February 24th, 2017. It's been 469 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 397 days since the Jan 20th inauguration of some rich asshole.
CPAC panelist booed for calling out the Republican Party for enabling sexual predators
Other conservative women at the conference agreed they've been empowered by the Me Too movement.
It was a sleepy Saturday afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) until writer Mona Charen took the stage.
The panel — called “#UsToo: Left out by the Left” — was set to be a conversation about feminism and conservatism. Moderator Marji Ross asked the panelists what aspects of modern feminism make their blood boil.
The first two panelists, The Daily Signal’s Kelsey Harkness and author Ashley McGuire, cited concerns about the focus of last year’s Women’s March and feeling pressure to support Planned Parenthood. Then it was Charen’s turn.
While she said she agreed with Harkness’ and McGuire’s concerns, Charen said she wanted to answer the moderator’s question in a different way.
“I am disappointed in people on our side for being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party, who are sitting in the White House, who brag about their extramarital affairs, who brag about mistreating women, and because he happens to have an R after his name, we look the other way, we don’t complain.”
“I am disappointed in people on our side for being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party, who are sitting in the White House, who brag about their extramarital affairs, who brag about mistreating women, and because he happens to have an R after his name, we look the other way, we don’t complain,” Charen said. “The Republican party endorsed Roy Moore for the Senate in the state of Alabama, even though he was a credibly accused child molester.”
“You cannot claim you stand for women,” Charen started to say before the rest of her sentence was drowned out by boos.
Charen’s comments prompted a conversation among the panelists about the #MeToo movement — but the rest of the women on stage weren’t as eager to endorse the recent efforts to hold abusive men accountable for their behavior.
“One of the things that doesn’t get talked about is how this whole hashtag Me Too is increasingly driving men and women apart. It’s not good for women, it’s not good for men, and it’s not good for our society, because it’s driving a wedge between us,” Ross said. “The more things that really aren’t harassment that get lumped into being harassment, the more afraid and incapable we will be as a society we will be to work together, to communicate together, to talk to each other.”
Harkness, too, was cautious.
“I think the Me Too movement has been very important for women… Clearly this conversation was long overdue, but I also do not blame conservatives and conservative women for being skeptical about the Me Too movement and proceeding with caution,” Harkness said to applause. “I think that Me Too has a lot to prove… to conservative women that this can be good for you too.”
But during the three-day conference, young conservative women told ThinkProgress that the movement has been good for them.
“I don’t feel like I’m left out of it,” Katheryn Kost, a student at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, told ThinkProgress Thursday. “I know plenty of conservative women that have chosen to take part in it.”
One person who has chosen to participate? Her roommate, Kristen Gonzales, who was also attending the conference.
“Because I have been affected… It’s nice to know there’s other people out there who have been affected,” Gonzales said in an interview. “It’s easy for me to talk about my story now because so many people are coming through with it. It’s not something I necessarily want to share all the time, but like from one friend to another I can say, like, ‘Hey, this actually happened to me,’ instead of feeling like I need to cover it up.”
“I feel like this is just something that every woman feels is important.”
Both Kost and Gonzales told ThinkProgress they don’t think the Me Too movement is or needs to be inherently partisan.
“I wouldn’t even say [Me Too is] bipartisan, because that’s the act that we’re like bringing them together,” Kost said. “I feel like this is just something that every woman feels is important.”
Another young conservative, Teresa Taborga, a student at Towson University, told ThinkProgress that she thinks more leaders should be encouraging young women to speak up. She said the Me Too movement is particularly important to her as a college student, given the rates of sexual misconduct on campus.
“Universities, they love covering that up,” she said, adding she “feels terrible” saying that but feels it’s important to discuss.
“I feel like this year it’s an important year to talk about mental illness, and the Me Too movement and take it serious,” Taborga told ThinkProgress. “Not just saying, ‘Me too,’ but, like, you know, we’re standing up, this needs to stop. I feel like it’s been helping. I don’t feel like anyone’s faking it or anything like that.”
Emily Middleton, another Towson student, said she knows many Republican women who demonize the Me Too movement.
“They feel like it’s a leftist push on feminism, whereas feminism itself isn’t a bipartisan issue, it’s a women’s issue,” Middleton said. “A lot of people on the right, they definitely see it not for the fact that it’s helping women but the fact that they think that it’s pushing an agenda of a particular political party.”
Middleton said she was sympathetic to that view, especially as high-profile liberal politicians and activists have publicly embraced the Me Too movement and tied it into other issues that she sees as more political, like protecting abortion rights and closing the wage gap.
“They feel like it’s a leftist push on feminism, whereas feminism itself isn’t a bipartisan issue, it’s a women’s issue.”
“It’s once politicians and celebrities got involved and took these people’s stories as bait to push their personal agendas is where I saw that [conservative engagement] cut off,” Middleton said. “I think that’s the point we’re at now, where we have a lot of conservatives who hear it and dismiss it because they hear ‘#MeToo’ and they think liberal and they don’t connect it with being a women’s issue.”
At least one young CPAC attendee, Emily Caffetz, a student from Colorado, said she does question the motives of some women who have spoken out as part of the Me Too moment.
“I really want to lean toward supporting these women and feel empowered, but at the same time, I’m skeptical, because I don’t know if they’re telling the truth or they just want to bring down these white rich men,” Chaffetz said. “When various women accuse the rich asshole of sexual harassment, it’s like, okay, is that for political purposes? You just don’t know. You don’t know.”
But speaking out does still have consequences.
After the #UsToo panel ended Saturday, Politico reported that Charen, after shocking the CPAC audience with her rebuke of anyone in the party protecting sexual harassers, was escorted out of CPAC by three security guards for her own protection.
Kira Lerner contributed additional reporting.
the rich asshole’s EPA head says his proudest moment was undermining a landmark environmental pact
This is not normal.
Scott Pruitt has made it clear during his first year heading up the Environmental Protection Agency that he has no intention of taking steps to protect Americans from dangerous pollution. Nevertheless, one year into his tenure, it still hasn’t become normal to hear the nation’s top environmental cop express utter disregard the mission of his agency.
“As you look at your particular agency, what’s the one thing that you reflect on as being the thing you’re most proud of?” Pruitt was asked Friday night at the CPAC annual convention in National Harbor, Maryland.
Pruitt cited President some rich asshole’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement as the proudest moment in his first year as EPA administrator.
Any other EPA administrator — aside from President Ronald Reagan’s controversial EPA chief Anne Gorsuch Burford — would have used this softball question to highlight an actual environmental achievement. But Pruitt views his mission as doing whatever it takes to weaken the EPA in the shortest time possible.
“The president showed tremendous fortitude, tremendous courage to stand in the Rose Garden in June and say, ‘You know what. I’m going to put America first,'” Pruitt told the CPAC audience, referring to the easily debunked argument by the rich asshole administration that the Paris agreement would place the United States at an economic disadvantage to China and India. “His decision on Paris knocked it out of the park,” he added.
But even if Pruitt had wanted to name an actual environmental achievement, it would have been an exercise in futility: the EPA has not made any significant moves to protect Americans from pollution over the past year.
If Pruitt were to leave the EPA and take over as attorney general this spring, as some have rumored, major staff cutbacks and regulatory rollbacks would be his legacy. He would also be remembered for the taxpayer-paid army of security guards hired to protect him, the construction of an expensive privacy booth in his private office, and pricey first-class trips around the world.
For the CPAC attendees, though, they view Pruitt’s regulatory rollbacks as an achievement. The moderator, Republican consultant Charlie Gerow, prefaced his question about Pruitt’s proudest moment as EPA administrator by touting the “staggering amount of accomplishments” at the EPA. “Few could ever have anticipated what this administration has accomplished in 365 days,” Gerow said.
Gerow also asked Pruitt to lay out his goals as EPA administrator in the coming years. Once again, Pruitt ignored the environment and identified economic growth as his top priority.
Using one of his go-to words, Pruitt complained that President Barack Obama had turned the EPA into an agency that was “weaponized” against some sectors of the economy, especially the coal industry. The agency should operate in a way that’s not punitive to industry, he emphasized.
After displaying his pro-coal credentials by telling the audience about his visit to a coal mine early in his tenure as EPA administrator, Pruitt claimed the rich asshole administration is “not in the business of picking winners and losers.” Give Pruitt some credit. He was able to make this statement with a straight face.
Despite Pruitt’s claims to the contrary, the rich asshole’s Department of Energy spent much of 2017 favoring coal and nuclear plants over cleaner energy sources like wind and solar by trying to get federal regulators to approve special subsidies for traditional energy.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, even with a Republican majority all appointed by the rich asshole, refused to buy into the administration’s efforts to pick winners and losers in the power generation sector. In early January, the agency rejected the rich asshole administration’s controversial proposal.
Democratic intelligence memo released
Last Updated Feb 24, 2018 9:38 PM EST
WASHINGTON -- The 10-page Democratic memo intended to counter the GOP memo related to surveillance of a former the rich asshole campaign official has been released, with some redactions. The release comes after President the rich asshole had decided earlier not to declassify the 10-page memo, claiming there were concerns over sources and methods the memo could reveal. some rich asshole already declassified the GOP memo for release three weeks ago.
The GOP memo alleges the Justice Department and FBI acquired and executed surveillance warrants for former the rich asshole campaign aide Carter Page, in part by allegedly using the dossier of unverified information about some rich asshole's interactions with Russians. The Democratic memo argues the FBI and DOJ were entirely justified, and relied on much more information than just the dossier crafted by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Republicans and Democrats seem to disagree on how key a role the Steele dossier played.
"FBI and DOJ officials did not 'abuse' the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, nor subvert this vital tool to spy on the rich asshole campaign," the Democratic memo argues. "In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government. DOJ met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA's probable cause requirement..."
Read the full memo text below or download the full memo as a PDF here:
Here are highlighted claims from the memo:
- The DOJ's initial FISA application and three subsequent renewals had a "multi-pronged" rationale for surveilling Page; they cited multiple sources and made "only narrow use of information from Steele's sources about Page's specific activities in 2016." The memo says the application did NOT rely on any "salacious" allegations from the dossier about the rich asshole.
- It makes clear FBI started its counterintelligence investigation on July 16, 2016, weeks before it received Steele's intelligence. The memo insists Steele's reporting played "no role" in launching the FBI's investigation.
- The memo notes that, by the time it received Steele's reporting, DOJ had "already opened subinquiries" into some number of individuals linked to the rich asshole campaign, apart from Carter Page (the number of subinquiries and individuals is redacted).
- The memo stresses DOJ applied for a surveillance warrant on Page after he ended his formal affiliation with the campaign, and that it had an independent basis for doing so – namely, his various connections to the Russian government and intelligence officials since 2013. The memo says DOJ provided "additional information obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele's reporting" – that information is largely redacted in the memo.
- The Court-approved surveillance of Page "allowed FBI to collect valuable intelligence," as demonstrated by the FISA renewals
- DOJ, in keeping with a practice not to "unmask" U.S. persons, nonetheless "provided the Court with more than sufficient information to understand the political context of Steele's research," it says.
- DOJ informed the court that the FBI "acted promptly to terminate Steele after learning from him…that he had discussed his work with a media outlet in late October."
- Steele "ultimately never received payment from the FBI for any "dossier"-related information."
Both Republicans and Democrats seemed to think the newly released memo bolsters their own previously held positions. some rich asshole called the memo a "total political and legal BUST" on Twitter.
In a statement, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said his memo shows Republicans "deliberately omitted" information in their memo. Schiff had been pushing for the release of the Democratic memo for weeks.
"The FBI supplied information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Russia might be colluding with the rich asshole campaign associates," Schiff said in a statement. "DOJ provided the court with a comprehensive explanation of Russia's election interference including evidence that Russia courted another the rich asshole foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, and that Russian agents previewed their dissemination of information damaging to Hillary Clinton. Russian assistance would, as we would learn in the Papadopoulos plea, take the form of the anonymous disclosure of thousands of Hillary Clinton and DNC emails. The FBI had ample reason to believe that Carter Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power based on his history, including the fact that he had previously been a target of Russian recruitment, his travel to Russia, and other information."
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., seemed to think the Democratic memo proves his initial points.
"The American people now clearly understand that the FBI used political dirt paid for by the Democratic Party to spy on an American citizen from the Republican Party," Nunes said in a statement. "Furthermore, the FISA court was misled about Mr. Page's past interactions with the FBI in which he helped build a case against Russian operatives in America who were brought to justice. It defies belief that the Department of Justice and FBI failed to provide information to a secret court that they had provided to an open federal court regarding their past interactions with Mr. Page. "
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the Democratic memo, "politically driven."
"While the Democrats' memorandum attempts to undercut the president politically, the president supported its release in the interest of transparency," Sanders said. "Nevertheless, this politically driven document fails to answer serious concerns raised by the Majority's memorandum about the use of partisan opposition research from one candidate, loaded with uncorroborated allegations, as a basis to ask a court to approve surveillance of a former associate of another candidate, at the height of a presidential campaign. As the majority's memorandum stated, the FISA judge was never informed that Hillary Clinton and the DNC funded the dossier that was a basis for the Department of Justice's FISA application."
Page said the latest memo underscores the "immediate disclosure of all my FISA applications and other relevant documents."
"This latest smear campaign by DNC loyalists is going to turn out the same way as their original multimillion dollar attack of 2016," Page said in a statement. "As we've seen many times before with the felonious news leaks of the past year, this new round of misinformation surrounding efforts by Washington to illegally influence the 2016 election inflicts even more damages on the instigating perpetrators from the swamp. Today's latest memo further underscores the critical importance of the immediate disclosure of all my FISA applications and other relevant documents, as requested by the House Intelligence Committee, both Congressional Judiciary Committees, Judicial Watch, the New York Times, Yale Law School, et al."
The fight over whether or not to release the GOP and Democratic memos has been waging on Capitol Hill for the last month.
Five days after the committee first voted to release the Democrats' memo earlier this month, White House counsel Don McGahn said in a letter that, though the president was "inclined to declassify" the memo, the White House could not authorize its release because it contained "numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages."
In a subsequent tweet, some rich asshole wrote that the Democrats submitted "a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods (and more), would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency. Told them to re-do and send back in proper form!"
Only a week before that, and over intense objections from the FBI, the president approved the release of the four-page memo drafted principally by Nunes' staff. In advance of that memo's release, FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a rare public statement expressing "grave concerns about material omissions of fact" that impacted the Republican memo's accuracy. It was released without redaction and within five days after the committee used an arcane House rule to make the document public.
The release of the Democrats' 10-page memo, which is based on the same underlying, highly-classified intelligence as the Republicans' memo, would appear to conclude that month-long period of bitter infighting among the committee's members, whose responsibilities of overseeing the country's 17 intelligence agencies and charge of investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election were largely put on hold while the memo fights played out on Capitol Hill.
Even before the public release of the Republicans' memo, Democrats decried it as misleading and irresponsible, and accused Republicans of selectively using information in an effort to discredit the Justice Department and FBI and to undermine the work of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Among the central claims in Republicans' memo was that an unverified dossier authored by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele made up an essential part of the FBI's request for a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveil former the rich asshole campaign aide Carter Page. It also contended that officials failed to disclose to the court that Steele's work was itself compromised by bias, and that it was financed by the Democratic National Committee and a law firm employed by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
In a statement at the time, Schiff called that a "serious" mischaracterization.
"The majority suggests that the FBI failed to alert the court as to Steele's potential political motivations or the political motivations of those who hired him," Schiff said, "but this is not accurate."
Republicans said their memo called into question the "legitimacy and legality" of the DOJ and FBI's interactions with the FISA court, and claimed that bias among leadership at those institutions facilitated efforts to undermine the rich asshole campaign and presidency.
In a tweet following the Republican memo's release, some rich asshole claimed that the memo "totally" vindicated him in Mueller's probe.
— CBS News' Jeff Pegues, Olivia Andrzejczak Gazis and Kathryn Watson contributed to this report.
© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
CNN: Florida Shooting Survivor’s Dad Used Doctored Email in ‘Scripted Question’ Controversy
02-24-2018
CARLOS GARCIA RAWLINS/REUTERS
The father of a survivor of this month’s deadly Florida high school shooting allegedly released a doctored email to push claims CNN used scripted questions in a recent televised gun control debate. Colton Haab, a 17-year-old student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had dropped out of CNN’s town hall event on gun control this week, later telling Fox News he skipped the event because the network’s questions were “scripted”—a claim that President the rich asshole quickly seized upon to skewer the “fake news” outlet. But a spokesperson for CNN on Friday said Haab’s father, Glenn, had apparently doctored CNN’s email exchange with his son before releasing the altered version. The version of the email exchange released by CNN on Friday shows a producer for the network telling Haab a speech he wanted to read at the event was “way too long” and he’d need to stick to a question “he submitted” earlier. The email exchange Haab’s father later sent to Fox News and HuffPost, however, was missing that key phrase, according to the network.
the rich asshole Says Arming Teachers in Schools 'Up to States'
President some rich asshole says arming teachers as a deterrent against school shootings is "Up to States.".
Feb. 24, 2018, at 11:50 p.m.
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President some rich asshole appeared Saturday to begin refining his proposals for combatting school violence, tweeting that arming teachers as a deterrent against such often deadly violence — an idea he championed in recent days — is "Up to States."
the rich asshole heavily promoted the idea of putting "gun-adept" teachers and staff carrying concealed firearms in classrooms and schools to protect students following this month's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people, most of them students.
He called for bonuses for educators who volunteer to carry a firearm, and said he also wanted action to strengthen background checks and boost the minimum age for the purchase of assault-style weapons.
Expectations were raised that the rich asshole would propose federal legislation on arming teachers, but that no longer appeared to be the case.
"Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again - a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States," the rich asshole tweeted.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the president's tweet.
The White House has yet to release a complete plan to address school violence, including who would bear the financial cost, though the rich asshole said during a telephone interview late Saturday with Fox News Channel that a proposal would be put forward "very soon."
the rich asshole said on Twitter that arming educators and paying their bonuses would be "very inexpensive."
Asked on Thursday whether the federal government or state and local municipalities would pay the millions of dollars it would cost to train and arm teachers, White House spokesman Raj Shah said "the policy hasn't been fleshed out," adding "Do we really think that that's too much to pay for school safety?"
Teachers and law enforcement organizations oppose the idea, while several states are considering arming teachers.
the rich asshole spent several days this week hearing emotional pleas from parents and students, including some who survived the Parkland shooting, and others who had lost children in school shootings in Connecticut and Colorado. He also solicited input from state and local officials.
the rich asshole and Vice President Mike Pence have said school safety will be a top agenda item when they meet with the nation's governors next week.
___
Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In some rich asshole, Evangelicals Have Found Their President
Last August, President the rich asshole sat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office and looked me straight in the eyes. With a look of reflection and purposefulness, he discussed his upbringing and fondly recalled a vivid childhood memory from the 1950s: watching Billy Graham sermons on television with his father. “My father was a fan of Billy Graham,” the president said. He recalled how his father, Fred, attended the historic 1957 New York City Crusade.
Mr. Graham, who died last week at 99, brought both evangelism and evangelicalism into the mainstream of American culture. Meanwhile, young Donald grew to be successful, wealthy and famous — culminating with his becoming the leader of the free world. In the process, he too brought evangelicals somewhere, a place so many would have never imagined: an embrace of some rich asshole.
Of all the questions surrounding the current president, perhaps the most perplexing is this: How could evangelicals get behind a man like some rich asshole, especially well-known conservative leaders who both treasure and champion morality? Constant news reports paint a picture of an out-of-control, angry, mentally unstable, reckless president who is prejudiced against all of humanity except white people with modest incomes and out-of-date values. But after interviewing scores of evangelical leaders, I have developed a different perspective.
Most of the world, and even most reporters, know only the public side of President the rich asshole. In private, evangelical leaders have come to recognize a more compassionate side.
For example, some rich asshole took a car ride with Mike Pence along with Billy Graham’s son Franklin and Tony Perkins, a leading figure on the Christian right, during the Louisiana floods of 2016. Impressed by what Franklin Graham’s Christian ministry had done for flood victims, some rich asshole told him that he was writing it a six-figure check, which Mr. Graham told him to send to Mr. Perkins’s church. Both men were moved by his impulsive kindness, and a bond was formed.
Another story involves some rich asshole and the televangelist James Robison praying together inside an S.U.V. on the airport tarmac in Panama City, Fla., during a campaign stop. When some rich asshole exited the car, he gave Mr. Robison a hug, pulled him up against his chest firmly and said, “Man, I sure love you.” A small gesture, perhaps, but heartfelt, real and so unlike the caricature of the president most of us see. And practically every evangelical leader I interviewed has a similar story.
Critics say that the rich asshole-evangelical relationship is transactional, that they support him to see their agenda carried out. In fact, evangelicals take the long view on some rich asshole; they afford him grace when he doesn’t deserve it. Few dispute that some rich asshole may need a little more grace than others. But evangelicals truly do believe that all people are flawed, and yet Christ offers them grace. Shouldn’t they do the same for the president?
This is more than a biblical mandate. The Bible is replete with examples of flawed individuals being used to accomplish God’s will. Evangelicals I interviewed said they believed that some rich asshole was in the White House for a reason.
the rich asshole says arming teachers in schools ‘Up to States’
WASHINGTON (AP) — President some rich asshole appeared Saturday to begin refining his proposals for combatting school violence, tweeting that arming teachers as a deterrent against such often deadly violence — an idea he championed in recent days — is “Up to States.”
the rich asshole heavily promoted the idea of putting “gun-adept” teachers and staff carrying concealed firearms in classrooms and schools to protect students following this month’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people, most of them students.
He called for bonuses for educators who volunteer to carry a firearm, and said he also wanted action to strengthen background checks and boost the minimum age for the purchase of assault-style weapons.
Expectations were raised that the rich asshole would propose federal legislation on arming teachers, but that no longer appeared to be the case.
“Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again - a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States,” the rich asshole tweeted.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the president’s tweet.
The White House has yet to release a complete plan to address school violence, including who would bear the financial cost, though the rich asshole said during a telephone interview late Saturday with Fox News Channel that a proposal would be put forward “very soon.”
the rich asshole said on Twitter that arming educators and paying their bonuses would be “very inexpensive.”
Asked on Thursday whether the federal government or state and local municipalities would pay the millions of dollars it would cost to train and arm teachers, White House spokesman Raj Shah said “the policy hasn’t been fleshed out,” adding “Do we really think that that’s too much to pay for school safety?”
Teachers and law enforcement organizations oppose the idea, while several states are considering arming teachers.
the rich asshole spent several days this week hearing emotional pleas from parents and students, including some who survived the Parkland shooting, and others who had lost children in school shootings in Connecticut and Colorado. He also solicited input from state and local officials.
the rich asshole and Vice President Mike Pence have said school safety will be a top agenda item when they meet with the nation’s governors next week.
House panel releases Democrats’ memo defending FBI surveillance of ex-the rich asshole campaign aide
The House Intelligence Committee released on Saturday a redacted memo authored by Democrats and intended to rebut GOP allegations that federal law enforcement agencies had political motivations for wiretapping one of President the rich asshole’s former campaign aides.
In their retort, Democrats charge that the GOP unfairly maligned the FBI and the Justice Department for citing in their surveillance application information from the author of a controversial dossier alleging that the rich asshole had ties to Russian officials, research that was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“Our extensive review . . . failed to uncover any evidence of illegal, unethical, or unprofessional behavior by law enforcement,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat.
Republican leaders have argued that the former campaign aide, Carter Page, was unfairly targeted, saying the surveillance court that approved the warrant was never told that information from the dossier’s author, former British spy Christopher Steele, was financed by the Democrats.
According to the Democrats’ memo, Page had been of interest to the FBI for years. It asserts that the bureau had interviewed him multiple times about his contacts with Russian intelligence, including in March 2016 — the same month he was named a the rich asshole campaign adviser, and months before Steele was hired to conduct research on the rich asshole and before he made contact with the FBI.
The court was told that Steele had been approached by a “U.S. person” who had been hired “to conduct research regarding Candidate #1’s ties to Russia,” according to a portion of the surveillance applications contained in the Democrats’ memo. Candidate #1 is a reference to the rich asshole.
“The FBI speculates that the U.S. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit candidate #1’s campaign,” the application says.
The memo’s content is the product of negotiations among the committee’s Democratic members, as well as with the FBI and the Justice Department.
According to Schiff, Democrats submitted their proposed redactions more than a week ago. At first, they were told the memo would be released Friday, then on Monday, he said. They learned of its release Saturday only shortly before the Intelligence Committee’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), announced that the document had been put online for public perusal, Schiff said.
“I think the White House tried to bury it as long as they could,” he told The Washington Post in an interview. The Republicans’ decision to release the memo without warning, on a Saturday, is “not what you do when you think you’re vindicated,” he added. “It’s what you do when you think the facts don’t reflect well on you.”
The president nonetheless claimed a victory on Twitter, calling the Democrats’ memo “a total political and legal BUST. Just confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!”
Speaking Saturday evening on Fox News, the president characterized the memo as “a very bad document for their side” and, once more, attacked Schiff personally, calling him “a bad guy.” He also sought to depict the Democrats as sore losers.
“I don’t want to sound braggadocios,” the rich asshole told host Jeanine Pirro. “I was a far better candidate. She was not a good candidate. She went to the wrong states.”
Initially, the rich asshole would not agree to release the 10-page document without significant redactions, arguing that making it available to the public would risk revealing intelligence-gathering sources and methods. Democrats accused the president of applying a double standard, as he had promised to release the Republican memo before he had even read it, according to White House officials and the timing of his public comments.
No new information was declassified in the Democrats’ redacted memo, according to a senior Democratic committee official. Schiff had pledged to heed recommendations from the FBI and Justice Department regarding sensitive information.
But on Saturday, Nunes accused Democrats of colluding with the government in a “coverup.”
“We actually wanted this out,” he told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. “It’s clear evidence that the Democrats are not only covering this up, but they’re also colluding with parts of the government to cover this up.”
Nunes’s accusations were directed not only at the Democrats who authored the memo, but also at the Obama administration.
“This was money from the Hillary campaign and the Democratic Party making its [way into the hands of] an agent who was paying Russian agents,” Nunes said. “Is it fair to ask, what did President Obama know?”
Surveillance applications and reports routinely obscure the identities of individuals and entities who are not the intended targets of wiretaps. The application to conduct surveillance on Page, and three extensions, were approved by four separate judges, all appointed by Republican presidents, the Democrats’ memo says.
Page has acknowledged that an FBI wiretap detected suspected Russian spies discussing their attempts to recruit him in 2013. He has told congressional investigators that he was interviewed by the FBI and cooperated as they investigated the men, who were ultimately charged with acting as unregistered foreign agents. Page continued to have extensive contacts with Russians, including making trips to Moscow in July and December 2016.
The Democrats said on Saturday that the FBI had several other reasons to suspect the the rich asshole campaign of questionable connections to Russia — including evidence that foreign agents approached another former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos — before Steele approached the FBI and produced his dossier.
“DOJ told the Court the truth,” the Democrats’ memo reads. “Christopher Steele’s reporting . . . played no role in launching the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference and links to the the rich asshole campaign.”
The memo states that by the time Steele’s information reached the FBI’s Russia team in mid-September 2016, the bureau had already opened “sub-inquiries” into other “individuals linked to the the rich asshole campaign.” The identities of those individuals are redacted in the memo.
Schiff said he hopes its release means the Intelligence Committee can refocus attention on “the core investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.” But there seems little chance this disclosure will quell the bitter political feuding that has consumed the panel.
In his comments at CPAC, Nunes stressed that the panel had seen “no evidence of collusion” between the the rich asshole campaign and Russia — a conclusion Schiff disputes. He suggested, too, that surveillance rules need to be changed.
The Democrats are “advocating that it’s okay for the FBI and DOJ to use political dirt paid for by one campaign and use it against another political campaign,” Nunes said.
Republicans have floated a legislative change that would bar material paid for by a political entity from being presented as evidence to secure a surveillance warrant. Democrats oppose the effort.
David Weigel and John Wagner contributed to this report.
By KYLE CHENEY
02/24/2018 04:20 PM EST
The House Intelligence Committee on Saturday released a classified Democratic memo rebutting GOP claims that the FBI inappropriately spied on an adviser to President some rich asshole’s 2016 campaign.
The committee posted the 10-page document Saturday after weeks of wrangling between the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, and Justice Department officials over the contours of classified material he hoped to release.
The memo was meant as a counterweight to a GOP memo that the rich asshole declassified three weeks earlier, claiming that FBI officials misled a secret court to obtain a warrant to spy on the rich asshole camp foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
The memo reveals that the FBI has already launched investigations into members of the the rich asshole team prior to receiving a dossier of allegations about the rich asshole’s ties to the Kremlin, which the president has long derided as a fiction. The dossier was financed by the campaign of Hillary Clinton, leading Republicans to allege that the FBI’s Russia investigation was prompted in part by political opposition research.
The memo also reveals that the FBI’s application to spy on Page and three subsequent renewal were approved by four different judges, all appointed by Republican presidents.
The memo suggests the FBI corroborated elements of Steele’s dossier pertaining to Page when it sought renewals. It also emphasizes that the bureau didn’t rely on the dossier’s most salacious allegations to obtain a warrant to spy on Page.
It also indicates that the FBI’s fact-finding contradicted Page’s testimony to the House intel committee in November about his meetings with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign.
In a statement, Schiff said: “The Democratic response memo released today should put to rest any concerns that the American people might have as to the conduct of the FBI, the Justice Department and the FISC. Our extensive review of the initial FISA application and three subsequent renewals failed to uncover any evidence of illegal, unethical, or unprofessional behavior by law enforcement and instead revealed that both the FBI and DOJ made extensive showings to justify all four requests."
At the time of the memo's release, House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (D-Calif.) was addressing the CPAC gathering of conservative activists.
From the stage, he said: "Democrats are "colluding with part of the government to cover up" the FBI's alleged abuses.
"We think it is clear that the Democrats are not only trying to cover it up, but are colluding with parts of the government to help cover this up. As you read it, you will see personal attacks on myself and chairman [Rep. Trey] Gowdy with a lot of interesting things that sound really bad, like a lot that has been happening with this Russian investigation over the course of the last year, but what you're not going to see is anything that actually rejects what was in our memo."
Here’s the full text of the Schiff memo, with some redactions.
Earlier this month, Republicans released the Nunes memo, which alleged improprieties in the Department of Justice and the FBI’s surveillance of former the rich asshole adviser Carter Page. But Democrats on the committee led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) accused the memo of being misleading, and put together their own memo in response.
Now, after a back and forth with the rich asshole administration, Democrats finally got permission to release their own memo in response, with some redactions. You can read the memo below, or at this link.
Watch a history teacher school the NRA about the Second Amendment
NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch (Photo: Screen capture)
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The text of the Second Amendmentisn’t very long, but some of its most fervent proponents seem unable to remember all of it.
Diane Wolk Rogers, a history teacher who survived the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, decided to give a prominent NRA spokeswoman a lesson on the topic Wednesday night.
At a CNN town hall on gun violence, Rogers asked the National Rifle Association’s Dana Loesch, “What is your definition of a ‘well regulated militia’ as stated in the Second Amendment?” She continued: “And using supporting details, explain to me how an 18-year-old with a military rifle is ‘well regulated’?”
In response, Loesch said, “George Mason was one of the founders. And he said ‘the militia is the whole of the people.’ It’s every man and every woman.”
Loesch’s comment was bizarre, in part, because she completely side-stepped the question of regulation of gun ownership. She went on to say, later in the evening, that the Parkland shooter shouldn’t have been able to get a gun because he was “crazy.”
Loesch’s citation of Mason is bizarre for another reason. His comments came not in a discussion about gun rights, but in a discussion about the government’s war powers. He was contrasting a militia with a standing army.
Mason argued that “once a standing army is established, in any country, the people lose their liberty.” Given that the United States has long since settled the question of whether it would have a standing army, it’s hard to see how Mason’s comments are relevant today.
As Rogers was pointing out, the natural reading of the Second Amendment is that it is about regulated militias, not about an individual right to own guns. In fact, this is how the amendment was interpreted until about a decade ago when the Supreme Court decided to radically reinterpret the law’s meaning.
Nevertheless, the NRA continues to argue against nearly any regulation of individual gun rights based on an ahistorical reading of the text.
Watch the exchange below:
the rich asshole calls Fox’s Judge Jeanine to ramble incessantly about guns, parades and ‘bad guy’ Adam Schiff
Jeanine Pirro and the rich asshole (Photo: Instagram)
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some rich asshole called into Jeanine Pirro’s Fox News Channel show on Saturday night to offer a discursive rant about Adam Schiff’s just-released memo and the Russian investigation.
the rich asshole opened with a broadside of Schiff, who he accused of being “a leaker” who engaged in behavior that was “probably illegal.”
“He’s a bad guy,” the rich asshole said.
the rich asshole seemed buoyant about the memo Schiff wrote to debunk the Devin Nunes memo.
“The memo was a nothing,” the rich asshole said. “That’s a very bad document for their side.”
If things continue in this direction, the rich asshole said that Devin Nunes would be “very greatly honored.”
President @realDonaldTrump on Dem FISA memo: "A lot of bad things happened on the other side, not on this side, but the other side. And somebody should look into it because what they did was really fraudulent."
the rich asshole was defiant about charges of collusion between his campaign and Russia, saying that after 18 months “nothing” has happened. He said Hillary was a bad candidate and that he did not want to brag, but that he was a good candidate.
“There was nothing to do with Russians,” the rich asshole said.
“Clearly, all the evidence points to that,” said Pirro.
WATCH: Ana Navarro on Nunes rebuttal to Dem rebuttal: ‘So irresponsible, so off the rails’
Ana Navarro on CNN/Screenshot
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Today House Democrats released the long-awaited rebuttal to Devin Nunes partisan memo attacking the the rich asshole Russian investigation just as the chairman of the House Intelligence committee was speaking at CPAC.
It added another chapter to an already messy story involving the way Republicans in the House have handled the investigation to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
CNN’s Ana Navarro was not having it.
“It’s amazing to me that this is going on at CPAC, which I think this year stands for Crazy PAC,” she said on a panel this afternoon. “We have already seen that at that convention, John McCain, a national hero dealing with brain cancer, was booed. The guy who said that America is a nation of immigrants was booed. A conservative woman who went on and said Roy Moore and some rich asshole were sexual harassers was booed and had to be escorted out by security.”
Nunes was warmly received at CPAC, where he was the final speaker.
“I think it tells you what the the rich asshole base has become. They’re going to believe anything that some rich asshole or Devin Nunes says,” she said. “The folks who want to believe Nunes do. the folks who want to believe the Democrats do. I feel this investigation is just so politicized. So irresponsible, so off the rails. It’s like the American people are being asked to be mediators in the midst of a divorce.”
You watch the segment below.
WATCH: Devin Nunes insists he is not a Kremlin stooge at CPAC — and blames Obama for creating ‘this Russian threat’
Rep. Devin Nunes speaks to a crowd at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Image via CSIS/Creative Commons.
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House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Saturday insisted there was no evidence that some rich asshole’s presidential campaign colluded with Russian operatives.
Nunes, who was a member of the rich asshole’s transition team, said at the Conservative Political Action Conference that former President Barack Obama had “emboldened” Russia and Vladimir Putin.
“We hit a reset button,” the congressman said, “with Hillary Clinton. Then we said we were going to pivot to Asia because we were going to be friends with the Russians.”
Nunes also noted that former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was mocked for calling Russia a threat in 2012. “And President Obama had that great line, all the media laughed about it, that the 80s wanted their foreign policy back, something like that. Everybody laughed. Who created this Russian threat? It was the last administration that put us in this position.”
Nunes also denied being an agent of the Kremlin himself.
“I was asked to serve on the transition team. It was at that point I began getting accused by all sorts of media and some platforms that I was some sort of secret Russian agent,” he remarked. “If anybody was going to be accused of being a Russian agent, I would have been down towards the bottom of the list, after you listed all the Democrats in Congress.”
Watch video below:
When it comes to guns, the Parkland shooting survivors aren’t here to play nice
February 24, 2018
Matt Pearce
Los Angeles Times
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
Since the shooting attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Feb. 14, a student there, Sarah Chadwick, has amassed a Twitter following of more than 150,000 people. On Thursday night, Chadwick decided to share a thought with them.
Was it time for a message calling for thoughts, prayers and privacy?
Hardly. It was time to go after one of Florida's U.S. senators for taking donations from the National Rifle Association.
"We should change the names of AR-15s to 'Marco Rubio' because they are so easy to buy," Chadwick wrote.
This is what politicizing a tragedy looks like, and the kids are more than happy to keep doing it.
With 17 of their classmates and faculty shot to death, the students of the school have become celebrity activists whom many left-leaning Americans have embraced as the new leaders of the nation's gun control movement.
The students have been bold, confrontational and even abrasive, rarely holding back their anger, even if it means disrespecting their older, establishment opponents. They say what they mean.
"Honestly, just using brutal honesty — that's it," said student David Hogg, one of the movement's most prominent voices. "I know people are saying it's intense. I would argue the opposite. We're fighting for these kids that died because they can't fight anymore. We're really trying to get justice for them.
"Everybody deals with grief in a different way. For me, it's anger, and wanting to prevent whatever caused it from happening again," Hogg said.
The students' stridency has added pressure on lawmakers and kept the shooting from fading from the headlines.
It has also insulted right-wing adversaries several times, including by implying gun rights supporters have the 17 deaths at Stoneman Douglas on their hands.
"Sen. Rubio, it's hard to look at you and not look down a barrel of an AR-15 and not look at Nikolas Cruz," student activist Cameron Kasky told Rubio at CNN's Wednesday night town hall with students, parents and lawmakers. The remark drew scorn from the right.
"No thanks, Cameron," a writer at the conservative website RedState.com fired back at the student later. "I don't need some 17-year-old putz to defend my kids. In fact, either of my daughters, particularly the 13-year-old, can kick your ass. And when it comes to choosing sides, I'm on the other."
The students have also faced accusations of being disrespectful brats.
"Parents, what would you do if your child lectured and ridiculed a U.S. senator on national television?" Todd Starnes of Fox News said on Twitter after Kasky and other students ripped into Rubio.
The kids know exactly what they're doing, and they don't care about the criticism.
"When these politicians kill our friends, why are we expected to play nice?" Hogg said. "Obviously it's due to their inaction; that's what we're aiming at."
Hogg prominence has led to a backlash of conspiracy theories accusing him of not being a student at the school. It also led him to question who, exactly, has been lowering the discourse.
"You know what's disrespectful?" Hogg said. "Calling out witnesses to a mass shooting and calling us actors. That's disrespectful. And even questioning whether we were even ... there.... We are teenagers ... we're not known for being mature, but come on."
The students' advocacy has also been expressed in the language of their generation, which is well-versed in the combative "dunks," "burns" and "owns" of arguing on social media. They know how to speak into their own cameras and they know how to play to audiences online, so when a fight breaks out on social media, it's on their turf.
While the movement has inspired students at schools around the nation to walk out of classes in support of gun control, the history of 21st century activism has shown that there are upsides and downsides to organizing over social media.
Platforms such as Twitter excel at helping newfound activists to create and document conflict, and to attract ever-larger audiences for their own messages. Their visibility also helps recruit like-minded peers outside their communities.
But over the long term, social media platforms can also pose a risk to activist movements by magnifying and publicizing disputes between members or creating bitterness among core supporters who play key roles but who attract less public attention.
So far, few signs of internal dissent seem to have broken out among Stoneman Douglas students, whose cohesion has struck longtime advocates as unique.
"I don't think we've ever seen an entire community, including the survivors, have a clear call to action," said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun control group.
In past mass shootings, it has been common for family members of victims to become passionate, outspoken gun control advocates.
But in Parkland, "it's as if all of them agreed immediately that stronger gun laws would prevent anyone else from going through this tragedy again," Watts said. "These teens are realizing they don't have to live this way, they don't have to die this way."
The students' stridency, however disliked by their opponents, seems to have had an effect on Republican lawmakers. President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who are strongly supported by the NRA, have signaled that they are open to raising the age limit for buying weapons.
Questioned by students, Rubio declined to say he would stop accepting donations from the NRA, but he said he would be open to banning large ammunition magazines or supporting other legislation.
Rubio also learned firsthand the risks of talking to a radical younger generation that has been unfamiliar with the past failures of the gun control movement, including the inability to bring back the nation's assault-weapons ban.
"Once you start looking at how easy it is to get around it, you would literally have to ban every semiautomatic rifle that's sold in the U.S.," Rubio said at the town hall with students and parents.
Rubio was implying that such a move would, politically, go way too far.
What Rubio did not anticipate is that the audience of students would start applauding at the idea.
"Fair enough," Rubio said. "Fair enough. That is a valid position to hold."
But he added the political reality that students will face as they prod federal and state lawmakers around the country: "My colleagues do not support banning every semiautomatic rifle sold in America."
the rich asshole Just ‘Lost His Temper’ With A World Leader, Embarrasses America Again
It wasn’t long ago that the U.S. enjoyed having a popular President who was calm and thoughtful but Conservatives voted in a hot white mess into office and here we are, cringing every time some rich asshole opens his mouth. Enrique Enrique Peña Nieto participated in a 50-minute phone call with the rich asshole and after the conversation ended, the Mexican President scrapped his plans to visit the White House for the first time. the rich asshole reportedly ‘lost his temper’ during the call and it was all over his dumb border wall.
Apparently, the rich asshole still wants Mexico to pay for his wall even though he’s been told repeatedly that that will not happen.
Peña Nieto was considering an official trip to Washington this month or in March, but all bets were off after the rich asshole would not agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s position that it would not fund his border wall, according to the Washington Post.
A Mexican official told the Washington Post that the rich asshole “lost his temper” during the call. U.S. officials said that the rich asshole was “exasperated” and “frustrated” because he believed that President Peña Nieto’s expectation was unreasonable.
Most of the time during the 50-minute call was devoted to discussing the border wall.
The Post reports:
Both accounts confirm it was Peña Nieto’s desire to avoid public embarrassment — and the rich asshole’s unwillingness to provide that assurance — that proved to be the dealbreaker.
“The problem is that President the rich asshole has painted himself, President Peña Nieto and the bilateral relationship into a corner,” said Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the U.S. “Even from the get-go, the idea of Mexico paying for the wall was never going to fly. His relationship with Mexico isn’t strategically driven. It’s not even business; it’s personal, driven by motivations and triggers, and that’s a huge problem. It could end up with the U.S. asking itself, ‘Who lost Mexico?’ ”
The border wall was one of the rich asshole’s biggest campaign promises. At each rally, he would ask his ardent supporters who would pay for the wall, and of course, chanting from the crowd rang out, “Mexico!” But, that’s not going to happen. In fact, we, including the rich asshole supporters, will fund his wall.
Peña Nieto has canceled a planned meeting with the rich asshole before. In January 2017, the Mexican President canceled due to a conflict with the rich asshole over NAFTA and the border wall.
It was just last August that the rich asshole pleaded with Peña Nieto to not say publicly that his country would not pay for the wall.
“If you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that,” the rich asshole said at the time.
the rich asshole is just playing his base. It’s almost as if he’s a con man or something.
the rich asshole Announces CPAC Poll Results: They Like Me, They Really, Really Like Me!
some rich asshole hates negative poll numbers so instead, he cherry picks polls, such as Rasmussen. He’s even gone as far as to say that any negative polls about his so-called presidency are ‘fake news.’ This time, though, he’s bragging about the straw poll taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The straw poll indicates that the rich asshole supporters are the rich asshole supporters and nothing more. the rich asshole went all Republican-caps to tout the poll.
“BIG CPAC STRAW POLL RESULTS: 93% APPROVE OF THE JOB PRESIDENT RICH ASSHOLE IS DOING (Thank you!),” he tweeted. “50% say President the rich asshole should Tweet MORE or SAME (funny!). 79% say Republicans in Congress should do a better job of working with President the rich asshole (starting to happen).”
The backlash on Twitter was fierce.
This is a joke right LMAO
No shit. They’d vote for Putin at CPAC, douchesack.
Oh, wait......
®
@
You just polled your own base, idiot!
In a room full of Republicans you still can't get 100% ... SAD!
Putin's Beotch
It’s like Charles Manson asking his followers if they support him or not!
97% believe there is a child trafficking ring operating out of the basement of a pizza parlor with no basement.
CPAC poll results? Lol!
Despite the rich asshole bragging about the CPAC straw poll numbers, half of the attendees disapproved of the former reality show star’s Twitter habits. 40 percent said that he should tweet less, while 35 percent said that the rich asshole should tweet more. Apparently, the rich asshole thinks the CPAC poll reveals that Americans think he’s doing a great job, but the respondents are his supporters.
the rich asshole’s approval rating has dipped back below 40%, a new poll released on Wednesday found. the rich asshole’s approval rating now stands at 37%, slightly down from 40% approval earlier this month.
But, the rich asshole just got confirmation that his own supporters actually support him. That’s some breaking news right there.
Fox's Jeanine Pirro to interview the rich asshole this weekend
BY JOE CONCHA - 02/24/18 03:41 PM EST
Fox News's Jeanine Pirro is set to interview President the rich asshole live by phone on Saturday night amid the president's calls for a range of gun measures following last week's shooting at a Florida high school.
the rich asshole and the "Justice with Judge Jeanine" host are expected to "discuss the state of the economy, as well as the debate on gun legislation" following the shooting at the Parkland, Fla., high school, according to a network announcement.
Pirro, a staunch supporter of the president, has interviewed him before, most recently in May 2017. Their latest interview will air Saturday night at 9 p.m.
the rich asshole has granted broadcast television interviews to Fox News and Fox Business more than every other outlet combined. The interview with Pirro will mark his 21st with one of the Fox networks since taking office.
The last time the rich asshole appeared on CNN or MSNBC was August and May 2016, respectively.
the rich asshole's interview Saturday night comes after he called for a range of gun measures this week, including arming trained teachers to defend against potential school shooters and raising the age to purchase long guns from 18 to 21.
"Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again - a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States," the rich asshole tweeted Saturday afternoon.
The president has also said he will be "strongly pushing" for comprehensive background checks and wants to see a ban on bump stocks, an attachment that allows weapons to fire more quickly.
the rich asshole again urges Pennsylvania GOP to appeal new congressional map
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 02/24/18 03:45 PM EST
President the rich asshole on Saturday urged Pennsylvania Republicans for the second time to appeal a court's redrawing of the state's congressional map to the U.S. Supreme Court, blasting "Democrat judges" who designed the new map.
The president took to Twitter to urge Republicans in the Keystone State to appeal a new congressional map that increases Democrats' electoral strength in several districts currently held by Republicans.
"Democrat judges have totally redrawn election lines in the great State of Pennsylvania," the rich asshole wrote. "This is very unfair to Republicans and to our country as a whole. Must be appealed to the United States Supreme Court ASAP!"
Democrat judges have totally redrawn election lines in the great State of Pennsylvania. @FoxNews. This is very unfair to Republicans and to our country as a whole. Must be appealed to the United States Supreme Court ASAP!
the rich asshole's tweet follows a similar message earlier this week in which he urged Republicans to pursue the state's original congressional map, which was deemed unconstitutional by the state's Supreme Court.
"Hope Republicans in the Great State of Pennsylvania challenge the new 'pushed' Congressional Map, all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Your Original was correct! Don’t let the Dems take elections away from you so that they can raise taxes & waste money!" he tweeted on Tuesday.
Hope Republicans in the Great State of Pennsylvania challenge the new “pushed” Congressional Map, all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Your Original was correct! Don’t let the Dems take elections away from you so that they can raise taxes & waste money!
Republicans in the state are threatening to pursue legal action in federal courts to undo the state Supreme Court's decision, and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey (R) floated the possibility of impeaching justices over the decision.
"Look, I think it's inevitable that that conversation's going to take place," Toomey said. "I think state House members and state senators are going to be speaking amongst themselves and their constituents, and the fundamental question is does this blatant, unconstitutional, partisan power grab that undermines our electoral process, does that rise to the level of impeachment?"
Democrats control just five seats of the 18 in the state delegation despite the party's strong showing in statewide elections. Democrats have argued that the GOP-controlled legislature unfairly drew its lines to limit Democrats' power.
The new map released by the state Supreme Court will not go into effect for next month's special election in Pennsylvania's 18th District, where Republicans and Democrats are battling to determine who will replace former Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) after his resignation last year. In 2016, the rich asshole became the first Republican to carry the state in a national election since 1988.
Michael Steele spars with CPAC head over official's race comment: 'What the hell'
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 02/24/18 02:35 PM EST
Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele confronted the chairman of the American Conservative Union on Saturday over comments made by a spokesman for the group at a major conservative conference a day earlier.
The row between the former RNC head and Matt Schlapp on Steele's SiriusXM radio show "Steele & Ungar" came a day after Ian Walters, the communications director for the Conservative Political Action Conference, said that Steele was picked as RNC chairman because "he was a black guy."
"Those words that tumbled out of his mouth, I believed were unfortunate words," Schlapp told Steele, who served as RNC chairman from 2009 until 2011.
"They were stupid. It's not 'unfortunate,' " Steele shot back. "Call it what it is. It is stupid to sit there and say that we elected a black man chairman of the party and that was a mistake. Do you know how that sounds to the black community?"
Steele said that Walters's remarks underscored the Republican Party's tense relationship with race, and that such comments lead Americans to "equate that level of stupidity to conservatism."
"I've spent 41 years in this party. Forty-one, all right?" Steele said. "I have taken crap you have no idea about, and I have carried this baggage. And for him to stand on that stage and denigrate my service to this party, and for you as a friend to sit there and go, 'Well, you have been critical of this party.' "
"There is only one word I can say, and I can't say it on this air," he continued. When Schlapp told him to "say it," Steele said that he could not, because the Federal Communications Commission "won't allow it."
Schlapp said that, while Walters's comment was in poor taste, Steele had been critical of the Republican Party under President the rich asshole and has not gotten "universal praise" from conservatives for his stewardship of the RNC.
That prompted a heated response from Steele.
"What the hell does my race have to do with any of that, at the end of the day? What does the color of my skin have to do with anything you just said?” Steele said.
FL Lawmakers Think Having ‘In God We Trust’ Required In All Schools Will Stop Mass Shootings
Right after another tragic mass shooting in which the gunman used an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon to mow down innocent children, lawmakers in Florida promptly shot down the idea that perhaps dangerous weapons of war should not be sold to civilians. Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, plenty of “thoughts and prayers” were offered to comfort the grieving community of Parkland, Florida and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. So, it is no surprise that while these people refuse to do anything about the gun problem, they certainly will attempt to unconstitutionally inject religion into the schools instead.
The idiots in the Florida legislature just held a vote to require that all schools have “In God We Trust” displayed prominently. And, for once, it’s not just Republicans peddling this religious nonsense to impressionable young minds, either. Democratic State Rep. Kimberly Daniels said of the vote, which passed 97-10 in the Florida House, says of the situation:
“It is not a secret that we have some gun issues that need to be addressed. But the real thing that needs to be addressed are issues of the heart.”
Yeah, Rep. Daniels. Tell that to the parents of the 17 children whose hearts will never beat again because of this deranged gunman, and because of your refusal to act when it comes to the nation’s problems with gun violence.
Daniels continued:
“God isn’t “Republican and he’s not a Democrat He’s not black and he’s not white. He is the light. And our schools need light in them like never before.”
Did it ever occur to you to consider the rights of students who do not believe in your god? This is disgusting. This is a secular nation. We need to address gun violence, no faith. We have far too much of that in this nutball country as it is, and it has never done anyone a bit of good. Take your prayers to church, not to school.
Conservative Escorted Out By Security For Calling Out the rich asshole At CPAC For Sexual Misconduct (VIDEO)
The audience booed conservative political analyst and commentator Mona Charen when she called out her party at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday. Chen was on a panel discussing feminism when she called out some rich asshole and Roy Moore over sexual misconduct allegations. At least 22 women, including the former reality show star’s ex-wife, have accused the rich asshole of sexual misconduct. And of course, there’s the Hollywood Access clip in which he admits to being a sexual predator.
“I am disappointed in people on our side for being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party, who are sitting in the White House, who brag about their extramarital affairs, who brag about mistreating women,” Charen said without even mentioning the rich asshole’s name. “And because he happens to have an ‘R’ after his name, we look the other way, we don’t complain,” she added.
Charen, who authored the book “Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense,” also took aim at the GOP’s bizarre endorsement of “credibly accused” alleged pedophile Roy Moore who ran in the special election in Alabama and lost to Democrat Doug Jones.
“You cannot claim that you stand for women and put up with that,” Charen said. Unsurprisingly, the audience booed her for that.
Watch:
Apparently, if you’re a conservative, especially a woman, you’re not allowed to speak up because according to a Politico reporter, Charen had to be escorted outside by 3 security guards after her speech. the rich asshole supporters, who helped elevate the former reality show star to the highest seat in the land, used a ‘fuck your feelings’ and an anti-political correctness message, can’t handle criticism.
the rich asshole committed adultery just months after his wife gave birth to their son, but the pro-family party seems OK with that.
Conservative commentator calls out the rich asshole on sexual harassment allegations at CPAC
BY JOSH DELK - 02/24/18 03:52 PM EST
Conservative political analyst and commentator Mona Charen was booed at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday after she called out President the rich asshole and conservatives over sexual harassment allegations.
Charen was on a panel discussing feminism when she called out hypocrisy in the GOP for its support of the rich asshole despite multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him.
"I am disappointed in people on our side for being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party, who are sitting in the White House, who brag about their extramarital affairs, who brag about mistreating women," Charen said, without mentioning the president's name.
"And because he happens to have an 'R' after his name, we look the other way, we don't complain," she added.
At least 16 women have accused the president of inappropriate behavior ranging from sexual harassment to sexual assault over the years. Those accusations have gained new attention in the "#MeToo" movement aimed at exposing sexual misconduct.
Charen, the author of "Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense," also took aim at the GOP's endorsement of Roy Moore, who ran and lost for Senate in Alabama and was plagued by multiple allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls.
"You cannot claim that you stand for women and put up with that," Charen said, inviting loud jeering from the audience.
Whoa, Mona Charen just called out President Trump on his alleged sexual misconduct from the CPAC floor. By far the strongest criticism of the President I've heard here.
Mona Charen critiques Republican party for excusing Roy Moore and Donald Trump on harassment allegations: "I'm disappointed in people on our side for being hypocrites about sexual harassers and abusers of women who are in our party, who are sitting in the White House."
For those asking, the panelist was Mona Charen.
the rich asshole himself spoke at CPAC on Friday for the second year in a row, giving a lengthy address to conservative attendees that touched on multiple administration priorities.
According to reporters who were at the event, Charen had to be escorted out by security for her own safety after the panel concluded.
Broward County Sheriff's Office investigating other deputies' actions during school shooting
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 02/24/18 10:32 AM EST
The Broward County Sheriff's Office is investigating media reports that three more of its deputies remained outside a South Florida high school after a gunman opened fire on the campus last week.
"If there is no wrongdoing in the part of our deputies, we'll move on," Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told ABC News. "If there is wrongdoing on the part of our deputies, we'll handle it accordingly as I have for five years as sheriff."
Israel's comments came after CNN and the Sun-Sentinel reported Friday that three sheriff's deputies had not entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., when Coral Springs police officers arrived on the scene.
Broward County Sheriff’s office confirms to @RosaFlores it is investigating claims that three additional deputies didn’t attempt to make entry into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after shooting began there, as Coral Springs Police officers claim, as CNN 1st reported.
That followed the revelation that the school's armed resource officer, Broward County Sheriff's Deputy Scot Peterson, had also remained outside the school when the shooting took place. He later resigned.
The attack left 17 people dead and more than a dozen others wounded. The suspected gunman, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
CNN reported that some Coral Springs officers responding to the shooting were upset that Broward County Sheriff's deputies had not immediately entered the building where the shooting had taken place.
Coral Springs City Manager Mike Goodrum reportedly confronted Israel about the situation at a vigil for shooting victims last week.
Goodrum acknowledged to CNN that he and Israel shared a "heated moment," but said that their offices have a "good working relationship."
"There were countless deputies and officers who responded on that fateful day from multiple jurisdictions, whose actions were nothing short of heroic," the Coral Springs Police Department said in a statement on Friday.
"As already reported, any actions or inactions that negatively affected the response will be investigated thoroughly," it added.
Attorneys general expand lawsuit against the rich asshole, going after him as a private citizen
BY JOSH DELK - 02/24/18 10:25 AM EST
A lawsuit by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia accusing President the rich asshole of accepting gifts from foreign governments will now challenge the rich asshole as both a government official and a private businessman, The Associated Press reports.
Plaintiffs argue that the president is in violation of the Constitution's "emoluments" clause, which prohibits the president from accepting gifts from foreign governments, because he has failed to divest himself from his lucrative businesses.
The rich asshole Organization, which is now run by the president's two adult sons, owns a number of international hotels, including one in Washington just blocks from the White House, where foreign government officials have often stayed during visits to the capital.
U.S. District Court Judge Peter Messitte has suggested he was not persuaded by another judge's decision to toss out a previous lawsuit against the rich asshole for profiting from foreign governments, citing "very little analysis in his declarations" that hotel stays by foreign nationals did not constitute gifts.
Judge George Daniels dismissed the previous lawsuit by a liberal watchdog group, one of many lawsuits against the president, on "lack of standing" and stated that the unusual situation of the rich asshole's businesses do not fall within the purview of the clause.
In a five-hour hearing for the new case last month, Messitte even suggested the plaintiffs go after the president as a private citizen.
“They’re not talking about things he’s doing as president, they’re talking about something he’s doing benefiting from as a private owner of a business,” Messitte said in the hearing. "Should he be sued in his official and private capacity?"
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Maryland, says that businesses in Maryland and Washington, D.C., are facing unfair competition from the rich asshole International Hotel in Washington and other properties in the neighboring state, claiming that both have lost tax revenue as a result.
Messitte has yet to decide whether to dismiss the case or allow it to move on, likely to the discovery phase, which could allow for a detailed examination of the rich asshole Organization's finances.
Michael Steele: CPAC official's race comment highlights 'groupthink' within GOP
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 02/24/18 10:04 AM EST
Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday that a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) official saying Steele was only chosen to lead the RNC because he is black underscores a tense relationship with race within the GOP.
"It’s the groupthink that has emerged within the party that has now poisoned the national dialogue," Steele said on his SiriusXM show "Steele & Ungar."
"To hear it come from a young man ... a minority himself ... it makes it even crazier," Steele added.
His comments came the morning after Ian Walters, the communications director for CPAC, told an audience that Steele was only elected RNC chairman because "he was a black guy."
Steele, who led the RNC from 2009 until 2011, recalled how he had to "fight every step of the way" to rise through the ranks of the party, noting that he had run for the chairmanship several times before he was chosen.
He said that he spoke Friday night with Walters, who offered him a "ham-handed apology."
Steele's comments on Saturday were not his first responding to the remarks. The former RNC chairman told the Observer on Friday that Walters's comments were "painfully stupid" and showed a "lack of maturity and a lack of understanding of the work we did and the work we continue to do."
Steele echoed that sentiment on Saturday.
"That's reflective of the stupidity, the ignorance and the a-holeishness ... that exists inside the party," he said.
Cornyn breaks with the rich asshole: Raising age limit on gun buying won’t ‘save lives’
BY BRANDON CARTER - 02/24/18 08:00 AM EST
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, criticized President the rich asshole’s proposal to raise the minimum age for gun purchases, saying it wouldn’t “save lives.”
"I think what we want to focus on is things that will actually save lives," Cornyn said Friday, according to CNN. "That's why I think the focus should be on the Fix [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] bill, which is the only bipartisan piece of legislation that can be signed into law."
Cornyn said a bill increasing the minimum age to purchase guns, which the rich asshole endorsed earlier this week, would be “difficult to enforce.”
Cornyn has co-authored a bill with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) that would strengthen the federal background check system by requiring states and federal agencies to produce plans to report offenses that would bar people from passing a check needed to purchase a firearm.
The bill also reiterates that federal agencies must report all violations to the National Instant Criminal Background Check system and creates new financial incentives for states to report information.
The proposal is a rare piece of gun legislation endorsed by the National Rifle Association, and earlier this week White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement saying the rich asshole supports the deal.
In a Thursday tweet, the rich asshole vowed to push for comprehensive background checks for gun sales, while calling for the minimum purchase age to be raised to 21.
The president has also ordered the ban of bump stocks, which are used to increase a weapon’s rate of fire.
The president has also ordered the ban of bump stocks, which are used to increase a weapon’s rate of fire.
the rich asshole has also suggested arming teachers and schools officials, a highly controversial proposal that has drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle.
Watch ex-RNC head Michael Steele unleash holy hell on CPAC exec over ‘black guy’ slur
Michael Steele, Matt Schlapp -- screenshot
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Former RNC head Michael Steele got into a heated talk with CPAC executive Matt Schlapp on Saturday after a speaker at the conservative conference slurred him as a “black guy” during a speech Friday night.
The confrontation began with Schlapp apologizing profusely to Steele.
That wasn’t enough for Steele who pummeled Schlapp for the racism on display at CPAC after Schlapp called the comment “unfortunate.”
“It was stupid, not unfortunate! Call it what it is,” Streele exclaimed. “It is stupid to sit there and say we elected a black man a chairman of the party and that was a mistake. Do you know how that sounds to the black community?”
Steele wasn’t done.
“I’ve taken crap you have no idea about, and I’ve carried this baggage,” Steele said in regard to his race in a predominately white GOP. “And for him to stand on that stage and denigrate my service to this party, and for you as a friend to sit there and go, ‘Well, you’ve been critical of this party.’ There’s only one word I can say, and I can’t say it on this air.”
“Say it,” Schlapp prompted.
“I can’t, because the FCC won’t allow it,” Steele replied.
Watch the video below via YouTube:
Fire and Fury author: the rich asshole and Jared will throw each other ‘under the bus’ to avoid Mueller indictments
Benjamin Netanyahu, Jared Kushner and U.S. President some rich asshole are seen during their meeting at the King David hotel in Jerusalem. (Photo by Kobi Gideon / GPO)
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Author Michael Wolff, whose book Fire and Fury: Inside the the rich asshole White House surged to the top of best seller lists, is expecting special counsel Robert Mueller to indict Jared Kushner, HuffPost UK reported Saturday.
At a Friday evening event in London, Wolff described Invanka the rich asshole and Kushner as “the most entitled people on earth.”
He also said the couple have “not one scintilla of relevant experience to this job. Not one.”
“Do you think if the chips were down, the rich asshole will, in the end, fire his own daughter?” host Armando Iannucci asked.
“I think that there is a pretty good possibility at this point that Jared will be indicted,” Wolff predicted.
“So the more direct question is will the rich asshole throw his son-in-law under the bus, and then the corollary to that is, will his son-in-law throw his father-in-law under the bus?” Wolff suggested. “And I think the answer to both of those questions is ‘yes’.”
“I think you can think out to [mid-term elections in] November and I think now until then may well be the bloodiest time in this administration,” Wolff continued.
The London event continued British fascination with the rich asshole’s Russia scandals, some of which were uncovered by former top MI6 spy Christopher Steele.
In January, Wolff told BBC radio that the rich asshole’s scandals were likely to bring an end to the administration. The British newspaper The Guardian was one of the first to report on the contents of Wolff’s book.
Watch:
the rich asshole promises ‘shootings will not happen again’ if states give yearly bonuses to ‘Armed Educators’
President some rich asshole (YouTube)
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After remaining silent most of Saturday, President some rich asshole once again made the pitch to arm school teachers with the promise that it will bring to end school shootings.
Writing on Twitter, the rich asshole pushed back against law enforcement officials and educators who want to see no weapons on school campuses at all, saying states should take the lead and give pistol-packing school officials “yearly bonuses.”
“Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again – a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States.”
You can see the tweet below:
‘Intense customer backlash’: CNN hosts list flood of companies fleeing taint of NRA relationships
Wayne LaPierre speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
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Intense customer backlash is fueling the growing calls for businesses to sever any and all ties to the National Rifle Association, CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield explained on Saturday.
“This morning, major airlines are joining a growing list of companies cutting ties with the National Rifle Association,” Witfield reported. “Delta and United Airlines are just two of the multitude of big corporations that are taking a stand in the gun debate since the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida left 17 dead.”
“This is what happens when politics and business meet here,” CNN’s Polo Sandoval explained. “At least two major airlines making that announcement earlier today online.”
“If you look at the list of other major corporations that have announced very similar things as well, you’ll see the list has been quite extensive and it’s been growing for the last 24 hours,” Sandoval explained. “First National Bank of Omaha, they said, quote, ‘customer feedback has prompted them not to renew its contract with the NRA they will no longer be issuing its Visa, its NRA Visa card.'”
“Also several of those familiar rental car companies like Budget, National, Hertz, Alamo, Avis and several insurance companies as well,” Sandoval continued. “If you read between the lines, Fred, we have seen some of those growing calls, the chorus of critics online asking these companies sever their ties with the National Rifle Association.”
Watch:
High profile Wall Street law firm swept up in Mueller probe — and the lawyers there are nervous
Robert Mueller (Jonathan Ernst:Reuters)
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The high profile law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom — where large corporations go to handle acquisitions and mergers — has found itself embroiled in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence in President some rich asshole’s White House, and it has some attorneys at the firm worried about the fall-out.
According to the New York Times, Skadden, Arps was once home to attorney Alex van der Zwaan who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators looking into Russian election interference and the Justice Department has asked for documents related to his work there as well as work the firm did for the Ukraine that is at the heart of the indictments against former the rich asshole campaign manager Paul Manafort.
The report states two Skadden attorneys revealed that Mueller’s team has requested and received documents related to its Ukraine work, noting that $4 million in secret payments that Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates are accused of funneling to Skadden and other firms.
Skadden’s less publicized work involving foreign clients is now under scrutiny which has attorneys at the firm on edge.
“The mentality is that Skadden wouldn’t be afraid of doing something like this, if there was a chance to utilize their skills and status to take advantage of what sounds like a very lucrative business, and they saw no legal or ethical proscription against their taking on the matter,” explained Yale Law School’s Lincoln Caplan, author of ‘Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire.’
According to the report, the Skadden involvement may have a ripple effect into other firms that double as lobbyists, noting, “Among those reaping windfalls are large international law firms like the Washington-based Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which represents the governments of Japan, the Maldives, Nicaragua and South Korea, among others.”
“This is creating concern in the Washington lobbying community about not only complying with FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act], but also a new emphasis on enforcement that perhaps folks didn’t think was happening or would happen,” explained Thomas J. Spulak, a lawyer in the Washington office of King & Spalding.
Skadden in particular is of interest to investigators after a partner wrote a legal opinion in 2012 that the lobbying firms — such as Manaforts and Gates’ — used in opting not to register under FARA.
The firm is likely to be drawn deeper into the investigation because if its relationship with van der Zwan.
“Why he was lying is a big question, and did anyone else at the law firm know he was lying?” explained Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School. “If he was lying for his own purposes, I don’t think that knowledge would be imputed to other lawyers at the firm.”
You can read the whole report here.
What Fresh Hell?: Let’s make Wyatt Earp teach algebra edition
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Welcome to another edition of What Fresh Hell?, Raw Story’s roundup of news items that might have become controversies under another regime, but got buried – or were at least under-appreciated – due to the daily firehose of political pratfalls, unhinged tweet storms and threats of nuclear annihilation coming out of the current White House.
It’d be crass to call this week’s debate over gun violence a “shiny object,” but Mango Mugabe somehow managed to turn a somber moment of reflection after yet another school massacre into a freak-show.
Arming teachers may make a little more sense than putting sharks with “laser beams” attached to their heads in every classroom, but not much.
the rich asshole, a draft-dodger who once claimed that he should get a Congressional Medal of Honor for having unprotected sex while poor kids were dying in Vietnam, thinks that it’d be easy to train up 10 or 20 percent of teachers into dead-eyed John McClanes who would calmly dispatch any bad hombre who comes to the doors of their classrooms.
Most people who have real tactical experience think the idea is beyond ludicrous. Law enforcement and the military train regularly and extensively to overcome the natural stress reactions that occur in a combat situation. That adrenaline-fueled reaction includes freezing up, experiencing temporal and auditory distortions and suffering from tunnel vision, where you focus exclusively on a target and can no longer see innocent bystanders, responding officers, etc.
That training doesn’t just consist of some time on the range – they go through realistic scenarios that are designed to put them under significant stress in order to inoculate them against what they’re likely to experience when the bullets start flying. And despite that rigorous training, many soldiers still freeze up the first time they come under fire. They train to retain their situational awareness and shoot straight, yet according to one study, two-thirds of shots fired by the NYPD missed their marks.
We’re not only being held hostage to the gun manufacturer’s lobby, but also to the idea that the movies are just like real life.
Calling for arming teachers is another shiny object, but this time Tangerine Trujillo isn’t distracting us from the corruption or the staffing disasters or the awful policies being cranked out by Congressional Republicans. He’s distracting us from real measures to address the scourge of gun violence.
You shouldn’t be, Chuck. The rest of us saw that one coming from a mile away.
Anyway, let’s dig into some tales of turpitude and graft that may not have gotten the attention that they deserved this week.
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Last month, Dan Diamond reported for Politico that a “small cadre” of American Taliban“ politically prominent religious activists” were taking an increasingly aggressive role in steering policy at the Department of Health and Human Services. “The agency’s devout Christian leaders have set in motion changes with short-term symbolism and long-term significance,” wrote Diamond.
How’s that working out? Well, on one hand, Diamond reported this week that “the nation’s health department is taking steps to dismantle LGBT health initiatives, as political appointees have halted or rolled back regulations intended to protect LGBT workers and patients, removed LGBT-friendly language from documents and reassigned the senior adviser dedicated to LGBT health.”
And according to Anna North at Vox, documents from a whistleblower suggest that the HHS “let an anti-abortion group write its health care policy” — specifically a directive that signals that the regime will interpret the laws in such a way that will allow states to defund Planned Parenthood. So all of that’s going according to plan.
But when you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Jon Cardova, Spray-tan Stalin’s pick to oversee HHS’s Office of Human Relations, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Office of Security and Strategic Information, Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance and Operations Office and the Program Support Center – hey, they’ve left a lot of positions unfilled and someone has to do those jobs – was put on leave this week after CNN uncovered the guy’s social media posts.
And oh boy, is he a charmer. Cardova “pushed stories filled with baseless claims and conspiracy theories, including stories that claimed Gold Star father Khizr Khan is a ‘Muslim Brotherhood agent’ and made baseless claims about Sen. Ted Cruz’s personal life,” reported Andrew Kaczynski and Nathan McDermott.
Cordova also repeatedly shared fake or conspiratorial stories, including one … with a photoshopped picture of a black man holding a sign that read, “No mother should have to fear for her son’s life every time he robs a store.”In one tweet, Cordova called for a boycott of Budweiser because the company supported “jihadis” over white immigration.In another tweet, Cordova speculated the reason the identity of the shooter at Umpqua Community College in 2015 hadn’t been made public was because he was a Muslim. The shooter was not a Muslim.In another tweet, Cordova compared MoveOn.org and the Black Lives Matter movement to Nazis.
These are the people running your government now.
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Speaking of which, Cantaloupe Ceaușescu appears to have picked some random con-man a low-level administrative assistant to head the Indian Health Service, which “provides care for 2.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives in 36 states.”
According to The New York Times, Robert Weaver, who claimed to have held a supervisory position at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri, withdrew his nomination this week after The Wall Street Journal reported that in reality, “hospital officials said that they did not recognize his name,… and that they believed Mr. Weaver’s role had involved entry-level duties, such as registering patients.”
Only the best people, etc.
******
It’s strange to have a Pepe-loving internet troll in the White House, but that’s where we are.
Wow. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will remove "nation of immigrants" from mission statement interc.pt/2sQLN08 by @rdevro
More consequentially, Ron Nixon reports for The NYT that “Border Patrol officers are working without permission on private property and setting up checkpoints up to 100 miles away from the border under a little-known federal law that is being used more widely in the the rich asshole administration’s aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration.”
“The department said in a statement that the checkpoints were ‘strategically placed where illegal cross-border smuggling is most likely to converge,’” but “in New Hampshire, border officers working with state officials conducted what the American Civil Liberties Union described as illegal drug searches after residents were arrested at immigration checkpoints set up on a major interstate highway. One of the checkpoints was set up just before a local marijuana festival.”
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According to Politico’s Nahal Toosi, “State Department officials have been ordered to pare back passages in a soon-to-be-released annual report on global human rights that traditionally discuss women’s reproductive rights and discrimination, according to five former and current department officials.”
The move, believed to have been ordered by a top aide to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, reflects the the rich asshole administration’s rightward turn from the Obama administration on family planning issues. It also appears to highlight the stated desire of Tillerson and President some rich asshole to make human rights a lower priority in U.S. foreign policy.Some career State Department officials — particularly female staffers — are suspicious of the motives behind the changes, which they fear could undermine the report’s impact and integrity…“This sends a clear signal that women’s reproductive rights are not a priority for this administration, and that it’s not even a rights violation we must or should report on,” one serving State Department official said.
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AP: “The the rich asshole administration is once again calling for the complete elimination of a heating assistance program that helps to keep the homes of low-income families warm.”
This is happening just weeks after Congress gave five massive energy companies $24 billion in tax cuts over the next ten years.
Typically, conservatives attack food stamps by claiming that recipients trade them in for malt liquor or whatever other racist cliché they have at hand, but what’s the rationale behind this? The AP notes that the program “helps families pay their heating bills primarily in the form of a grant that’s sent directly to utility companies or heating fuel vendors” – it’s not fungible; it only provides warmth.
These people are just assholes.
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Speaking of which, “US senators are planning to mark the 10th anniversary of Wall Street’s meltdown this year with a gift to the nation’s banks: a bill that would unravel regulations put in place after the crisis,” according to Politico.
This one, tragically, is bipartisan. Here are the Dems – and one independent who caucuses with them – who were supporting the bill as of Tuesday…
Heitkamp
Donnelly
Tester
Warner
Kaine
Coons
Carper
McCaskill
Manchin
King
Peters
Bennet
Jones
Donnelly
Tester
Warner
Kaine
Coons
Carper
McCaskill
Manchin
King
Peters
Bennet
Jones
And these Dems are reportedly on the fence:
Stabenow
Nelson
Klobuchar
Murphy
Duckworth
Hassan
Shaheen
Nelson
Klobuchar
Murphy
Duckworth
Hassan
Shaheen
There’s more info about the bill at the link above. Let ‘em know what you think.
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One has to read between the lines a bit with a report out this week by WaPo’s Juliet Eilperin. The story is that two senior officials at the U.S. Geological Survey quit when “Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke asked that they provide his office with confidential data on the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska before it was released to the general public.”
Eilperin writes that “there was no indication that either Zinke or any of his deputies intended to use the information for personal gain,” but Zinke, who previously sat on the Board of Directors of the oil pipeline company QS Energy, and his minions could potentially make a fortune if they had advance knowledge of what the data would show, and there’s no obvious reason why Interior officials would need the information a few days before it became public. One of the departing officials told Eilperin that “this is the first time we’ve had anyone insist we want that number.”
It’s just odd, is what we’re saying.
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In case you missed David Farenthold’s latest scoop for the WaPo: “Two weeks after President the rich asshole nominated Florida businessman Leandro Rizzuto Jr. to be ambassador to Barbados, Rizzuto pledged thousands of dollars to fund a gala at the rich asshole’s Mar-a-Lago Club, the gala’s organizer said.”
Trump Jr: 'Nonsense' that family's profiting from presidency
See what he had to say about the concerns that the Trump family is using the presidency to profit from business ventures. >>> buff.ly/2EJoiHB
Meanwhile, “federal investigators are probing whether former the rich asshole campaign chair Paul Manafort promised a Chicago banker a job in the the rich asshole White House in return for $16 million in home loans,” according to NBC.
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Speaking of scammers, you may recall that “United Technologies handed some rich asshole bragging rights in late 2016 when, just weeks after he won the election, the manufacturing giant publicly credited the soon-to-be president with striking a deal to save hundreds of Indiana furnace factory jobs that seemed destined to move to Mexico.” The company got some huge tax breaks, and of course offshored many of those jobs anyway.
And this week, WaPo’s Aaron Gregg and Danielle Paquette reported that “more than a year into the rich asshole’s presidency, that federal money continues to flow to United Technologies’ subsidiaries. The Defense Department recently gave the company’s Connecticut-based aeronautics subsidiary a $2.5 billion contract without competitionto provide propeller systems, wheels and brakes, landing gear, flight sensors and other equipment directly to the armed services.”
Sweetheart no-bid contracts handed out to companies that do political favors for the regime strike us as being kind of antithetical to draining the swamp, but we do we know? We’re just a bunch of libtards.
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And from the “highly unusual but legal” file, Christina Wilkie reported for CNBC that, “soon after the Republican National Committee came under pressure for paying legal bills for President some rich asshole and his eldest son in the special counsel’s Russia probe, it started covering expenses for the president’s re-election campaign.The RNC is using campaign funds to pay the rich asshole’s company more than $37,000 a month in rent, and to pay thousands of dollars in monthly salary to Vice President Mike Pence‘s nephew, John Pence.”
And MSNBC reports that “the Republican National Committee is paying a firm owned by the rich asshole’s former bodyguard $15,000 a month for consulting.” Keith Schiller left the White House last fall, and has since received $75,000 from the RNC. “If the RNC continues paying Schiller at this rate until the 2020 Republican National Convention, his total fees will likely be north of $500,000.”
Schiller’s fee comes out of the RNC’s convention fund, not its campaign fund, the official noted.Campaign finance watchdog groups, however, were quick to cry foul.“These sorts of party accounts are notorious for being operated as slush funds — lightly regulated and ripe for abuse,” said Stephen Spaulding, former special counsel at the Federal Election Commission and now chief of strategy at the nonpartisan advocacy group Common Cause.
It’s all a giant grift.
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It’s been 26 days since a law sanctioning Russia for fucking with our elections – one passed with massive bipartisan majorities – went into effect, but the regime still hasn’t gotten around to implementing it. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Friday that they’re still working on it. They should come any day now, or maybe not.
Meanwhile, US intelligence agencies say Russia is still at it, and will mess with the upcoming midterms. So naturally “the head of a federal commission who has helped U.S. states protect election systems from possible cyber attacks by Russia or others is being replaced at the behest of Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and the White House,” according to Reuters.
Matthew Masterson “has been a popular figure among state election officials, many of whom have praised his expertise and leadership on cyber security issues,” so of course he had to go.
“The action raises fresh questions over the degree to which Republican President some rich asshole and his fellow Republicans who control Congress are taking steps to protect the security of American elections, and some state officials have accused them of doing too little to address the threat.” Yeah, it “raises questions.”
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Finally, we’ll leave you with a reminder that “about a third of Puerto Rico’s residents — over 900,000 — are still living without electricity five months after Hurricane Maria battered the island on Sept. 20th of last year,” according to NBC. Officials won’t say when the power will be restored.
Vox adds that “calls to Puerto Rico’s suicide hotline have skyrocketed since Hurricane Mari,” and “reported suicide attempts have tripled in recent months.”
And in what should be front-page news, Arctic temperatures are currently running about 45 degrees above normal, and scientists are saying that this is really, really bad. “It was the warmest December on record in the Arctic,” writes Joe Romm at Think Progress, “and 2018 has already set a string of records for lowest Arctic sea ice.”
“We are seeing what scientists have predicted for years,” professor of thermal sciences John Abraham told ThinkProgress via email. “The temperatures in the Arctic are off the chart. This matters for the rest of us because this is the time of year when the Arctic ice should be growing. But it isn’t growing like it should. So, this summer, there will be less ice and more open waters that will lead to more warming.” Abraham warns that “We’ve started a feedback loop that we cannot stop.”
Eminem: the rich asshole 'does not give a f—k' about anyone except his base
by Caitlin Yilek |
Eminem is sounding off about President the rich asshole once again.
This time, in an interview with music legend Elton John for Interview magazine, the rapper slammed the rich asshole for not being a “president for all” Americans.
“We have a president who does not care about everybody in our country; he is not the president for all of us, he is the president for some of us. He knows what he’s doing,” he said.
“As long as he’s got his base, he does not give a fuck about anybody else in America. But guess what? There’s more of us than there are of them,” he added.
Yet, Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, said he still thinks the U.S. is the “greatest country” in the world.
“But we have issues that we need to work on, and we need to do better,” he said.
John, who was born in the U.K., noted that he has been coming to the U.S. for decades, and he’s “never felt such a divided country, ever.”
“It breaks my heart,” the singer said.
Eminem has been a frequent critic of the rich asshole’s, even going as far as to say “a fucking turd” would have been a better president than him.
the rich asshole praises conspiracy theorist who smeared students who survived Parkland massacre
The President of the United States is lifting up a voice that is smearing the survivors of the Parkland massacre.
On Saturday, President some rich asshole praised Wayne Dupree, a conspiracy theorist who claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre involved crisis actors.
“So true Wayne,” the rich asshole tweeted to his 48 million followers, responding to a message from Dupree about being black and conservative in America.
Dupree, however, is a prominent conspiracy theorist who claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting that left 28 people dead, including 20 first graders, was a hoax. Dupree claimed that grieving parents were actually “crisis actors” who were participating in a hoax as part of a conspiracy to impose gun control in America.
#SandyHook Shooting: Grieving Parents Hoax..Worked for Home Security as Crisis Actors goo.gl/RnXJV #sandyhookhoax
Wayne Dupree
Dupree told readers that the parents were actors because they weren’t expressing genuine emotions and were advocating for gun safety measures.
Unemotional, detached, contrived. With two real children involved, if this were real, they would be real and would be with their children, consoling them, not promoting the New World Order agenda of total control, including the control of children’s minds.
the rich asshole is praising Dupree as similar allegations circulate about the student survivors of the Parkland massacre being “crisis actors.” The claim that outspoken students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, especially David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, are crisis actors has gone viral on social media platforms. The conspiracy theory has also been advanced by NRA board member Ted Nugent and some rich asshole Jr. Social media platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, have attempted to remove this content, with very limited success.
Now the President of the United States is elevating a voice that is making the same claims. In a tweet posted February 19th, Dupree suggested that the student survivors were just acting, presenting various photos from an interview several students gave to CBS News. “Silence on the set,” Dupree tweeted.
the rich asshole has a history of elevating fringe conspiracies through his Twitter account. In November, the rich asshole recommended the website Magapill.com, a website that features information on “false flag terrorism,” “organ harvesting,” “child/human sacrifice,” “weaponized forced vaccination,” and “earthquake machines.”
the rich asshole also appeared as a candidate with InfoWars host Alex Jones, who claimed the victims of Sandy Hook were child actors. Jones has claimed that numerous other tragedies including 9/11, San Bernardino and the Boston Marathon Bombing were “inside jobs.”
“Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down,” the rich asshole told Jones.
Former RNC chair Michael Steele refuses CPAC official’s apology for racist insult
"I said, that's not acceptable, that's not enough."
Former RNC chair Michael Steele on Friday refused an apology from Conservative Political Action Conference communications director Ian Walters, who said during a dinner earlier in the evening that Steele had only been elected chairman “because he was a Black guy.”
“He did call and tried to explain himself,” Steele told MSNBC’s Joy Reid. “And he related it back to Barack Obama’s election. And he said at one point, I apologize. And I said, that’s not acceptable, that’s not enough.”
Walters was speaking at CPAC’s Ronald Reagan Dinner on Friday night when he told the crowd, “We elected Mike Steele as chairman because he was a black guy, that was the wrong thing to do.” According to those in the room at the time, the comment was met with audible gasps.
The Wrap media editor Jon Levine was the first to report the comment.
Steele, who was just outside the ballroom when Walters made the remark, told Reid that he had found out about the comment after it popped up on his phone’s screen.
“I was finishing up my radio program on Sirius XM and it came across my phone. Someone came running up to the table and said, ‘have you seen this,’ right in the middle of the conversation I was having with one of our guests. And I looked down at my phone…. of course I had one of those moments where you just go, ‘what the?’ So yeah, a little shocked, a little disappointed,” he said.
He added, “Surprised that people still in the party feel this way and look at the contributions that anyone would make to the party through the prism of race. It’s unfortunate, it’s stupid, it’s immature. And I’m waiting to speak with [CPAC chair] Matt Schlapp about it. I hope it is not a reflection of the leadership of CPAC.”
In separate comments to the Observer earlier in the evening, Steele said that Walters’ comments indicated a lack of maturity. “If he feels that way I’d like him to come say that to my face. And then I’d like him to look at my record and see what I did,” he said. “[His comments show] a lack of maturity and a lack of understanding of the work we did and the work we continue to do. My skin color has nothing to do with that even if he thinks it does.”
Steele appeared on MSNBC again on Saturday, where Reid pressed him on the issue once more.
“Do you think that the Republican Party has a racism problem?” Reid asked.
Steele responded bluntly, “Yes, they do. I think we need to be honest and acknowledge it. I think the fact that people sit here now and say, ‘Well, this has nothing to do with race”… yeah, it does, when you stand on a podium and blatantly speak to race the way Ian did.”
Hoping to do damage control, CPAC chair Schlapp appeared on Steele’s Sirius XM radio show later on Saturday and expressed an apology, but refused to dissociate himself with Walters. “Those words that tumbled out of his mouth, I believed were unfortunate words,” Schlapp said.
“They were stupid. It’s not ‘unfortunate.’ Call it what it is,” Steele responded. “It is stupid to sit there and say that we elected a black man chairman of the Party and that was a mistake. Do you know how that sounds to the black community? Do you know how that sounds to Americans? And do you know how they then that equate that level of stupidity to conservatism? That’s the objection I have to the moment that we’re at.”
Steele has faced criticism from Republicans in recent days over his critical response to President the rich asshole’s suggestion that schoolteachers be given firearms to protect their classrooms from mass shooters. the rich asshole’s statements were made in the wake of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida last week which left 17 people dead.
“The president and others promoting arming teachers are delusional,” Steele tweeted on Friday morning. “Wake the hell up people. There was a uniformed, armed police officer on duty at Douglas H. S. and he did nothing. And you expect teachers to do his job? #ICallBS #cpac2018.”
Earlier in January, Steele called the rich asshole racist after the president asked during a closed-door meeting with lawmakers why the United States was accepting so many immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti and various African nations.
“At this point, the evidence is incontrovertible, it’s right there,” Steele said when asked by MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson whether the president was racist.
Despite the fallout from Walters’ comments this week, the president on Saturday morning attempted to play up his own record with the Black community, retweeting a post from conservative radio host Wayne Dupree which read, “This is what it’s all about! It’s ok 2 b black, conservative and love America and not vote Democrat! Freedom exists!”
the rich asshole quoted Dupree’s tweet and added, “So true Wayne, and Lowest black unemployment in history!”
Black unemployment is no longer at a record low.
This article has been updated to include additional comments from former RNC chair Michael Steele and CPAC chair Matt Schlapp.
Latest Mueller indictments have ‘defanged Republicans in Congress’ who want to kill Russia probe: CNN political analyst
Robert Mueller in the Oval Office on July 20, 2012. (Photo by Pete Souza.)
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CNN senior political analyst and editor at The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein, explained to CNN’s Victor Blackwell on Saturday that special counsel Robert Mueller has “defanged” Republican efforts to obstruct the Russia investigation.
“For months, Ron, there was nothing from the special counsel. We didn’t see any indictments, we knew that work was continuing. occasionally there would be a report of someone close to the campaign having to testify before Mueller or the grand jury and now there’s this quickening of indictments and pleas,” Blackwell noted. “What do you make of that?”
“First, as I said, I think he is extraordinarily methodical,” Brownstein explained. “We’re seeing kind of a classic investigation, that works from the outside in, that puts pressure on figures at the periphery to put pressure on more central figures, to put pressure on figures at the absolute core of the question.”
“At the least, Victor, I think what happened in the last couple weeks is that he has defanged those trying to undermine the investigation and made it extremely difficult for the administration to have any plausible conversation about firing him,” Brownstein suggested.
“Particularly, the indictment of those Russian actors made it clear he is dealing with something of great seriousness that is of national security import” he continued. “What has happened in the past few weeks is I think he made it politically impossible for the administration or the Republicans in Congress who are trying to undermine him to really seriously move against this investigation.”
“There’s just too much on the table that is too consequential to imagine the public accepting anything of the kind that was being discussed a few weeks ago,” Brownstein concluded.
Parkland survivor snaps back at NRA’s top lobbyist: ”The more violence you create, the more guns you sell’
David Hogg 0n MSNBC
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Appearing on MSNBC’s AM Joy, a survivor of the Parkland, Florida shooting that left 17 dead last week snapped back at the NRA’s top lobbyist for fighting any attempts to institute common sense gun control laws, saying the NRA is more interested in seeing weapons manufacturers profit from the tragedy.
Speaking with host Joy Reid, David Hogg, one of the founders of the student movement that will march on Washington in March, was asked about the NRA’s response to the shooting, including a memo sent out by one the NRA’s top lobbyists telling members to not give an inch on gun regulations.
“The thing that I hate most about that is the members of the NRA that these people are supposed to be representing,” Hogg began. “99.9 percent of the people in the NRA are amazing Americans who want to stand up for what they believe in. I respect that.”
Turning to lobbyists Marion Hammer, Hogg called her out for promoting violence.,
“It’s the people at the top of the NRA who responsible for this,” Hogg explained. “Think about it. You can create a positive feedback loop with the more violence you create, the more guns you sell because people become afraid. What’s growing here is the amount of gun sales in this country. That’s what the NRA is trying to serve at the top – not it’s members.”
Watch the video below via MSNBC:
New clearance report shows why the rich asshole may be forced to fire Jared Kushner
Andrew Simpson
Posted with permission from DeepStateNation.com
As it turns out, Jared Kushner may be on his way out the door at the White House, and all because of something he has no control of. According to a Thursday report from CNN, Kushner's security clearance - something that's legally required in order to work in the West Wing - isn't just being held up by the nearly 40 revisions he's entered for his paperwork due to irregularities in financial and conflict of interest disclosures.
It's actually Robert Mueller's investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as money laundering, tax evasion, and a host of other crimes connected through various people to the Trump campaign, that's preventing Kushner's clearance from being finalized.
What's worse for the Trump-in-law is that he can't be cleared until the investigation is wrapped up, according to the report.
After Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly issued a five-page memo last Friday detailing a new rule rescinding existing temporary security clearances for anyone in the White House whose permanent clearance has been pending since before June, Kushner's status as a jack-of-all-trades in the Trump administration was already in question.
Now that it's clear that Kushner's clearance can't be freed up until Mueller's probe has completed, it is all but certain that Trump will be forced to let Kushner go, or face the legal crisis of having someone in his inner circle who legally is not cleared to view the top-secret information that he has gotten used to having access to on demand.
It would certainly put a damper on the projects Trump has tasked his son-in-law with, including attempting to broker peace between Israel and Palestine and sorting out the North American conundrum that Trump has created by complicating the United States' relationship with Mexico.
But though he has no control over clearance issue, the tie-up with the Mueller probe comes due to his own actions: Kushner inadvertently made himself a key component of the investigation and in fact many of the angles that Mueller is looking into are directly linked to his real estate dealings, his personal connections with the Russians, his participation in the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving a Kremlin lawyer and the discussion of sanctions, and his relationship with the now-indicted General Michael Flynn.
None of this can come as any sort of good news to Trump's daughter, Jared's wife Ivanka Trump. Her aspirations to the White House have been clear for some time - and this does not bode well for her OR for her husband.
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Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in Chicago: Mystery of the rich asshole’s next tweet ‘makes it interesting’
February 23, 2018
Kim Janssen
Chicago Tribune
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
CHICAGO — You might not have any idea what President Donald Trump is going to tweet next about rival world leaders, but then neither does the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley.
"It makes it interesting," Haley, a Trump confidante, told David Axelrod in an onstage interview Thursday night at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics. "It makes it interesting that when I wake up, I don't know what he's going to tweet."
Among the presidential zingers that have caught her unawares, she said, was Trump's decision to dub North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "Little Rocket Man."
"I didn't know it was coming — I saw it on Twitter, but he had to give the U.N. a big speech at the General Assembly," said Haley, a member of the president's Cabinet who also serves on the National Security Council.
"He called me about that and I said, 'OK now, Mr. President, you need to understand, this is a serious crowd. They're not going to rally, they're not going to cheer, that's just not who these people are, so don't take that the wrong way. Just pretend that it's church, you're speaking in church.'
"So then he said, 'Well, I've got to ask you, what do you think about me saying "Little Rocket Man" in the speech?' I said, 'It's kind of a formal crowd ... it would be different!'
"He said, 'I think it's catchy!'" Haley said, adding, "After the speech, other heads of state were calling (Kim) 'Little Rocket Man'... so it works."
The polished Haley, who gave a speech from a teleprompter before answering questions posed by Axelrod, said the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was "finishing up" his Middle East peace plan, which has been on hold since the U.S. controversially decided to move its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
She also said any attempt to tighten legal immigration should be based only on "security grounds," a deviation from Trump's proposals to clamp down on so-called chain migration on economic grounds.
And Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, castigated her fellow politicians, college students and the news media for failing to put themselves in the shoes of their opponents.
"This is a skill that I'm afraid is being lost in America today," she said. "Real leadership is bringing people around to your point of view, by showing how it is in their best interests to do so."
She added, "There seems to be more of an inclination to see virtue in our differences than to build on what we have in common. That can be a recipe for endless conflict."
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