Resisting the rich asshole, Flipping 37 Republican Districts To Democrats
some rich asshole is so toxic that he’s helping Democrats flip seats like pancakes since his Inauguration. Democrat Linda Belcher is the victor in a special election on Tuesday night in a deep-red Kentucky district where the rich asshole previously won by a stunning 50 point margin. Belcher, a former state legislator who lost her seat in the the rich asshole landslide in Kentucky, just reclaimed the Bullitt County district by a more than two-to-one margin, in a stunning defeat for her GOP opponent Rebecca Johnson. At 68 percent to 32 percent, the votes are in.
District 49 voted overwhelmingly for the rich asshole, by a margin of 72 percent to 23 percent. But that was then and now the former reality show star is plagued with scandals after being on the job for just over a year.
Rebecca Johnson, Belcher’s opponent, has come under fire for her social media posts, one of which included a post in which she advocated for a prohibition of Sharia law in her state.
Tuesday’s special election in the state’s district was held to replace former state Rep. Dan Johnson (R), who killed himself in December. Johnson, a pastor at a local church, found himself at the center of a scandal after he had been accused of sexual abuse against a member of his congregation. He denied the accusations, then killed himself just days after local media reported the allegations. Johson was accused of molesting a 17-year-old girl. Let me know when this story starts to sound familiar (ahem: Roy Moore).
There’s a blue tsunami coming in November. Every time the rich asshole endorses a candidate, that person loses. In the case of Alabama’s special election, the rich asshole lost twice. First, he endorsed Luther Strange, then Roy Moore after the latter got the nomination, even though he’s an alleged pedophile. After that, Democrat Doug Jones picked up the seat, a man who helped to prosecute KKK members who were responsible for the deaths of 4 young black girls in 1963.
This marks the 37th seat flipped since the rich asshole’s inauguration.
Convicted Felon And Conservative Hero Gets Ripped To Pieces For Mocking Shooting Survivors
A convicted felon, a conservative hero, and an adulterer walk into a bar only to find out they’re all one person: Disgraced academic Dinesh D’Souza, the author of anti-Obama books. D’Souza, a rich asshole supporter, is known for his highly inflammatory tweets and always seems to get a pass from conservatives. This time, though, he took to his Twitter account to mock the survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in which a gunman used an AR-15 to murder 17 people, including children. As if he couldn’t stop himself, Dinesh D’Felon fired off a series of tweets targeting the teenagers.
“This woman seems coached and also a bit deranged,” he tweeted. “the rich asshole’s should ignore these media-manufactured theatrics.”
This woman seems coached and also a bit deranged. Trump’s should ignore these media-manufactured theatrics twitter.com/channel4news/s…
Then, he addressed the news that elected officials in Florida voted down a motion to ban assault weapons.
“Adults 1, kids 0,” he tweeted.
Adults 1, kids 0 twitter.com/thehill/status…
When the motion was voted down, the survivors watched in the Gallery.
“Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” he wrote.
Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs twitter.com/passantino/sta…
Never piss off the Internet.
Here is everything you ever needed to know about Dinesh D'Souza, you're welcome.
Convicted Felon Dinesh D’Souza Calls Obama ‘Ghetto.’ From Jail. wonkette.com/576687/convict…
Dinesh D'Souza:
•claims morality but is an adulterer
•claims honesty but is a convicted felon for fraud
•claims Christ-like compassion but mocks 17 murdered children
Don't waste your outrage on him—He's irrelevant to America's future.
My immense respect to #ParklandStudents
Let’s keep the DREAMers and send back convicted criminal Dinesh D’Souza.— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) February 21, 2018
The Face Of That the rich asshole Dating Site Filmed Himself Raping A Child
Meet Barrett and Jodi Riddleberger. You may recognize this couple and their fake smiles from ads for the new the rich asshole-themed dating website that bans gays but allows married people to register (family values and all).
While stupid people are flocking to find like-minded individuals with whom to discuss the latest Pizzagate-related conspiracy theory, this couple has a secret — well, Barrett does anyway.
When news station WRAL contacted the Riddlebergers to discuss their decision to allow married couples to join their dating site — an issue they say programmers are “fixing” now that their indifference to infidelity has been mocked by half the known world — Barrett demanded that the station talk about “the present, not the past.”
Realizing this was a strange request, WRAL refused to accept that offer and instead dug up Barrett’s past, which includes something that doesn’t seem to be a problem in the GOP based on Roy Moore’s success with evangelicals:
WRAL News would not agree to that. Riddleberger’s past includes a felony conviction for taking indecent liberties with a child in in 1995. The charge stemmed from his videotaping himself having sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 25, the Greensboro News & Record reported in 2014.A North Carolina criminal history check Monday turned up no serious charges on Riddleberger’s record since then. He said he’s been married for 22 years.“I’ve already paid my debt for something I did 25 years ago,” he said.
Yes, you’re reading that correctly. Barrett Riddleberger — the man whose face is used to advertise a conservative dating website — is a convicted child rapist. And he filmed it.
While Barrett’s wife is not quite as terrible as he is, one tidbit that didn’t make it into WRAL’s report is that she is co-owner of a fake news website — a term often used by conservatives to describe anything they don’t like. But this is an actual fake news website:
Will the rich asshole Dating website speak out against Riddleberger’s past as a child sex criminal? Probably not — but you can be sure they would if they found out he was gay.
CNN Fact-Checks Huckabee Sanders Live On TV While She Claims the rich asshole Is Tough On Russia (VIDEO)
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a briefing that some rich asshole has been tough on Russia (he hasn’t been tough on Russia). Sanders told reporters that the rich asshole has “taken a number of actions against Russia and put pressure on them.” She also made the startling claim that the rich asshole has said on several occasions that Russia interfered in our 2016 presidential election, even though he has repeatedly called the investigation a ‘hoax.’ When asked why the rich asshole hasn’t applied sanctions to Russia, Sanders said “that’s not completely accurate,” even though that’s completely accurate. If you’re exhausted with all of the lies that pour out of this alleged woman’s mouth, well, it looks like CNN is tired of it, too. Sanders said, “The President has been extremely tough on Russia,” then as an example, she said, “he helped push through $700 billion to rebuild our military.”
CNN displayed a split screen showing the exact opposite of what Ms. Liar Pants said to be true. the rich asshole has done nothing to punish Russia for meddling in our election. Obama, on the other hand, took action.
Watch:
Directly after special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three groups, the rich asshole denied ever calling Russia interference a hoax.
Obama warned the rich asshole against hiring Michael Flynn as national security adviser just after the 2016 election but the rich asshole refused to listen. Flynn had been fired by the Obama administration. After Flynn was forced to resign from the rich asshole administration, the so-called president called him a ‘wonderful guy’ then lashed out at the ‘fake media.’ Obama applied sanctions to Russia in January of 2017 as punishment for interfering in the 2016 election. the rich asshole failed to impose sanctions against the hostile foreign power.
The rich asshole administration is ‘fake news.’
Sarah Sanders says the rich asshole ‘absolutely’ acknowledges Russia meddling, walks it back 2 minutes later
Incoherent.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders began the question-and-answer part of Tuesday’s press briefing by claiming that President the rich asshole does now in fact acknowledge that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Minutes later, however, Sanders backtracked and criticized the FBI for wasting time and resources investigating a “hoax.”
The first question Sanders faced was about special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of a number of Russian individuals and organizations on Friday for interfering in the 2016 election. Sanders replied by insisting the rich asshole “absolutely” acknowledges Russian meddling, and falsely claimed that he always has.
“I think one of the places where you guys seem to get very confused, and it seems to happen regularly — the president hasn’t said that Russia didn’t meddle, what he’s saying is that it didn’t have an impact, and it certainly wasn’t with help from the the rich asshole campaign,” she said. “It’s very clear that Russia meddled in the election, it’s also very clear that it didn’t have an impact on the election, and it’s also very clear that the the rich asshole campaign didn’t collude with the Russians in any way for this process to take place.”
As Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made clear during a news conference on Friday, however, the question of collusion remains very much open.
Sanders had no response to the reporter’s follow-up question about why, if the rich asshole takes Russian meddling so seriously, he hasn’t then implemented sanctions approved by Congress.
The next question Sanders faced was about a tweet the rich asshole posted on Saturday that seemed to pin blame for the Parkland shooting on the FBI in general and the bureau’s investigation of the the rich asshole campaign for possible collusion with Russia in particular.
“The president doesn’t really think that the FBI failed to stop the Parkland shooter because it was too involved in the Russia investigation, does he?” a reporter asked.
Sanders didn’t directly answer the question, but said the rich asshole is “making the point that we would like our FBI agencies to not be focused on something that is clearly a hoax in terms of investigating the the rich asshole campaign and its involvement.”
The reporter pointed out how that statement is at odds with Sanders said two minutes earlier.
“You just agreed that the evidence is there that the Russian interfered with our election!” he reminded her. “Now that you’ve said the president agrees, the national security adviser says the evidence is incontrovertible — what is the president going to do about it? What is he specifically doing about the fact that Russian interfered in our election and has every intention, we are told, of doing it again?”
Sanders replied by alluding to meetings the rich asshole administration officials are purportedly having where they are “discussing this process.” She then pivoted to trying to blame President Obama.
“Everybody wants to blame the the rich asshole administration, let’s not forget that this happened under the Obama administration,” she said, echoing a narrative the rich asshole repeatedly tried to push over the weekend.
As she ended the briefing, Sanders ignored a question about whether the rich asshole still believes Vladimir Putin’s denials about Russian having any involvement in election interference.
‘It’s our job to lead, not theirs’: Conservative pundits don’t want Parkland survivors speaking out
"...Should the media be promoting opinions by teenagers who are in an emotional state?"
In the aftermath of tragedy, who gets to speak? According to Bill O’Reilly, it’s not the victims.
“The big question is: should the media be promoting opinions by teenagers who are in an emotional state and facing extreme peer pressure in some cases?” the former Fox News host tweeted Tuesday, following a mass shooting last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Seventeen people were killed and at least 14 others injured in the shooting, which was carried out by a single gunman carrying an AR-15 style rifle. Since then, a number of survivors have taken action, speaking to national media outlets and calling for increased gun control legislation. They’ve also planned a march — called the March For Our Lives — focused on school safety and gun violence prevention, scheduled for next month.
The students’ impassioned pleas and messages to lawmakers have gone viral time and time again in the days since the shooting.
O’Reilly is one of several right-wing figures attempting to silence those who have chosen to speak out. David Marcus, a correspondent for The Federalist, made a similar argument Monday, one that hinged on the belief that lawmakers will likely do nothing to prevent another tragedy like the one in Parkland. By letting young people push for change, we’re only damaging them further, he claimed.
“Leave the kids alone. It’s our job to lead, not theirs,” he wrote. “It’s our job to tell them the truth, not lie to them about a power to make change that they do not have.”
Marcus argued that an upcoming CNN town hall with a group of Marjory Stoneman Douglas survivors might be a negative way for them to deal with the tragedy.
“Have they consulted with mental health experts about whether this [town hall] is a positive way for young survivors to grapple with their grief?” he wrote. “Have they taken into account the possibility that they are setting these kids up for a massive and devastating fall when the change they all know in their hearts they are about to create fails to occur?”
New York Times columnist David Brooks took those arguments a step further in a column published Monday.
“So if you want to stop school shootings it’s not enough just to vent and march,” Brooks wrote. “It’s necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points.”
What Brooks forgets is that “gun owners” — or, more accurately, the National Rifle Association (NRA), the political juggernaut protecting the gun industry — have been leading the way. They’ve been lining the pockets of lawmakers around the country for decades, dictating the gun debate with their dollars.
Despite feigned concern for the victims of the Parkland shooting, many conservative outlets have been more than happy to utilize survivors for their own agendas when it suits them. On Tuesday, Fox News, O’Reilly’s former employer, published an interview with one of the survivors of the shooting, 18-year-old Brandon Minoff. Minoff offered a different take than that of his fellow students, suggesting that the “media is politicizing this tragedy.”
“It seems that gun control laws is the major topic of conversation rather than focusing on the bigger issue of 17 innocent lives being taken at the hands of another human,” he said. “[A]ll day Thursday, CNN was interviewing gun experts and specialists to brainwash the audience that gun control is a necessity…. They even have an army of my classmates trying to persuade other students that guns are unnecessary and should be illegal.”
Teens like the ones whose voices have been elevated in the wake of the Parkland shooting are important to discussions on gun violence and safety. And they’re far from a monolith, as Minoff’s interview makes clear. But talking about their emotional states and policing their grief and subsequent activism, cherry-picking those soundbites that fit the pro-gun agenda most, is just another way the gun lobby — and the NRA specifically — are attempting to re-frame the debate and avoid talking about child deaths.
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