March 12th, 2017 continued. It's been 485 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 413 days since the Jan 20th inauguration of some rich asshole.
the rich asshole ex-aide Paul Manafort’s lawyer to seek dismissal of oligarch’s lawsuit
Paul Manafort (Youtube)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
The lawyer defending U.S. President some rich asshole’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort against a Russian oligarch’s allegations of fraud will seek to dismiss the case, he said on Monday.
Jeffrey Eilender argued the claims are too old and portrayed the case as an attempt to divert attention from a federal probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election.
Eilender made the comments to Reuters following a hearing in the case, a civil matter that is separate from criminal charges faced by Manafort, the former head of the rich asshole’s campaign, as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s federal probe.
Eilender’s comments marked the first time that Manafort’s lawyers have detailed their planned response to the suit filed in January in New York state court by a Cyprus company tied to Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Eilender’s comments marked the first time that Manafort’s lawyers have detailed their planned response to the suit filed in January in New York state court by a Cyprus company tied to Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Eilender said he would seek to dismiss the case on the grounds that it had been more than six years – the statute of limitation for fraud in New York – since the funds at issue changed hands.
Eilender said he believed Deripaska was seeking to reassert legal claims against Manafort and former business partner Rick Gates at a time when financial transactions of people close to Putin were under intense scrutiny.
“This is a red herring. He is trying to create a distraction,” Eilender said.
James Altman, lawyer for the Cyprus company, Surf Horizon Limited, did not respond to a request for comment.
Surf Horizon accused Manafort and Gates in the January lawsuit of misappropriating more than $18.9 million earmarked for deals in Ukraine in 2008. Surf Horizon had made similar legal complaints against Manafort and Gates in the Cayman Islands in 2014 and in Virginia in 2015.
It is not clear to what degree, if any, Mueller’s probe is focused on Deripaska, who was offered private briefings by Manafort during the 2016 campaign, according to the Washington Post.
One company cited in Mueller’s indictment of Manafort and Gates as being involved in an alleged money laundering and tax evasion scheme had a $27 million loan from a Deripaska-linked company at the end of 2012, Cyprus corporate records show.
Last month Gates pleaded guilty to two charges and is cooperating with Mueller. Manafort maintains his innocence and is preparing for trial.
Last month Gates pleaded guilty to two charges and is cooperating with Mueller. Manafort maintains his innocence and is preparing for trial.
The split created a potential conflict of interest for Eilender, who was granted permission by the judge on Monday to drop Gates as a client and continue representing Manafort.
reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Susan Thomas
GOP House intel committee concludes Putin didn’t try to help the rich asshole win in 2016
US President some rich asshole and Russia's President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017 (AFP)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
In their investigation into Russian inference during the 2016 presidential election, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have reached the conclusion there is “no evidence” of collusion between some rich asshole’s presidential campaign and the Russian government, CNN’s Manu Raju reports.
The GOP leaders also “contend that evidence does not support” the assessment by the U.S. intelligence community that Russia—at the urging of Vladimir Putin—tried to help the rich asshole defeat Hillary Clinton.
BIGGEST TAKEAWAY: The House Intelligence Committee report DISSENTS from the FBI/CIA/NSA assessment that Russia wanted to help @realDonaldTrump win.
House Intelligence Committee Republicans on Monday announced they’ve concluded the interview portion of their Russia investigation and are moving to conclude the probe.
NEWS: GOP on House Intel reach conclusion: No evidence of collusion between Trump camp and Russia. GOP draft report will also contend that evidence does NOT support intel community assessment that PUTIN tried to help Trump win. Ds yet to see report. cnn.com/2018/03/12/pol…?amp=1
MORE: Burr just told me he’s seen “NO” evidence of collusion yet and no evidence yet to substantiate 2017 IC assessment that Putin sought to aid Trump. Asked about efforts by Russians to coordinate w Trump camp, he said: “It’s collusion on part of the Russians not the Trump camp”
the rich asshole administration broke the law by failing to implement smog rule, federal court rules
"Everyone deserves to breathe clean air. And because of the Clean Air Act, we’re legally entitled to it."
A federal judge in California ruled that the nation’s top environmental official, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, violated the law by missing the deadline to implement the agency’s ozone pollution rule.
In his decision, Federal District Court Judge Haywood Stirling Gilliam Jr. wrote that Pruitt broke the law under the Clean Air Act by failing to identify which areas in the United States have smog levels that violate the nation’s ozone health standards.
The EPA revised its national ambient air quality standards in 2015 under the Obama administration, but Pruitt missed the October 1, 2017 deadline to announce the areas that were in compliance under the ozone pollution rule. Pruitt subsequently announced findings only for areas in compliance, not those out of compliance.
“There is no dispute as to liability: Defendants admit that the Administrator violated his nondiscretionary duty under the Clean Air Act,” wrote Gilliam.
Gilliam ordered the EPA to publish it’s findings for most of country by next month, on April 30, and by July 17, 2018 for eight counties in San Antonio, Texas, rejecting the agency’s request for more time to determine whether those counties are violating the ozone standard.
Mustafa Santiago Ali, a senior adviser for environmental justice and community revitalization in the Obama EPA, said he was pleased with the court’s decision, but is also displeased with the the rich asshole administration’s slow pace in tackling the pollution problem across the country.
“Each day that they move slowly, they place our most vulnerable communities, especially our children’s lives, in jeopardy,” Ali told ThinkProgress.
“We know that in our communities — African American, Latino communities, and some Asian American communities as well — that we are disproportionately impacted by air pollution and that we have higher levels of asthma and asthma attacks, so each day that they move slowly it places our children in harm’s way,” said Ali, who is now senior vice president for climate, environmental justice and community revitalization at the Hip Hop Caucus, a civil and human rights organization.
The nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice, which filed a lawsuit in December against the EPA for failing to identify violators by the deadline, praised the court’s decision. Once the EPA identifies the areas out compliance, the work of cleaning up elevated smog levels can begin, the nonprofit noted in a press release.
“Everyone deserves to breathe clean air. And because of the Clean Air Act, we’re legally entitled to it. The court got it right when it ordered the EPA to finish making ozone designations sooner than the agency requested,” said attorney Seth Johnson, who represented Earthjustice in the case, in a statement.
The lawsuit represented a broad coalition of environmental and health groups, including the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club, among others.
The Environmental Defense Fund and Environmental Law and Policy Center also challenged in court Pruitt’s delay in implementing the smog protections. And last December, a coalition of 15 attorneys general, led by California California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, filed a separate lawsuit that the federal court merged into one case.
Becerra, who filed that lawsuit in conjunction with the California Air Resources Board, said at the time that it was imperative that the EPA implement the smog-reducing standards. He promised that the California Department of Justice would refuse to let the EPA blatantly violate the Clean Air Act.
On Monday, Becerra noted that the smog-reducing requirements will be life-saving and protect the health of hundreds of thousands of children.
“We will closely monitor the EPA to make sure it complies with the Court’s order. We stand ready to do what’s necessary to ensure that the EPA does not shirk its legal responsibilities,” he said in a statement.
Once the EPA identifies which areas are violating the smog standards, those jurisdictions “must take immediate steps to improve” air quality and develop a compliance plan, according to Becerra.
But Ali noted that the most difficult work begins once those areas are identified, and this will be challenging given EPA budget cuts and what he described as a lack of inspectors.
“The agency and others have to do the tough work of making sure that they are properly engaging with folks to educate them on what the impacts are, and the changes that can happen,” said Ali. “The agency continues to not move forward in a positive direction, and they’re going to have to deal the legal ramifications of their lack of action.”
Huge Win On #Climate & Environment! Court: EPA broke law with smog rule delay thehill.com/policy/energy-… #Climatechange #Environmentaljustice #ActOnClimate
When the standards were adopted, the EPA projected that compliance with the standards would create billions of dollars worth of health benefits every year, even after subtracting costs, according to Becerra.
House Republicans cut interviews short, conclude the rich asshole didn’t collude with Russia
GOP comes to collusion-free conclusion despite failing to interview Manafort, Flynn, and Papadopoulos.
According to the House Intelligence Committee, there is no evidence that some rich asshole’s campaign colluded with Russia.
The committee, led by Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), released a statement on Monday saying that they had uncovered “no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the rich asshole campaign and the Russians.” Conaway — who had replaced Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) following the latter’s significant breaches of conduct — added that, in addition to the one-page statement, the panel had also completed a substantial draft report, which is yet to be released.
The committee’s statement on Monday, however, went beyond just absolving the the rich asshole campaign of any suspected collusion with Moscow, even going so far as to dispute the U.S. Intelligence Community’s findings that Russia had preferred a the rich asshole presidency to that of Hillary Clinton. The statement also added that the Clinton campaign had obtained “anti-the rich asshole research” from Russian sources, an apparent nod to the disputed Steele memo.
The draft report will now likely go to the minority staff on the committee, currently led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). However, it remains possible — or likely — that the Democrats will push to release a second, competing report. Democrats have complained that a number of key witnesses still have not been interviewed by the committee, and that Republicans on the committee didn’t bother to use subpoenas in order to obtain pertinent information.
“By ending its oversight role in the only authroized investigation in the House, the Majority has placed the interests of protecting the President over protecting the country and history will judge its actions harshly,” Schiff said Monday evening in an extensive statement. “During the first open hearing of our investigation, I asked whether we could conduct this investigation in the kind of thorough and nonpartisan manner that the seriousness of the issues merited… Regrettably, that challenge proved too much.”
Further, Republicans cut short the witness interview portion of the investigation — something Schiff only learned of on Monday afternoon. Among the witnesses who were reportedly not called before the committee were Paul Manafort, the rich asshole’s former campaign chair, and Michael Flynn, the rich asshole’s former national security adviser. Both Manafort and Flynn have been targeted by the special counsel’s office for dissembling about their ties to pro-Russian operatives, as has former the rich asshole campaign adviser George Papadopoulos — another individual the committee didn’t interview.
“Democrats say the committee has raced through its final interviews, while allowing witnesses to pick and choose which questions they answer,” CNN reported.
While the committee’s statement was relatively straightforward — or at least lacked any of the colorful commentary associated with the White House — Conaway told reporters that claims of collusion, despite any number of strange meetings and piling guilty pleas, were something found only in fiction.
“Only Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn or someone else like that could take this series of inadvertent contacts with each other, or meetings, whatever, and weave that into some sort of fictional page-turner spy thriller,” Conaway said.
/ THE NATIONAL INTEREST March 12, 20187:01 pm
Share
House Republicans have barely even pretended to investigate Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 elections, and now even the bare pretense is coming to an end. The GOP majority is releasing a report that will declare no collusion took place between Russia and the rich asshole campaign. Indeed, the report will go even farther and insist Russia did not even want to help the rich asshole win at all, contradicting the assessment of U.S. intelligence.
This outcome was completely predictable from the outset, when the committee’s chairman, Devin Nunes, snuck off to the White House late at night to produce an explosive but eventually debunked charge that the rich asshole had been the victim of nefarious “unmasking” by Obama officials in 2016. Nunes continued to churn out explosive but false counter-charges depicting the Russia investigation as a Deep State conspiracy against the completely innocent the rich asshole campaign.
The House GOP investigation failed to interview Manafort, or his partner Rick Gates, or Michael Flynn, or George Papadopoulos, all of whom have been indicted by Robert Mueller, and the latter three of whom are cooperating with his investigation. Rep. Mike Conaway, the Republican heading the investigation in the wake of Nunes’s quasi-recusal, admitted last week, “I don’t have any clue who George Nader is.” Nader has been the subject of two front-page New York Times stories linking him to a secret post-election meeting between the rich asshole and Russian officials.
But the House Republican investigation is not going to exert itself to extreme measures like learning the names of major figures involved in the case. Even publicly-available evidence, like the 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting in which leading campaign officials eagerly met with a Russian promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, or the public boasting by Papadopoulos that the campaign had obtained Russian dirt on its opponent, have failed to move his allies in the lower chamber. the rich asshole was just a big-hearted business tycoon who wanted to help some Russian orphans and maybe give down-on-his-luck lobbyist Paul Manafort a job (unpaid.) For all that, they seem to believe, he has been smeared by the notoriously left-wing American intelligence apparatus as a dupe for a foreign country that didn’t even necessarily want him to win the election!
Alternatively, if you want Congress to hold a real investigation, or any oversight whatsoever over the executive branch, you need to hope Democrats win the midterm elections.
White House declines to back UK’s assertion that Russia is behind poisonings of ex-spies
Britain's PM Theresa May is threatening to retaliate against Moscow.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday dodged questions about Moscow’s alleged involvement in a series of poisonings targeting former spies living in Britain, instead offering a canned statement about maintaining support for US allies. Sanders’ comments came hours after British Prime Minister Theresa May issued a fiery ultimatum to Russia, threatening it with sanctions if it fails to provide answers on the matter.
“The British government believes that Russia was behind the attempted murder and poisoning of two agents,” Associated Press correspondent Zeke Miller stated. “Is that the assessment of the United States government…and will there be any repercussions for Russia from the United States, in coordination with its British allies?“
Sanders punted.
“Look, we’ve been monitoring the incident closely [and] take it very seriously,” she said. “The use of a highly lethal nerve agent against U.K. citizens on U.K. soil is an outrage. The attack was reckless, indiscriminate, and irresponsible. We offer the fullest condemnation and we extend our sympathy to the victims and their families, and our support to the U.K. government. We stand by our closest ally and the special relationship that we have.”
Pressed on the issue further, Sanders repeated her prepared remarks and claimed that the U.K. was still “working through some of the details” of the incidents.
“Right now we are standing with our U.K. allies,” she said. “We’re going to continue to work with the U.K. and we certainly stand with them throughout this process.”
Pushed yet again to answer the question directly, Sanders answered, “Like I just said, we stand with our ally and we certainly fully support them and are ready if we can be of any assistance to them.”
London is investigating a string of poisonings as targeted assassination attempts by the Kremlin. On Monday, Prime Minister May, addressing the House of Commons, condemned Russia for its alleged role in the recent poisonings of former spy Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Julia, who were targeted with a deadly nerve agent on Sunday last week and found slumped on a bench in Salisbury. A police officer who was one of the first responders on the scene was also exposed to the substance and is in stable condition. Skripal and his daughter remain in critical condition.
“It is now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok,” May said on Monday. “Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent … our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so; Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations, the government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act.”
The British government has given the Kremlin until Wednesday to respond to the allegations and said it would implement retaliatory sanctions if Russia is found to be responsible.
To date, more than a dozen high-profile Russians and former spies have been targeted, and in some cases killed, in the suspected Kremlin-directed attacks on British soil.
The attacks come with the rich asshole administration currently under investigation over allegations it colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The White House has been criticized repeatedly for its favorable treatment of Russia over the past year. the rich asshole himself has been hesitant to condemn Moscow for its widely accepted role in the hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, even going so far as to say he “really believe[d]” Russian President Vladimir Putin when the latter claimed his officials were not behind the election interference.
“He said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” he told reporters in November. “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it. … I think he is very insulted by it.”
The White House has not yet addressed recent reports that Skripal had ties with former British MI-6 officer Christopher Steele, who compiled a now famous dossier containing salacious allegations and accusations of collusion against the rich asshole. According to The Telegraph, Skripal was reportedly “close to” one of the security consultants who worked with Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence.
The White House tried to defend the rich asshole completely caving to the NRA. It did not go well.
Faced with tough questions about the rich asshole's new school safety proposal, Sarah Sanders had few answers.
During the White House news briefing on Monday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders struggled to deal with a series of questions about President the rich asshole’s new school safety proposal — one that contains precisely zero provisions opposed by the NRA, and that represents an about-face from what he said in the wake of the Parkland school shooting, when he met with survivors and vowed he’d work to raise the minimum age for purchasing assault weapons to 21.
The first gun-related question Sanders fielded was about whether “there’s a single thing in this proposal from the president that is not supported by the NRA.” The press secretary tried to dodge it with a bit of trickery, claiming that while the rich asshole may not be endorsing an AR-15 minimum purchase age increase, he could still end up doing so it a new federal commission determines it’s a good idea.
Next, Sanders was asked why the rich asshole called for the creation of the aforementioned commission to study gun violence in schools just hours after he mocked commissions of that sort during a rally in Pennsylvania.
“Less than 24 hours after ridiculing the idea of blue ribbon commissions — he said, ‘all they do it talk and talk and talk, and then two hours later they write a report’ — and then on this issue, a commission is okay? Why?” a reporter asked her.
Sanders again dodged, saying, “Look, the president doesn’t just have one piece of this plan. There are a number of things that he is pushing forward that are very tangible.”
Later, Sanders was asked about the disconnect between the rich asshole’s comments call for the minimum age for assault weapons purchases to be raised during his meeting with Parkland survivors, and his new plan, which does not include any proposal to change purchase ages.
“The president, here in the White House, met with six students from Parkland, Florida, and said specifically that he would ‘go strong’ on the age limits. And this proposal doesn’t have the president stepping forward and demanding action on the age limits. Why is the president backing away from that promise to those six students?” a reporter asked.
Sanders’ response was that while the president personally supports raising the age, “We’re pushing forward on the things that have support.”
But as another reporter mentioned later, polling consistently shows upwards of 75 percent of Americans in favor raising the age for assault weapons purchases. Nonetheless, the rich asshole tweeted earlier Monday that there is “not much political support (to put it mildly)” for the proposal.
Sanders dismissed the disconnect between the rich asshole’s comments and the polling by claiming that his tweet referred to “Congress, who actually has the ability to make law — not online polls.”
Ironically, on February 22 — eight days after the Parkland shooting — the rich asshole held a bipartisan meeting with members of Congress in which he chastized members for being owned by the NRA and asserted that he, by contrast, would not be intimidated. (The NRA spent $30 million to get the rich asshole elected.)
“They do have great power, I agree with that,” the rich asshole said during the meeting. “They have great power over you people. They have less power over me. What do I need?”
Despite his posturing, the next day the rich asshole gave a speech at CPAC in which he parroted the NRA’s talking points.
the rich asshole launched 2 new commissions in 3 days, with a pause to mock them in between
He's launched at least 11 brand-new presidential commissions and task forces and shuffled numerous others around.
For a guy with as many new presidential panels under his belt as full months in office, President some rich asshole sure is comfortable mocking them. A day before his administration trotted out his latest such panel — this one built to craft policy responses to the Parkland school shooting that’s occasionally put the rich asshole crosswise with his NRA allies — the president slagged such approaches off to a crowd of supporters in Pennsylvania.
“We can’t just keep setting up blue-ribbon committees with your wife and your wife and your husband, and they meet and they have a meal and they talk, talk, talk, talk,” the rich asshole said at a rally Saturday near Pittsburgh, after re-upping his past proposal to have drug dealers executed. “Two hours later, then they write a report.”
Whatever you make of the content and delivery, the rich asshole’s joke came with undeniably lousy timing. Barely 24 hours earlier, the rich asshole had announced a new presidential commission to study the hurdles former prisoners face on re-entering society. Within another day, his White House announced a new commission on school shootings, chaired by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. They were the 10th and 11th such bodies the rich asshole has created in his young presidency.
Neither of these newest commissions has a firm timeline, and each has a broad and vague brief. The two might or might not recommend any given action, and the rich asshole might or might not listen when they do. They have all the hallmarks of the political subterfuge that have long made blue-ribbon committees a target of easy derision for politicians of all stripes.
the rich asshole has already fathered a litany of committees, including the Task Force on Apprenticeship Expansion he launched last June and the Presidential Advisory Council on Infrastructure, born the following month. the rich asshole has convened commissions on agricultural policy, trade policy, technology, and crime. He has also used executive orders to fiddle in the margins with numerous existing bodies, including tweaks to the Obama-era Threat Mitigation Working Group in February 2017, an overhaul of the longstanding President’s Council on Physical Fitness that erased former First Lady Michelle Obama’s signature “Let’s Move” campaign, and the relocation of a presidential panel on historically-black colleges and universities from one part of the executive bureaucracy to another.
The approach speaks to the rich asshole’s understanding of how to manipulate the media, as University of Texas political science professor Bruce Buchanan told the New York Times after one early round of such orders. “He wants to be in the papers for having endorsed things he is generally in favor of, even though there’s nothing really new,” Buchanan said.
the rich asshole has even brought one defunct panel – the National Space Council– back from the dead. And in a single executive order last September, he extended the charter of 32 separate commissions, advisory councils, and interagency groups convened by his predecessors – the exact kind of perfunctory move almost all presidents make to zero astonishment, but which makes this president’s stage bluster seem duplicitous.
A leader can either believe in the value of consensus, expertise, and delegation, or he can reject those things. the rich asshole’s record of executive actions signals he sees political value in the presidency’s convening power, even if his speeches veer in the opposite direction.
Even if you discard the low-profile iterations of Trumpian commissioneering, you’ll still have a healthy stack of shaggy new groups with little accomplishment to their names.
Take the Office of American Innovation, the rich asshole son-in-law Jared Kushner’s signature undertaking. Unveiled in March 2017, Kushner’s new White House group was supposed to revamp technology solutions and management techniques across the manifold functions of the federal government. A year later,BuzzFeed reported Monday, the group initially billed as a “SWAT team of strategic consultants” has done zilch. “Over a dozen people inside or close to the White House…said they had no real idea what the Office of American Innovation was there for and couldn’t point to any major policy wins,” reporter Tarini Parti summarized.
Ditto the rich asshole’s commission on opioid policy, led by former rival turned sycophant Chris Christie (R-NJ). Christie’s team managed, less than six months after launching, to issue the kind of report the rich asshole mocked on stage Saturday. But the president didn’t take up the group’s substantive recommendations for major policy change and funding injections, instead declaring a public health emergency, claiming credit for a number of investments begun under the prior administration, and then sitting on his hands for the rest of 2017. The latest White House budget calls for investing several billion dollars into opioid policy work, but even those aspirations are far from the funding levels experts say the problem requires – and they come tailored to the exact kind of old-school lock-em-up War on Drugs mentality that several members of the Christie commission want to replace with modern thinking. The commissioners themselves have derided the rich asshole’s opioid commission as a paralytic sham.
The highest-profile the rich asshole panel is also one of his most prominent humiliations. In January, the rich asshole quietly rescinded authorization for the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity just eight months after creating it. The body was intended to vindicate the rich asshole’s own claims that millions of Hillary Clinton voters had cast ballots illegally, a baseless lie that went much further than even the most ardent conspiracists who insist voter fraud is a major problem despite all evidence to the contrary.
In Saturday’s speech, the rich asshole seemed to imply that such presidential panels are a sign of unseriousness or weakness.
It stands to reason that he thinks they’re a tool for signaling rather than for substance – that if a president really cares about something, he’ll put his own political capital on the line by campaigning for it personally. And the rich asshole’s behavior is consistent with that theory. He’s crusaded for trickle-down tax relief and a physical barrier at the U.S.-Mexico border. He’s even lent personal attention, albeit in more spastic and temporary form, to the future of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.
But on opioid deaths, violent crime, farmers’ issues, technological innovation, infrastructure, and now even the mass murder of schoolkids, he’s seen fit to pass the mic.
These are things for other people to talk about, maybe over a dinner or two, and then crank out reports. the rich asshole doesn’t really care about them, or doesn’t like the political math of becoming intimately involved in the details of the work. It’s hard to say which, in part because the rich asshole record on presidential commissions is so scattershot and inconsistent.
MSNBC’s Tur nails Christian broadcaster for defending ‘sinner’ the rich asshole: ‘He bragged about grabbing women by the genitals’
MSNBC's Katy Tur (left) and Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody (right). Images via screengrab.
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
After a journalist with the Christian Broadcasting Network attempted to defend President some rich asshole’s track record with evangelicals, MSNBC’s Katy Tur raised her voice when listing off the president’s many moral failings.
“The evangelicals will start to walk away — I’m not just talking about vulgarity, I’m talking about immorality of many other kinds — when he is president of the United States,” Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody said during a Monday afternoon airing of Meet the Press.
When it comes to the president’s alleged affair with adult star Stormy Daniels in 2006 and 2007, evangelicals will give him “grace” for his past misdeeds, the CBN White House correspondent said.
“Folks might scoff at that but it is grace,” he continued, “but they won’t give him grace if it’s happening in 2018, that’s for sure.”
“Are you sure about that?” Tur asked Brody. “Do you think suddenly now Donald Trump going on stage and calling someone an S.O.B. or calling Elizabeth Warren ‘Pochahontas’ or saying that a congresswoman who’s African American has a low I.Q., now, suddenly, that’s gonna be a line that he can’t cross for evangelicals?”
“There’s no upside for him,” Brody said before elaborating that the rich asshole has delivered on evangelical policies such as moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and successfully nominating Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court as a way to appeal to his fundamentalist base.
Undeterred, Tur asked Brody why the rich asshole was even given a “pass” from evangelical voters in the first place despite him failing to “embody their issues.” The CBN correspondent began to discuss Hillary Clinton’s support for so-called “partial-birth abortion” when the host cut him off.
“‘I’m not going to vote for Hillary Clinton because of her support on abortion but I can vote for some rich asshole who’s had three divorces, who says vulgar things, who has had numerous affairs, who has bragged about grabbing women by the genitals,'” Tur said, mocking evangelicals who supported the president in spite of the image he presented on the campaign trail. “Hillary Clinton is the more morally hard-to-swallow candidate than some rich asshole?”
Watch below, via MSNBC:
Sarah Sanders refuses to blame or even mention Russia in UK poisoning — which she calls ‘indiscriminate’
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Screenshot)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Sarah Sanders refused to blame or even mention Russia over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter while they were living in the U.K.
During Monday’s White House briefing, a reporter noted that British Prime Minister Teresa May had accused Russia of “an unlawful use of force” after the poisoning was connected to Russia.
But Sanders insisted that the poisoning was “indiscriminate” and refused to name Russia as a suspect.
“We’ve been monitoring this incident closely, taking it very seriously,” Sanders opined. “The use of a highly dangerous nerve agent against U.K. citizens on U.K. soil is an outrage. The attack was reckless, indiscriminate and irresponsible.”
“So, you’re not saying Russia was behind this?” the reporter asked.
“Right now, we are standing with our U.K. allies,” Sanders said, refusing to mention Russia by name. “I think they’re working through even some of the details of this. And we’re going to continue to work with the U.K. and we certainly stand with them throughout this process.”
The reporter pressed, pointing out that the British government has determined that Russia provided the chemical weapon used in the poisoning.
“Like I just said,” Sanders interrupted, repeating herself, “we stand with our ally and we fully support them and are ready if we can be of any assistance.”
Watch the video below from CNN.
‘This is your brain on the rich asshole’: Professor explains why he can’t help calling the rich asshole supporters ‘the fools they objectively are’
Local residents react as U.S. President some rich asshole arrives at a rally in Huntington, West Virginia, U.S., August 3, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Do you ever find yourself wondering what the story is with those thrilled faces behind some rich asshole at his rallies?
Unlike us, they’re not spies in a house of horrors. That sea of Make America Great Again hats doesn’t give them the creeps. When the rich asshole cues them, as he did in Phoenix on August 22, to jeer John McCain, they have no ambivalence about belittling a war hero battling brain cancer. When the rich asshole whines about the coverage his Charlottesville rant got, they realize, and don’t care, that he’s rewriting what he said—they heard him confer moral equivalence on neo-Nazis and anti-Nazis. But his act entertains them, and their complicity in his edits adds a perverse pleasure to the press hatred he rouses in them.
They can’t all be the 9 percent of Americans who believe that holding white supremacist or neo-Nazi views is acceptable. Who are these people?
They can’t all be the 9 percent of Americans who believe that holding white supremacist or neo-Nazi views is acceptable. Who are these people?
There’s a decent chance they’re among the 62 percent of the rich asshole voters who think millions of illegal votes won Hillary Clinton the popular vote; the 54 percent of his voters who say the most oppressed religious group in America is Christian; the 52 percent who believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya; the 46 percent who believe Clinton ran a satanic child-sex ring in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor; the 45 percent who say the racial group facing the most discrimination in America is white people; and the 40 percent whose main source of news is Fox News.
I get that the rich asshole’s base feels marginalized, left behind by a minimum-wage economy, powerless to control their futures, dissed by urban elites. I know why they’re fed up with partisan gridlock (so am I); I see why they’d favor a business brand over a political name as president. They’re disgusted by the corruption in Washington (ditto); no wonder they’re drawn to a bull who’d break some china and a bully who’d break some heads.
But after months of lies, sleaze, impulsivity, laziness, vengeance, arrogance, ineptitude, ignorance, nepotism, self-love and Putin love, how can three out of four Republican voters still be sticking with him? How come those faces I see on TV don’t see the nightmare I see? (I don’t mean that bizarre “Blacks for the rich asshole” guy; I mean the rest of them.)
That’s what I’m wrestling with. Here’s what I got:
It’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because they’re human. It’s not because they’re so different from me. It’s because they’re so much like me.
But here’s what makes that hard to swallow: I can’t muster the humility to believe we’re both wrong, and I can’t summon the relativism to believe we’re both right. But believing that I’m right and they’re wrong, as I do, gets me laughably crosswise with everything I know about human cognition.
Homo sapiens has refined a method of study and understanding—science—that’s reaped powerful knowledge about the world. But the more we’ve used science to study ourselves, to probe the neurobiology of how we think and what we feel, the more inescapable it’s become that “rational” is too flattering a term to describe what makes humans tick, even when we’re at our best.
Homo sapiens has refined a method of study and understanding—science—that’s reaped powerful knowledge about the world. But the more we’ve used science to study ourselves, to probe the neurobiology of how we think and what we feel, the more inescapable it’s become that “rational” is too flattering a term to describe what makes humans tick, even when we’re at our best.
It’s not pretty to admit, but no matter how practiced we are at critical thinking, how hip we are to the social construction of reality, how savvy we are about manipulation and framing, we still conflate what we want to be true with what actually is true. Our minds unconsciously invent retroactive rationales—we reverse-engineer justifications—for what our bodies already have made us think, say and do. What we call reason turns out to be a byproduct of our addiction to feel-good chemicals like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.
Human cognition is a captive of confirmation bias: We seek out and believe information that reinforces what people like us already believe. Confronted by evidence that contradicts what we think, we double down; confronted by chance, we confect necessity. Instead of changing our minds, we tell ourselves stories and cling fast to our tribal identities. A universe that’s run by luck is terrifying, but a good narrative imposes causality on randomness, finds patterns in chaos and purpose in lives. Our hunger for knowledge isn’t as strong as our yearning to belong, to defeat fear and loneliness with affiliation and family. We may call the baskets into which we sort facts “true” and “false,” but at bottom they’re euphemisms for “us” and “other.”
And yet my awareness of the limitations of logic, my appreciation for the ways human hardwiring privileges feelings over facts—they don’t inoculate me from maintaining that the rich asshole is objectively unfit for office. I can’t let neuroscience discount my claim to truth-value: I don’t think calling the rich asshole a liar illustrates confirmation bias at work. The reason the people I see at the rich asshole rallies on my TV screen believe the psychopath at the podium is telling the truth may well be their membership in Tribe the rich asshole. That explanation may nudge my empathy for them upward, but it doesn’t dampen my conviction that I’m right and they’re wrong, and it doesn’t make their belief in the falsehoods he spews any less scary.
Science may be humbling, but humility doesn’t make me feel like a dope when I call out dopiness when I see it.
Tapper swipes at the rich asshole for ‘folding’ on guns: He ‘bucks convention’ on trade and North Korea — but not the NRA
Jake Tapper, the CNN anchor of 'The Lead'
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday took some rich asshole to task for following up his “bravado” on gun control with a selection of meager proposals—none of “which the NRA would even remotely object.”
“Tough questions for the White House after President the rich asshole finally unveiled the proposal to prevent mass shootings at schools today, which bears little resemblance from what we heard from President the rich asshole at the end of February,” Tapper began Monday, reminding viewers that shortly after the tragedy in Parkland, Florida last month, “the president promised he alone could fix this and he was on the case.”
Tapper said the rich asshole “talked then about significantly expanding background checks, aggressively taking guns away from the mentally ill—even without due process—and he talk a lot about raising the minimum age to buy semi-automatic weapons to 21.”
“He also mocked politicians as afraid to buck the National Rifle Association, which opposed raising the age for the purchase of semi-automatic weapons to 21,” Tapper explained.
Turning to the White House’s control proposals, released Monday, Tapper said “the rich asshole’s proposal falls way short of not only his stated goals but offering scarcely anything of substance to which the NRA would even remotely object.”
“We should note that this latest fold comes after examples a string of examples of President the rich asshole following through with his intent to ‘disrupt’ the usual way things are done in Washington” Tapper said.
“The president is willing to buck convention on the issue of tariffs or North Korea or basic diplomacy but not when it comes to guns,” Tapper said.
Watch the full video, below:
Shep Smith calls out the rich asshole for claiming there’s no support for raising age to buy assault weapons
Fox News host Shep Smith. Image via screengrab.
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
On Monday morning, President some rich asshole tweeted that there was “no political support” for upping the age to purchase assault-style weapons from 18 to 21 — in spite of the state of Florida passing a bipartisan bill signed into law by their Republican governor that did just that.
Fox News’ Shep Smith noted that the rich asshole’s assertion was incorrect, and that the president appeared to be “backing off” of a stance he took just a few weeks ago following the deadly mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school on Valentine’s Day.
“President the rich asshole backed off the idea of raising the age to buy some guns,” Smith said, “tweeting that the idea does not have enough political support — though it’s widely supported by Republicans and Democrats.”
“It’s the NRA that doesn’t support it,” he concluded.
Watch below, via Fox News:
White House won’t say whether Russia is behind poisonings of ex-spies
Britain's PM Theresa May is threatening to retaliate against Moscow.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday dodged questions about Moscow’s alleged involvement in a series of poisonings targeting former spies living in Britain, instead offering a canned statement about maintaining support for US allies. Sanders’ comments came hours after British Prime Minister Theresa May issued a fiery ultimatum to Russia, threatening it with sanctions if it fails to provide answers on the matter.
“The British government believes that Russia was behind the attempted murder and poisoning of two agents,” Associated Press correspondent Zeke Miller stated. “Is that the assessment of the United States government…and will there be any repercussions for Russia from the United States, in coordination with its British allies?“
Sanders punted.
“Look, we’ve been monitoring the incident closely [and] take it very seriously,” she said. “The use of a highly lethal nerve agent against U.K. citizens on U.K. soil is an outrage. The attack was reckless, indiscriminate, and irresponsible. We offer the fullest condemnation and we extend our sympathy to the victims and their families, and our support to the U.K. government. We stand by our closest ally and the special relationship that we have.”
Pressed on the issue further, Sanders repeated her prepared remarks and claimed that the U.K. was still “working through some of the details” of the incidents.
“Right now we are standing with our U.K. allies,” she said. “We’re going to continue to work with the U.K. and we certainly stand with them throughout this process.”
Pushed yet again to answer the question directly, Sanders answered, “Like I just said, we stand with our ally and we certainly fully support them and are ready if we can be of any assistance to them.”
London is investigating a string of poisonings as targeted assassination attempts by the Kremlin. On Monday, Prime Minister May, addressing the House of Commons, condemned Russia for its alleged role in the recent poisonings of former spy Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Julia, who were targeted with a deadly nerve agent on Sunday last week and found slumped on a bench in Salisbury. A police officer who was one of the first responders on the scene was also exposed to the substance and is in stable condition. Skripal and his daughter remain in critical condition.
“It is now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok,” May said on Monday. “Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent … our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so; Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations, the government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act.”
The British government has given the Kremlin until Wednesday to respond to the allegations and said it would implement retaliatory sanctions if Russia is found to be responsible.
To date, more than a dozen high-profile Russians and former spies have been targeted, and in some cases killed, in the suspected Kremlin-directed attacks on British soil.
The attacks come with the rich asshole administration currently under investigation over allegations it colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The White House has been criticized repeatedly for its favorable treatment of Russia over the past year. the rich asshole himself has been hesitant to condemn Moscow for its widely accepted role in the hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, even going so far as to say he “really believe[d]” Russian President Vladimir Putin when the latter claimed his officials were not behind the election interference.
“He said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” he told reporters in November. “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it. … I think he is very insulted by it.”
The White House has not yet addressed recent reports that Skripal had ties with former British MI-6 officer Christopher Steele, who compiled a now famous dossier containing salacious allegations and accusations of collusion against the rich asshole. According to The Telegraph, Skripal was reportedly “close to” one of the security consultants who worked with Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence.
Here are 7 terrifying signs President the rich asshole is driving the US into an all-out war
the rich asshole's planned tariffs on steel and aluminium have triggered fears of a trade war. (AFP / MANDEL NGAN)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Listen carefully in Washington and you’ll hear the sound of a coming war in the Middle East.
“We must stop Iran and we will stop Iran,” declared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday at the American Israeli Political Action Committee’s annual conference in Washington. Amid thunderous ovation, the prime minister said that “darkness is descending on our region,” adding that “Iran is building an aggressive empire.”
Coming from the man who told Americans in 2002, ”If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” Netanyahu’s judgment about what the U.S. should do in the Middle East is defective, if not deceitful.
Yet the rich asshole administration has embraced him, even as he faces corruption charges at home.
Since the New Year, the rich asshole has pledged to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, thrilling Netanyahu and alienating almost every country in the world. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has given a speech hyping the alleged menace of Iran’s ballistic missile program (U.S. allies were not convinced). Israel attacked Syria, and lost a fighter jet for the first time ever. And Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared the United States “will maintain a military presence in Syria,” where there are four times as many U.S. Special Operations forces as was previously acknowledged.
“We’ve seen this before: a campaign built on the politicization of intelligence and shortsighted policy decisions to make the case for war,” wrote Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell during the runup to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The situation is “extremely alarming,” said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian-American Council, in an interview. “I hear the increasing sense among officials in the Middle East that the region is on the brink of war. And the more people think war is inevitable, the more likely it becomes.”
Here are seven signs of impending conflict.
1. Up for grabs.
The map of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, drawn in 1917, is now being redrawn a century later, thanks to the destabilizing impact of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
“So this is much more than a dispute between two countries or a simple political uprising and demand for democracy,” says Vali Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “This is really a fundamental reorganization of power in the region in a manner that we actually don’t know where the dust will settle.”
When Arabs complain about “Iranian meddling in the region,” Nasr told Frontline,“what they’re essentially saying is that the balance of power between Arabs and Iranians has been lost, not — I don’t think actually because the Iranians are doing any more, but because the Arabs have imploded,” he says.
Nasr points out that two of the most important Arab states, Syria and Iraq—the equivalent of Germany and France in Europe—barely exist as the nation-states they were in the year 2000. Today their governments only control their capital cities and their own ethnic sectarian constituencies.
By contrast, Persian Iran, while it has a terrible human rights record and confronts popular domestic protests, is not at war or losing territory. Its allies dominate the government in Iraq, while in Syria, Iranian-backed forces have prevailed over ISIS and other fundamentalist militias funded by the Saudis.
2. Saudi-Israeli alliance.
The relative success of Iran since the U.S. invasion of Iraq alarms and unifies Saudi Arabia and Israel. The former is rich; the latter has the region’s most powerful military. Together they are seeking to bring the United States into conflict with their mutual enemy, Iran.
“The IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] are superior in every way to Iran’s army but they cannot overthrow the Iranian regime,” Wilkerson said in an interview with AlterNet. “Only the Americans can do that. So they want to get the Americans involved.”
Parsi agrees. The Israelis and the Saudis don’t want to start a war,” he said. “They want to spark something where the U.S. intervenes.”
3. Israel is mobilizing Congress.
The AIPAC conference in Washington was only one aspect of the Israeli campaign to persuade Washington war is inevitable. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) visited Israel last month and came away saying the chances of war are growing.
“Any time you leave a meeting where the major request is ‘ammunition, ammunition, ammunition,’ that’s probably not good,” Graham told reporters upon his return.
“This was the most unnerving trip I’ve had in a while,” he added.
Nonetheless, Graham and Coons both said the U.S. should support Israeli plans to confront Iranian influence in Syria.
4. ‘Silent surge.’
the rich asshole has militarized U.S. foreign policy generally, noted Colin Kahl, foreign policy adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden. the rich asshole has mounted a “silent surge of troops & drone strikes across the globe,” Kahl tweets.
The Middle East Research and Information Project notes that:
“The United States has quietly increased the number of troops in the Middle East by 33 percent and there are plans for an ‘enduring presence’ in both Iraq and Syria. More troops and yet another supposedly new strategy are being deployed for the endless war in Afghanistan. US soldiers are fanning out across an archipelago of bases in Africa to conduct what they call ‘train, advise and assist’ missions with nearly 1,000 soldiers in Niger. In Somalia the numbers are also climbing: Troop levels are the highest since the ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident in 1993. The United States has even flown the flag in Europe, as 4,000 soldiers landed in Poland to demonstrate an ‘iron-clad commitment’ to NATO allies. Elsewhere, U.S. support for the Saudi-UAE bombing campaign on Yemen is drawing the United States deeper into that ongoing civil war…”
Militarized policy will lead to pursuit of military solutions, of which the U.S. has achieved none in the region since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991.
5. Diplomacy deficit.
The gutting of the State Department means that the rich asshole administration has lost the capacity to negotiate with other countries, whether they are friendly or hostile. In this vacuum, Vladimir Putin is emerging as the region’s diplomatic kingmaker.
Next month Russian, Turkish and Iranian diplomats will hold a summit on the future of the region, where U.S. policy is controlled by military commanders, not diplomats. The rich asshole administration has no capacity to translate its battlefield position into political gains, even if it wanted to. Which it doesn’t.
6. U.S. journalists enlist.
About the only the rich asshole action approved by his liberal critics was the cruise missile attack last April on an isolated Russian air base in response to reports of a chemical weapons attack.
Once again, liberal interventionists in the press are warming to the rich asshole’s desire to use force in Syria.
“It’s time for another red line,” say the editors at Bloomberg.“the rich asshole should tell Assad and his Russian backers that any more proved use of any chemical weapon, including chlorine, will be met with even greater retaliation than what happened in April. It certainly won’t end the fighting, in Eastern Ghouta or across the country, but it may take away one of Assad’s most unconscionable methods of terrifying his citizens.”
The Washington Post advocates a “firm response” to Russia and Syria’s brutal attacks on civilian populations.
How more war in Syria will protect or advance any vital U.S. interest is not part of the editorial debate.
7. Jared lives.
As Israel and Saudi Arabia seek to isolate Iran, they have learned they don’t necessarily have to persuade the State Department, the Defense Department or the National Security Council of their preferred policies. They just need to wait for the president’s son-in-law to visit—which he did three times in 2017.
“They learned the U.S. inter-agency process can be sidestepped by one phone call to Jared Kushner or the president,” Parsi said. “They believe they have the capacity to manipulate the rich asshole.”
So far, they’re right.
Betsy DeVos responds to embarrassing 60 Minutes interview with self-own on Twitter
The education secretary only made things worse.
On the heels of a 60 Minutes performance so bad it reportedly alarmed White House officials, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos took to Twitter to try to defend herself.
“Here’s what we shared with 60 Minutes, which of course they didn’t show you: Michigan, like much of the nation, isn’t doing well enough to prepare students. Scores are stagnant. Students need more options, and we must rethink our approach to education,” DeVos tweeted.
Here’s what we shared with @60Minutes, which of course they didn’t show you: Michigan, like much of the nation, isn’t doing well enough to prepare students. Scores are stagnant. Students need more options, and we must rethink our approach to education.
There’s just one problem. The question DeVos struggled to answer on 60 Minutesis about why Michigan schools are struggling, not if they’re struggling. A variety of recent studies have shown school in Michigan lagging behind in a a number of educational measures, so that much isn’t in doubt. And that’s problematic for DeVos because she’s been active in pushing reform efforts tilted toward charter and private schools there for decades, so the state serves as a model of the sort of educational system DeVos is working toward nationwide.
DeVos followed up with a second tweet about how students at charter schools in Detroit are doing better than their peers at public schools in the city.
Also missing from @60Minutes: students at charter schools in Detroit are doing 2x better than their peers. The reforms are helping, but there’s so much more to do. We must help all students be better prepared for strong futures. michiganradio.org/post/test-scor…
But what DeVos didn’t mention is that the Michigan Radio article she linked to is headlined, “Test scores at Detroit charter schools twice as high as city’s public schools, but both are bad.” DeVos is also cherry-picking — as the Washington Post has noted, she has “been a force behind the spread of charter schools in Michigan, most of which have recorded student test scores in reading and math below the state average.”
the rich asshole Jr. jumps into Pennsylvania special election, overshadows GOP candidate
The pair visited a local candy factory Monday, where yet another the rich asshole outshined Saccone.
CANONSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA — It was a sweet afternoon in Western, Pennsylvania, where some rich asshole Jr. visited Sarris Candies with Republican House candidate Rick Saccone in tow.
Like Friday night’s rally that was also purportedly for Saccone, the afternoon was really all about the rich asshole, who toured the store and factory, snapping selfies with workers and tasting chocolates while Saccone occasionally politely encouraged shoppers to cast a vote for him in Tuesday’s special election.
The pair visited the candy shop, Sarris Chocolate Factory & Ice Cream Parlor, which is owned by the rich asshole supporters. Athena Sarris, 86, who owns the shop, said in an interview with ThinkProgress that she supported Saccone simply because she thought he was “the better candidate.”
“To be honest with you, it’s reasons that are here,” Sarris said, pointing to her heart. “It’s just something I feel.”
Sarris and her husband, Frank, opened the shop in the 60’s. According to Sarris, her husband was working as a forklift driver and came home one day and said he wanted to make chocolates.
“We were broke,” she said. “It’s the American dream. Sometimes I can’t believe that we did this.”
Since the tax reform bill passed last December, Sarris has hired 80 new employees, according to the rich asshole, but Sarris did tell ThinkProgress Monday that many of their employees are seasonal.
“The girls, a lot of them, work all through the season and they’re off in the summer and they collect unemployment,” she said.
the rich asshole was in town just days after his father came to the district to support Saccone. In 2016, less than a year and a half ago, the rich asshole won the district by 20 points. But now, recent polls have Saccone up by just single digits. Others have him trailing Democrat Conor Lamb.
Saccone and the rich asshole toured the factory, donning hair nets and chatting with the women making and boxing chocolates. the rich asshole did most of the talking, joking with workers that they shouldn’t get “high on their own supply,” and near the end of the tour, encouraging them to come out to the polls and vote for Saccone Tuesday.
While the tour was supposed to be private, only for Saccone, the rich asshole, and the throng of press who joined them Monday, one man tagged along. Tony Ross, 72, is a retired steelworker who lives in the district. He told ThinkProgress in an interview that he remained undecided about who to vote for just one day before the election.
Ross blended in with the press corps and toured the factory with the rich asshole and Saccone, but he said Monday the trip didn’t help him make his decision at all.
“I think there’s just too much emphasis put on this the rich asshole, the rich asshole, the rich asshole,” Ross said after the tour. “This ain’t about the rich asshole. This is about our local legislator running for the Congress.”
Ross, who voted for Clinton in 2016, said that the most important thing to him is a candidate who stands with labor, who will protect social security, Medicare, and other programs from which he benefits. While he has heard that from Lamb, he said he is holding out to see if Saccone will say the same.
Notably, on Friday, more than 300 members of United Steelworkers rallied with Lamb in downtown Pittsburgh, and the fact that union leaders have stood behind Lamb is something Ross said is important to him. But Ross also said he’s seen Democrats wooed by PAC money and that they’ve drifted away from labor and other issues he says are important to him.
“[Saccone] has to be put on record and held accountable,” Ross said of what the Republican could do to sway his vote. “I don’t want any of these wishy-washy, go either way, ‘Well, I didn’t say that, I didn’t mean that, the media misquoted me.’ After 50 years of this stuff, come on, you get a bad taste in your mouth. You don’t trust them.”
But having the rich asshole on the trail, Ross said, isn’t helping Saccone secure his vote, because his years in the steel mill have made him distrust corporate America, too.
“They’ll take your socks and shoes if you give it to them,” he said. “They’ll leave you standing there in your underwear. They don’t care. That’s corporate America.”
Sarris, the owner of the shop, told ThinkProgress Monday that she has her own problems with the rich asshole and the way the special election has played out, despite welcoming them into her factory.
“I hate, hate negative ads. I can’t stand it,” Sarris said, “I’m tired at looking at negative from either side. Either side. They’re just terrible. They’re not right. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”
Sarris said she’s frustrated about the ongoing Stormy Daniels story, too.
“With this girlfriend crap, it’s terrible. I’m not voting for you because you ran around, I’m voting for you because I like your policies and that’s it,” she said. “And the rich asshole helped. He certainly helped me. But this negative stuff should stop.”
After their tour of the factory, the rich asshole Jr. and Saccone both got ice cream. the rich asshole Jr. got two scoops. Saccone got one.
Don the rich asshole Jr. ejects reporters after he’s asked about Stormy Daniels: ‘That’s not what we’re talking about’
some rich asshole, Jr. speaking with supporters of his father, some rich asshole, at a campaign rally at the Sun Devil Fitness Center at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
some rich asshole Jr., the son of President some rich asshole, on Monday cut off reporters after one asked if the president should allow an adult film star to speak out about an alleged affair.
While campaigning for Republican congressional candidate Rick Saccone at a candy store in Pennsylvania, the younger the rich asshole answered reporters questions, assailing Democrats and praising his father.
But one question about Stephanie Clifford — who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels — appeared to be off limits.
“some rich asshole, should Stormy Daniels be able to speak?” the reporter asked.
After first ignoring the question, the rich asshole decided to eject reporters from the room.
“Thanks, guys,” he said, ending the press conference. “That’s not what we’re talking about.”
Watch the video below from MSNBC.
Qatar gave the rich asshole and Kushner a ‘gift,’ says ex-NSC official — and now the White House owes them a favor
some rich asshole and Jared Kushner
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Officials from Qatar have declined to give potential evidence of the rich asshole-Kushner corruption to special counsel Robert Mueller — and a former National Security Council spokesman explained why that presents a new conflict of interest for the White House.
Qatari officials claim to have details about secret meetings earlier this year involving Lebanese-American businessman George Nader and Republican donor Elliott Broidy, but they decided not to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation into the matter.
“That in itself will be seen as a huge gift on the part of Qatar to the rich asshole administration,” said Ned Price, who served as NSC spokesman under former President Barack Obama. “The issue we have to be watching for is how will the rich asshole administration repay Qatar for this? I think we’re going to see a quid pro quo in the coming days, it’s just not clear yet what it is.”
Qatari officials believe the rich asshole endorsed a blockade imposed by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as retaliation by Jared Kushner, whose family unsuccessfully tried to get the country’s minister of finance to invest in their distressed 666 Fifth Avenue property in New York City.
“This is nothing new, especially when it comes to Jared Kushner,” said Price, who resigned from the CIA after more than a decade because he refused to serve under the rich asshole.
He said the president’ son-in-law and White House adviser met with Chinese officials to discuss a loan, and he also met with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov during the transition.
“Interestingly, the Russians said the meeting was about private financial interest on the part of the Kushner Corporation, although Kushner during the transition said it was about policy interest,” Price said. “So clearly Jared Kushner has consistently mixed business and policy in a way that is not only looks gross, but in a way that puts our security at risk. If the rich asshole administration follows through and it gives back to countries like Qatar that opt not to throw them under the bus.”
Stormy Daniels’ ingenious settlement offer to the rich asshole
Daniels makes the rich asshole an offer he can't refuse, but has to.
The attorney representing adult film star Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, sent a settlement offer on Monday to the President of the United States. Avenatti said that Daniels would return $130,000 to the rich asshole — the amount she was reportedly paid by the rich asshole’s attorney Michael Cohen — in exchange for being formally released from the non-disclosure agreement she signed in October 2016. The offer, according to Avenatti’s letter, is only valid until Friday, March 16.
Daniels made the October 2016 non-disclosure agreement public in a suit she filed last week in California. In that suit, Daniels argues that the agreement is invalid because the rich asshole never signed it, among other reasons.
The settlement offer, and the decision to disclose it to several media outlets, is highly unusual. Normally settlements offers are made privately and aim to avoid further public litigation of the issue. But this settlement offer is public, and its purpose is to allow the dispute — Daniels said she had a sexual relationship with the rich asshole, but the rich asshole denies it — to be litigated in the court of public opinion.
It is nearly impossible to imagine that the rich asshole would accept this offer. So what is Avenatti thinking?
Avenatti is a very successful attorney who won a $454 million medical fraud verdict in 2017, the largest single judgment in California last year. He is not proposing this settlement without a plan. A closer examination reveals the letter is a savvy move that puts the rich asshole in an extremely difficult position.
The settlement offer makes the rich asshole effectively reaffirm the hush money agreement
By offering to return the money, Daniels puts the rich asshole in the position of either accepting or reaffirming his desire to pay Daniels six figures to stay quiet. The only thing the rich asshole has to agree to is to let Daniels talk. If, in fact, he did not have a sexual relationship with Daniels, keeping her quiet would not likely be worth $130,000. In rejecting the offer, the rich asshole looks like he has something to hide — and perhaps he does.
The settlement offer suggests that Daniels has texts, photos, and video documenting her relationship with the rich asshole
As part of the settlement, the rich asshole would have to agree to let Daniels release “text messages, photos and/or videos” she may have in her possession. The initial non-disclosure agreement required Daniels to deliver those materials to the rich asshole. She now argues that the agreement was invalid. But by mentioning these materials in the settlement agreement, she strongly suggests they exist and could be released at any time. That disclosure, of course, makes it far less likely that the rich asshole will accept that offer — but that could be the point.
The settlement offer breaks down the fiction that the agreement did not involve the rich asshole
The settlement offer also requires the rich asshole to acknowledge that he was a party to the original agreement. Although the $130,000 was paid to Daniels through a shell company set up by the rich asshole’s attorney, Daniels is offering to repay the rich asshole himself. This is based on the belief that the rich asshole was the real source of these funds. The letter also requires, as a condition of the settlement, that it be signed personally by the rich asshole.
The settlement offer confirms that Daniels was interviewed by 60 Minutes and that the rich asshole may be seeking to block the broadcast
The settlement, for the first time, officially confirms that Daniels has taped an interview with Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes. Avenatti previously tweeted a photo of himself with Daniels and Cooper, but did not specifically disclose that there was an interview.
The letter specifically refers to Daniels’ “recent interview with Anderson Cooper of 60 Minutes.” It also requires the rich asshole and his representatives to agree to “not take any action, legal or otherwise, aimed at preventing” the interview from “airing publicly.” This may refer to a BuzzFeed report that the rich asshole’s attorney’s were considering taking preemptive legal action to block the interview. In any event, the inclusion of this language will likely increase interest in the interview.
The settlement strengthens Daniels’ contention that this is ‘not about the money’
In her lawsuit, Daniels does not ask for money — just a declaratory judgment allowing her to speak without fear of legal repercussions. Daniels and her attorney have insisted that their actions are not about money.
The settlement offer gives Daniels a powerful talking point to bolster this contention. Not only is their lawsuit not about money, but they have also offered to return the money that Daniels already received. Daniels will likely be able to use this talking point even without actually having to return the money.
GOP leader: Calling Chuck Todd ‘son of a bitch’ is how the rich asshole stops ‘missiles coming from North Korea’
Kevin McCarthy (CNBC/screen grab)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Monday attributed President some rich asshole’s success with North Korea to his penchant for using vulgar language.
During an interview on CNBC, host Andrew Ross Sorkin noted that the rich asshole had recently called NBC host Chuck Todd a “son of a bitch.”
“Is that acceptable?” Sorkin wondered.
“Is president the rich asshole than the candidate that he ran [as]?” McCarthy replied.
“That’s not the question,” Sorkin insisted.
“So if you’re questioning did his character change,” McCarthy continued, “no, the American public knew this going in. Does that mean somebody has to agree with somebody 100 percent of the time? No. We’re separate but co-equal.”
“This man is no different from what he ran as and that’s what the American people voted for,” the Majority Leader said. “You’re going to pick that part off but are you going to spend any time when you criticized him for dealing with North Korea differently? And what’s the outcome? How many lives is that going to save?”
McCarthy agreed that his children shouldn’t hear the rich asshole calling anyone a “son of a bitch.”
“But I definitely don’t want my children to see any missiles coming from North Korea,” he insisted. “And I’m going to give him a lot of credit for that. And maybe his personality was a little different, but I’ve watched those personalities in the past that said all the right things and North Korea is still developing a weapon.”
Watch the video below from CNBC.
the rich asshole’s attempt to ban bump stocks will likely fail without congressional support
The Justice Department’s move to ban bump stocks is unlikely to work -- again.
The Justice Department announced over the weekend that it had begun taking steps to effectively halt the sale of bump stocks, stopping short of calling the move an all-out ban. However, the decision is unlikely to go very far without congressional intervention.
“Today the Department of Justice submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a notice of a proposed regulation to clarify that the definition of ‘machinegun’ in the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act includes bump stock type devices, and that federal law accordingly prohibits the possession, sale, or manufacture of such devices,” Justice Department officials wrote in a statement on Saturday.
In that same statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed the administration was simply following through on President the rich asshole’s previous promises.
“President the rich asshole is absolutely committed to ensuring the safety and security of every American […],” Sessions said.
The announcement came two weeks after Sessions told reporters his department would be making an announcement on the matter, in the wake of a school shooting in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead. President the rich asshole had claimed earlier that week that he would use executive power to ban bump stocks — modification devices which allow a semi-automatic firearm to mimic the firepower of a fully automatic weapon — if lawmakers failed to act on the matter.
“I’m writing that out myself,” the rich asshole said at a meeting with the nation’s governors. “I don’t care if Congress does it or not. I am writing it out myself.”
Despite their popularity, attempts to ban bump stocks have so far been fraught with complications. In the wake of a mass shooting in Las Vegas last October which left 58 people dead, legislators on both sides of the aisle came together calling for the modifications — which had been used by the Las Vegas gunman — to be outlawed. However rifts quickly appeared, with Republicans and the National Rifle Association (NRA) insisting that the responsibility fell to the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and Democrats pushing for legislative measures.
“We think the regulatory fix is the smartest quickest fix and I’d frankly like to know how it happened in the first place,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said at the time.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) immediately criticized that notion, tweeting, “The ATF does NOT have the authority to address bump-fire stocks — and has made this point clear to Congress MULTIPLE times.” In a related op-ed, she quoted a letter from ATF officials themselves, explaining that bump stocks were “legally not considered machine gun conversion devices and ‘are not subject to the provisions of federal firearms statutes.'”
Under the provisions Feinstein cited, the Justice Department would essentially need Congress to reclassify bump stocks as machine guns before it could successfully regulate them.
Citing the National Firearm Act of 1934, ATF defines a machine gun as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to [automatically] shoot” more than one shot with a single trigger pull. By that standard, rifles modified with a bump stock are not considered machine guns — or automatic firearms — because the trigger must be engaged every time the user wants to fire a round.
That’s not for lack of trying on ATF’s part, of course. “We could not find a way to classify [a bump stock-modified firearm] as a machine gun,” ATF senior technical expert Rick Vasquez told The Trace in October, after “months of testing the devices and studying the law.”
According to Vasquez, ATF officials “tested the product; consulted applicable laws, including the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the National Firearms Act; and wrote an evaluation” before coming to their conclusion. “It was a monumental job,” he told the outlet.
Pointing to criticism from NRA chief Wayne LaPierre and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who blamed ATF for not banning bump-stocks in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting, Vasquez added, “We did the right thing by the letter of the statutes. There’s a tragedy that happened and nothing can change that. But to try to put the blame on us, it really irritates me.”
Several Democratic lawmakers have attempted to address this issue in recent years. In 2013, Sen. Feinstein introduced a bill that would have halted the sale of military-style “assault” weapons that could accept a detachable stock; it also would have banned all bump or “slide-fire” stocks. As Vox notes, the proposal stalled following fierce push-back among Republicans and some Democrats and was never brought to a vote.
In October last year, Feinstein — whose daughter nearly attended the concert where the Las Vegas shooting took place — once again introduced legislation to ban bump stocks, but the measure stalled after Congress failed to address it.
“This isn’t going to stop, members, it’s going to continue,” she said on February 15, one day after the Parkland shooting. “And we become culpable when we do nothing to stop it.”
For their part, the NRA and many Republicans have chosen instead to fix their criticism on Democrats, including President Obama, who they blame for approving bump stocks in 2010. However, even that argument is mostly flawed: as ThinkProgress reported last year, the company that initially sought approval to manufacture and sell bump stocks — Slide Fire — originally misled the ATF on the device’s purpose, claiming that the modifications would “assist persons whose hands have limited mobility to ‘bump-fire’ an AR-15 rifle.” As one former ATF agent put it, the request was “a total scam.”
It’s unclear how the Justice Department plans to actually regulate the sale of bump stocks or prevent them from getting into the wrong hands under this new OPM directive, or whether Attorney General Sessions’ directive is even legal under current law. For now, the president appears confident that the move will work, despite its obvious flaws.
“…Bump Stocks will soon be out,” the rich asshole tweeted on Monday.
the rich asshole wilts and touts a ‘big nothing’ after three of the worst mass shootings in US history
President some rich asshole (AFP / Olivier Douliery)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
President some rich asshole stood accused Monday of caving in to the US gun lobby one month after the Florida school shooting, as the White House pushed ahead with plans to arm teachers but backpedaled on curbing access to assault rifles.
Under pressure to act after a teenager killed 17 people with a semi-automatic rifle in Parkland, the rich asshole had signalled support for raising from 18 to 21 the federal minimum age for purchasing the powerful weapons.
But measures unveiled by his administration Sunday made no mention of any such action — nor of enforcing the vetting of buyers for firearm sales that take place online and at gun shows, another idea floated by the White House.
Instead Education Secretary Betsy DeVos put the focus squarely on the rich asshole’s highly-controversial push to arm teachers and administrators, saying it was “committed to working quickly” on the move opposed by educator groups but backed by the powerful National Rifle Association.
On the issue of vetting gun buyers, the White House has endorsed minor legislation in Congress to improve federal and state databases used for background checks by licensed dealers.
And, more than five months after a man killed 58 people in Las Vegas using multiple AR-15 rifles equipped with so-called “bump stocks” — devices that turn semi-automatic rifles in machine guns — the Justice Department Saturday announced a proposal to ban them, a move that could take months.
the rich asshole touted his actions Monday, saying the White House would back “very strong improvement and strengthening of background checks.”
“Bump Stocks will soon be out. Highly trained expert teachers will be allowed to conceal carry, subject to State Law,” he tweeted.
But regarding age limits, he said, it would be left to individual states to act.
“Not much political support (to put it mildly),” the rich asshole said.
Critics accused the rich asshole of wilting after three of the worst mass shootings in US history scarred his first year in office, saying the measures fall far short of what is needed.
“The White House has taken tiny baby steps designed not to upset the NRA, when the gun violence epidemic in this country demands that giant steps be taken,” said Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader.
Robert Spitzer, an expert on the gun rights debate and chair of the political science department at the State University of New York, College at Cortland, foresaw no meaningful reform despite a “startling” campaign launched by student survivors in Florida.
“His initiative basically amounts to a big nothing,” he said of the rich asshole.
– Public wants tougher controls –
Polls since the shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School show the US public has turned strongly for tougher regulations.
Students from the school have taken the lead in a national campaign to advance gun control, meeting the rich asshole and other leading politicians, and helping force through a new law on age limits for purchasers in Florida.
But the NRA, a potent lobby which considers the US Constitution’s Second Amendment to grant broad gun ownership rights, has pressed the White House and Congress to hold off.
On Friday it filed a lawsuit contesting Florida’s new age limit law.
“It totally eviscerates the right of law-abiding adults between the ages of 18 and 21 to keep and bear arms,” the NRA said.
the rich asshole chastised a group of legislators he met at the White House at the end of last month, telling them they were afraid of the gun lobby.
But NRA leaders have met privately with the rich asshole himself twice in recent weeks, and the president has noticeably tempered his calls for more gun controls in the wake of the Florida shooting.
Spitzer was deeply pessimistic on the chances of action on gun control in a Republican-controlled Congress that faces a tough election battle in November.
“The NRA did not want to see Congress enacting any legislation,” he said. “If there are 100 mass shootings next week, the Congress is not going to move on any significant new gun law.”
‘They’re in big trouble’: CNN panel says new poll from Pennsylvania should send Republicans panicking
Gloria Borger and Rachel Bade debate on CNN (Screen cap).
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Tuesday’s big special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district is shaping up to be a must-win for Republicans — but a new poll suggests that they are about to suffer a massive loss.
Reporting on a new Monmouth poll of PA-18 showing Democrat Conor Lamb with a 6-point lead over Republican rival Rick Saccone, a CNN panel on Monday said such a result should send panic into the hearts of Republicans — particularly since it would come in a district that the rich asshole carried by 20 points in 2016.
“This should be a shoo-in,” said analyst Gloria Borger of the congressional race. “This should be an easy win.”
Fellow panelist Rachel Bade seconded Borger’s analysis.
“This is a district that has been Republican-held for 15 years,” she said. “If they lose a district like this, they’re in big trouble in the midterm elections.”
Bade noted that both the rich asshole White House officials and Republicans on Capitol Hill have tried to preset expectations for a potential loss in the race by dumping on Saccone’s candidacy — but she said that the GOP would overlook the broader implications of the race at their own peril.
“I think they know they’re in trouble, and this is going to look really bad for the president and the party,” she said.
Watch the video below.
Republicans on House Intelligence Committee move to end Russia probe ahead of midterm losses: report
Devin Nunes (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee are moving to end the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the committee “has finished interviewing witnesses in its yearlong probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to a person familiar with the matter, signaling the end is near of a contentious investigation that has revealed deep partisan divisions on the panel.”
The committee reportedly interviewed its final witness, former the rich asshole campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, last week.
“Republicans on the committee and in the House of Representatives think it is now time to conclude the panel’s investigation, according to people familiar with the matter,” the report said. “Republicans and Democrats on the House committee have said they would like to produce a bipartisan report, but relations on the panel have deteriorated to the point where such a task may be difficult.”
The move comes before Democrats have a chance to seize control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections. Republicans would likely accuse Democrats of partisanship if the Russia investigation was reopened.
White House officials alarmed at education secretary's '60 Minutes' performance
(CNN)White House officials were alarmed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' struggle to answer basic questions about the nation's schools and failure to defend the administration's newly proposed school safety measures during a tour of television interviews Sunday and Monday, according to two sources familiar with their reaction.
Though DeVos was sworn in to her Cabinet position 13 months ago, she stumbled her way through a pointed "60 Minutes" interview with CBS' Lesley Stahl Sunday night and was unable to defend her belief that public schools can perform better when funding is diverted to the expansion of public charter schools and private school vouchers. At one point, she admitted she hasn't "intentionally" visited underperforming schools.
"I hesitate to talk about all schools in general because schools are made up of individual students attending them," DeVos said, as Stahl suggested that DeVos visit those underperforming schools.
Things worsened as DeVos continued her cable television tour Monday morning. The White House released its proposals for school safety measures after a shooting in Florida killed 17 people. Part of the proposal includes a task force to examine ways to prevent future mass shootings, headed by DeVos. Though the proposals don't include raising the age limit to purchase firearms from 18 to 21 -- as President some rich asshole once suggested -- DeVos told Savannah Guthrie on NBC's "Today" show that "everything is on the table."
"The plan is a first step in a more lengthy process," DeVos said, adding that she does not think that arming teachers with assault weapons would be "an appropriate thing."
"I don't think assault weapons carried in schools carried by any school personnel is the appropriate thing," DeVos said. "But again, I think this is an issue that is best decided at the local level by communities and by states."
"The point is that schools should have this tool if they choose to use the tool. Communities should have the tools, states should have the tool, but nobody should be mandated to do it," she said.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders declined to weigh in on DeVos' performance, saying school safety and other policies are the "focus of the President -- not one or two interviews, but actual policy."
Asked whether the rich asshole tuned in to "60 Minutes," Sanders said, "I'm not sure if he saw the whole thing or not."
DeVos tweeted Monday afternoon: "Here's what we shared with @60Minutes, which of course they didn't show you: Michigan, like much of the nation, isn't doing well enough to prepare students. Scores are stagnant. Students need more options, and we must rethink our approach to education."
"Also missing from @60Minutes: students at charter schools in Detroit are doing 2x better than their peers. The reforms are helping, but there's so much more to do. We must help all students be better prepared for strong futures," she added.
Here’s what we shared with @60Minutes, which of course they didn’t show you: Michigan, like much of the nation, isn’t doing well enough to prepare students. Scores are stagnant. Students need more options, and we must rethink our approach to education.
Also missing from @60Minutes: students at charter schools in Detroit are doing 2x better than their peers. The reforms are helping, but there’s so much more to do. We must help all students be better prepared for strong futures. michiganradio.org/post/test-scor…
DeVos is just the latest member of the rich asshole's Cabinet to come under scrutiny. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt were all scolded by officials from the White House counsel's office and the Cabinet liaison after a series of embarrassing and questionable ethical behavior at their respective agencies.
This isn't the first time DeVos has made headlines. She also struggled to answer education questions during her contentious confirmation hearing before the Senate last January. At one point, she told Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy that some schools may require guns to fight off grizzly bears.
"I will refer back to Sen. (Mike) Enzi and the school he was talking about in Wyoming. I think probably there, I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the schools to protect from potential grizzlies," she had said.
In the end, Vice President Mike Pence had to break the tie to confirm her nomination, making her the first Cabinet nominee in history to require a tie-breaking vote by the vice president to be confirmed.
POLITICS
Stormy Daniels Wants To Return The $130,000 And End Her Silence
If the rich asshole accepts the deal, the actress would be free to publish any text messages, photos and videos she has of the president.
Adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, said she is willing to give back the $130,000 she received from some rich asshole’s attorney Michael Cohen in October 2016.
In exchange, Clifford wants to end the deal she made with Cohen not to discuss a relationship she says she had with the rich asshole starting in July 2006 and lasting nearly a year. The White House has denied there was an affair.
In a story first reported by The New York Times, Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said he sent a letter to Cohen on Monday promising that his client would wire the money to an account of the rich asshole’s choosing by Friday.
Avenatti said Cohen has until noon on Tuesday to respond to the offer, which, if accepted, would deem Clifford’s silence as “null and void” once she returned the cash.
Under the terms of the deal Avenatti is proposing, his client would then be allowed to speak openly about her alleged relationship with the rich asshole as well as publish any text messages, photos or videos related to the president that she may have in her possession, according to CNN.
In addition, Avenatti wants the rich asshole and the shell company that Cohen used to pay Clifford to not make any attempt to block the airing of a “60 Minutes” interview that she taped last week.
“As we have always said, this is about a search for the truth and the ability of Ms. Clifford to tell the American people what really happened so they can make their own determination,’’ Avenatti said in a statement. “Our offer proves this out.”
The Times points out that Avenatti’s offer puts the rich asshole and Cohen in a bind: If they reject it, it could “be seen as effectively acknowledging the existence of a continuing effort to keep Ms. Clifford silent about an affair that Mr. Cohen and the president say did not happen.” Cohen announced last month that he paid Clifford $130,000 in October, but insisted the money was his own.
“Neither the rich asshole Organization nor the rich asshole campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Cohen told the newspaper. “The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone.”
Cohen has not explained why he made the payment to Clifford, but the actress said his discussion of it invalidates their agreement and she now believes she is free “to tell her story.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated the alleged affair between the rich asshole and Daniels occurred in 2016. It allegedly occurred in 2006.
Stormy Daniels offers to return 'hush agreement' money to speak freely
Washington (CNN)Adult film actress Stormy Daniels is offering to return the $130,000 payment she received from President some rich asshole's attorney in exchange for dissolving a so-called "Hush Agreement."
Last month, Michael Cohen said he paid $130,000 of his own money to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, ahead of the 2016 election in exchange for her silence regarding an alleged sexual encounter with the rich asshole. Both Cohen and the White House have denied any sexual encounter between the President and Clifford.
Clifford's attorney, Michael Avenatti, sent Cohen a letter offering to wire $130,000 by Friday to an account designated by the President. In exchange, the settlement agreement between Clifford, the rich asshole and Cohen's company would be "deemed null and void in their entirety."
The exchange would allow Clifford to speak publicly about her allegations of an affair with the rich asshole, and according to the letter "use and publish any text messages, photos and/or videos relating to the President that she may have in her possession, all without fear of retribution and/or legal liability for damages." By sending the money to the rich asshole, it would involve the President -- who has never acknowledged the agreement or the affair -- in the case.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said last week that "arbitration was won in the President's favor" regarding the case. The statement is an admission that the nondisclosure agreement exists and that it directly involves the rich asshole. It was the first time the White House had admitted the President was involved in any way with Clifford.
A message left with Cohen was not immediately returned.
Avenatti told CNN's "New Day" last week that Clifford would "absolutely" pay back the $130,000 if she was allowed to speak about the alleged affair.
Leaks from the rich asshole’s own legal team reveal they’re scrambling in desperation
President some rich asshole and Michael Cohen, composite image. (Photo of the rich asshole by Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
According to New York Magazine columnist Jonathan Chait, it’s becoming obvious that President Donald the rich asshole and his attorneys are getting desperate.
Examining leaks from the rich asshole’s own legal team that appeared in the Wall Street Journal and BuzzFeed, it’s obvious they’re searching for a way out. Last week, The Journal reported that the lawyers made a huge demand of special counsel Robert Mueller. They asked that if the rich asshole agrees to meet with investigators, would Mueller end the probe after 60 days.
BuzzFeed exposed the rich asshole’s lawyers for frantically searching for ways to block the “60 Minutes” interview with adult film star Stormy Daniels about her deal with lawyer Michael Cohen.
Over the weekend, lawyer Ty Cobb was quoted by the New York Times telling friends “for weeks that he views his position as temporary and does not expect to remain in the job for much longer.” Cobb has consistently maintained the rich asshole should fire Mueller since the investigation wasn’t completed by Thanksgiving 2017.
Since those reports, Bloomberg wrote Monday that Mueller is considering waiting for the entire investigation to be finalized before bringing in the rich asshole.
“So, the lawyer who has been holding the rich asshole back from taking drastic action seems to be on his way out,” Chait said of the collection of stories. “And the rich asshole’s lawyers are contemplating some extremely rash strategies that have about a zero percent chance of succeeding.”
He noted that pundits are all speculating about what is going on behind the doors of the law offices, but it seemed like an explosion of stories over the last four days exposing the team is floundering.
the rich asshole supporter fantasizes about conservative gun owners slaughtering soldiers and liberals in a new civil war
Members of the Oath Keepers and general public participate in a tactical training session in northern Idaho, U.S. October 1, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
the rich asshole supporter Kurt Schlichter, who in the past has been condemned by historians of the Holocaust for saying that any Jewish person who supports Democrats “would have made a fine helper at Auschwitz,” has written up an elaborate fantasy of a new American civil war that involves armed Wisconsin farmers bringing down a column of Abrams tanks.
Writing over at Townhall.com, Schlichter thinks civil war is more likely today than it has been in the past because “the central tenet of the Democrat Party platform is now hatred and contempt for Normal Americans.”
While he still doesn’t think a civil war is likely, he believes that if such a war were to occur, Red America would defeat Blue America easily.
Among other things, he thinks that so-called “Normal Americans” could launch an insurgency campaign against the military similar to the one that Iraqis waged against the United States last decade.
“For example, how do a bunch of hunters in Wisconsin defeat a company of M1A2 Abrams tanks?” he asks. “They ambush the fuel and ammo trucks. Oh, and they wait until the gunner pops the hatch to take a leak and put a .30-06 round in his back from 300 meters. Then they disappear. What do the tanks do then? Go level the nearest town? Great. Now they just moved the needle in favor of the insurgents among the population.”
Later in the piece, he imagines how the forces of Red America could utterly decimate the city of San Francisco in a plan that would involve destroying the city’s water supply.
“San Francisco is a hotbed of treason, but the populace is largely unarmed and is trapped in a confined area,” he writes. “You put a brigade on securing the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, then put a brigade on the San Francisco Peninsula to cut off the I-280 and US-101 corridors. Next you go to the Crystal Springs Dam and cut off the water.”
Here’s what Betsy DeVos got wrong about campus rape (pretty much everything)
The Education Secretary downplayed the prevalence of campus rape and institutionalized racism.
n a tense interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos failed to provide insight on Michigan’s struggling public schools, refused to acknowledge racial disparities in school discipline practices, and downplayed the pervasiveness of campus rape throughout the country.
60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl asked DeVos about the secretary’s focus on school choice policies in her home state of Michigan, where public schools are struggling in large part because they are left with fewer funds when children opt for other schools. According to a report by Education Trust-Midwest, schools in Michigan have experienced major declines in third-grade reading levels. Fifty-six percent of students in the third grade did not pass the state assessment’s reading test in 2017. But DeVos couldn’t articulate whether public schools in Michigan have fared well under her policies. When Stahl pushed DeVos on the issue, she replied, “I don’t know — overall, I can’t say overall that they have gotten better.”
“The whole state is not doing well,” Stahl said. Toward the end of her questions on school choice, DeVos looked visibly uncomfortable, particularly when Stahl suggested DeVos should visit an underperforming public school. “Maybe I should, yes,” DeVos replied.
When Stahl asked DeVos about reports that the department is considering rolling back guidance for schools to avoid racial disproportionality in discipline, she replied, “We are studying that rule. We need to ensure all students have an opportunity to learn in a safe and nurturing environment and all students means all students.”
Stahl offered a hypothetical example of a classroom disruption to illustrate the differences in the discipline of white students and Black students. When white students are disruptive, they are typically sent to the principal’s office, Stahl said, while school staff often call the police on Black students. Stahl’s example is supported by years of research and data on racially disproportionate school discipline, including Department of Education data that shows Black students were 2.3 times more likely to be disciplined through involvement of police officers than white students, and are 3.6 times more likely than white children to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions. Research from Stanford University also found that teachers use harsher discipline on Black students when they misbehave a second time than they would for a white student.
DeVos’ response was, ” … all of these issues come down to individual kids.”
“Well, no it’s not,” Stahl said.
“It does come down to individual kids … I am committed to making sure that students have the opportunity to learn in an environment that is conducive to their learning,” DeVos responded.
“Do you see this disproportion in discipline for the same infraction as institutional racism?” Stahl pressed.
DeVos answered, “We’re still studying it carefully and are committed to making sure more students have the opportunity to learn in a safe and nurturing environments.”
This isn’t the first time DeVos dodged questions about racial disproportionality in school discipline — she did the same thing during her confirmation process last year. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, at the time, that he was concerned by her lack of commitment to continue requiring schools to submit civil rights data — a resource that could help address the systemic racism inherent within school discipline practices.
“I asked if she would maintain the requirement that schools submit civil rights data to the department … That’s not controversial … She would not commit to continuing to require that the data be submitted. That is absolutely stunning,” Murphy said in January 2017.
DeVos’ response echoed that of President some rich asshole’s pick to head the Office for Civil Rights, Kenneth Marcus, who also waffled on a question about student discipline and racial bias during a Senate hearing in December. “[M]y experience says that one needs to approach each complaint and compliance review with an open mind and a sense of fairness to find what out what the answers are. I have seen what appeared to be inexcusable disparities that were the result of paperwork errors. They just got the numbers wrong.”
Under the rich asshole, OCR has discussed the possibility of focusing more on individual complaints rather than looking for systemic problems as the Obama-era OCR did. It dismissed a lot more cases as well, according to Politico. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights continues to say they are not required to handle cases relating to discrimination against transgender students, the Huffington Post reported. Since DeVos stepped into her role as education secretary, she made it clear that her department would likely not take the same approach as the Obama administration in addressing civil rights complaints. Her refusal to acknowledge racial discrimination in schools during her 60 Minutesinterview has cemented that reputation.
Stahl also pressed DeVos on the department’s approach to complaints related to Title IX, a federal civil rights law that protects people from sex discrimination in education programs and activities. In September, DeVos rescinded Obama-era guidance for schools, colleges, and universities that are investigating sexual assault cases. The department also introduced an interim guidance that replaced the suggested 60-day timeframe for prompt investigations with “no fixed time frame” and allowed colleges to decide to force survivors to “work things out” with the accused.
“Are you in any way, do you think, suggesting that the number of false accusations are as high as the number of actual rapes or assaults?” Stahl asked DeVos.
“Well one sexual assault is one too many. And one falsely accused individual is one too many,” DeVos said.
“But are they the same?” Stahl asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. But I’m committed to a process that is fair for everyone involved,” Devos responded.
DeVos’ response might make sense in a world without research on sexual assault and campus rape or on the number of false reports of sexual assault. But existing research shows that only between 2 to 10 percent of reports of sexual assault are false.
Students who are found responsible for sexual assault are expelled in only 30 percent of the cases reviewed by the Huffington Post in 2014 and in 47 percent of these cases, they were suspended.
That evidence hasn’t stopped the the rich asshole administration from making sweeping generalizations about campus rape survivors. Candice Jackson, deputy assistant secretary for strategic operations and outreach at the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights said in July that 90 percent of sexual assault cases “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.'”
the rich asshole does an about-face on the issue of age limits for assault-style weapons
The president claimed there was "not much political support" for the idea.
The White House debuted a new school safety proposal on Sunday evening that backtracks on the president’s previous comments about raising the minimum purchasing age from 18 to 21 for sales of assault-style weapons. Hours later, President some rich asshole himself tweeted that there was “not much political support” for the idea.
“Very strong improvement and strengthening of background checks will be fully backed by White House. Legislation moving forward. Bump Stocks will soon be out. Highly trained expert teachers will be allowed to conceal carry, subject to State Law. Armed guards OK, deterrent!…….” the rich asshole tweeted Monday morning, referring to the White House proposal and several changes the administration announced over the weekend. “….On 18 to 21 Age Limits, watching court cases and rulings before acting. States are making this decision. Things are moving rapidly on this, but not much political support (to put it mildly).”
The new proposal, rolled out over the weekend, establishes a federal commission that will evaluate several topics, including violent video games and entertainment, entertainment ratings systems, and safety measures within schools, such as arming teachers. It also seeks to study the possibility of raising the minimum purchasing age for assault-style weapons, stopping short of actually implementing any new policies. The commission, spearheaded by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is expected to make recommendations to the White House in the next year.
In some respects, the rich asshole’s claim on Monday was accurate: many legislators have shied away from the topic of increasing age restrictions for assault-style weapon purchases, mainly due to pressure from the country’s most powerful gun lobbying group, the National Rifle Association (NRA). But recent surveys have showed broad support for the idea among the public: a Rasmussen poll published on March 6 revealed that approximately 67 percent of American adults are in favor of increasing the age limit from 18 to 21, with only 26 percent opposed. A Politico/Morning Consult poll published on February 28 yielded similar results, with 82 percent of respondents in favor of raising the minimum age for purchasing an assault-style weapon to 21, and 81 percent of respondents saying they supported raising the minimum purchasing age for all firearms to 21.
the rich asshole’s sudden about-face comes less than one month after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida which left 17 people dead. In the wake of that shooting, the rich asshole insisted that the minimum purchasing age for assault-style weapons like the one used by the alleged gunman should be raised from 18 to 21, something the NRA has said it opposes.
“You have a case right now where somebody can buy a handgun at 21. Now, this is not a popular thing to say, in terms of the NRA. But I’m saying it anyway — I’m going to just have to say it,” the rich asshole said, during a bipartisan meeting with lawmakers on February 28. “You can’t buy [a handgun]…until you’re 21. But you can buy the kind of weapon used in the school shooting at 18. I think it’s something you have to think about.”
the rich asshole also insisted in that same meeting that the reason legislators had not moved on the issue themselves was because they feared the NRA, which wields heavy influence on Capitol Hill.
“…You’re afraid of the NRA,” the rich asshole said. “It’s a big issue right now. A lot of people are talking about it. A lot of people are afraid of that issue, raising the age for that weapon to 21.”
He added that, unlike Congress, he would be able to change the policy because the NRA had “less power” over him than lawmakers.
Days later, however, following a meeting with top NRA officials, the president himself appeared to buckle under pressure.
According to CNN, during that meeting, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and NRA lobbying executive Chris Cox argued against the idea of raising the minimum purchasing age to 21, telling the president that such a move would infringe on the constitutional rights of 18, 19, and 20-year-olds. That same night, the rich asshole tweeted that he’d had a “Good (Great) meeting in the Oval Office…with the NRA.” Less than two weeks later, the president had reversed course entirely.
Education Secretary DeVos spent much of Monday morning this week attempting to do damage control, making the rounds on morning talk shows and claiming that the president’s sudden change of tone was not an indicator that the administration had dropped the ball.
“Everything is on the table. We will be looking at this,” DeVos said, speaking with TODAY host Savannah Guthrie about the issue of raising age limits and the rich asshole’s apparent reversal. “Everything is on the table, and the commission will be studying it and many other issues, and will be forthcoming with solutions.”
No comments:
Post a Comment