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April 5, 2018
The head of the EPA is at the center of half a dozen self-inflicted scandals, but Sen. Ted Cruz is desperately trying to find a way to blame President Obama for it.
EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is under fire for a series of scandals and allegations of mismanagement.
But according to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the embarrassing headlines exposing Pruitt’s excessive spending, sweetheart deals, and ethically questionable decisions are the handiwork of President Barack Obama.
This is compelling. Why do Obama and his media cronies want so badly to drive @EPAScottPruitt out of office? @realDonaldTrump is too cagey to be duped and bullied by the Obama groupies. tinyurl.com/y978w3x8
The source for Cruz’s complaint is a right-wing blog called “The Lid.” Other stories on the site make it clear that it is part of the world of crank-heavy conspiracy sites on the right, and not real news or journalism.
The site accuses singer Katy Perry of contributing to the death of a Catholic nun, claims Facebook is censoring conservative sites (it isn’t), and alleges that President Obama used government funds to spread socialism in Europe.
That is the content from the fevered swamp that Cruz chose highlight from his elevated platform as a senator.
It’s the kind of unhinged and completely baseless claim the rich asshole himself has made for over a year, insisting that President Obama is the shadowy leader of the so-called “deep state” that is secretly trying to undermine his presidency. the rich asshole has blamed his repeated mistakes on this completely invented group.
But President Obama is not the cause of dysfunction and scandal at the rich asshole’s EPA.
Those problems fall squarely at the feet of Pruitt and the administration that hired him.
Most Senate Democrats opposed Pruitt’s nomination, while every Republican except Maine’s Susan Collins voted for him.
When Pruitt got a sweetheart deal for a condo from a lobbyist, charged taxpayers for luxury flights, and took his 24/7 security detail with him on a family trip to Disneyland, he did so using the power the rich asshole gave him.
Faced with another senior the rich asshole official under fire and likely on the edge of being purged, Republicans are reflexively defending Pruitt.
Perhaps enamored with his favoritism for big industry and Republican donors over the environment, others like Sen. Rand Paul (R-TN) have come out to support him.
The stink generated by Pruitt’s failures is tainting the entire Republican Party, and Cruz’s absurd effort to blame President Obama will not work.
But Cruz’s entire brand is about public advocacy for things America doesn’t like, so he’s on message.
Melania broke up with some rich asshole, he ‘wooed her back’
April 5, 2018
Jessica Kwong
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Melania Knauss left then-boyfriend Donald Trump two decades ago, but he found a way to get her back, according to a new book on the president and his White House.
The apparent breakup took place in 1998 when the future first lady and future president had been dating for several months and she already lived at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post reporter, writes in his new book, The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game. She discovered that he was in contact with a former lover.
"She found out that Trump had seen Kara Young, a former model he dated, and she broke up with him,” Kessler wrote. “She didn't care about the billions. She said goodbye. She ordered her clothes sent from Mar-a-Lago."
However, Trump successfully made amends. "A week later, he wooed her back and she sent her clothes back to Mar-a-Lago," Kessler wrote.
The author of a new White House tell-all claims Melania walked out on Donald Trump back in 1998. ietv.co/2q7vwz4
Twenty years later, the first lady finds herself in a possibly worse position, with reports of an alleged affair between her husband and porn star Stormy Daniels when she was pregnant with the couple’s son, Barron. After the story broke in January, the first lady seemed to distance herself from the president, ditching him at some public appearances and arriving on her own to other events.
A top conservative pundit, among others, has called on Melania to leave the president. But that’s unlikely to happen, according to Kessler.
“That marriage is going to last," the author told Inside Edition.
In other excerpts of his book, Kessler claims that "Melania rules the roost" and has "tremendous impact on policy and strategy.” Donald Trump even followed her orders to pursue the presidency, Kessler says.
“She got him to run,” Kessler told CNN on Sunday. "He was pussyfooting around about running and she said you have to declare your candidacy, and that's what happened and he went up in the polls."
The congressman and former Marine isn't about to let the White House bully him on the rich asshole's ridiculous border plan.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the rich asshole’s plan to militarize the border by insulting a Democratic congressman, and that congressman hit back Thursday morning.
At Wednesday’s White House briefing, Sanders was asked about a tweet from Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) that pointed out the ridiculous cost of the rich asshole’s plan to militarize the border with National Guard troops. Sanders responded by attacking Gallego, a former Marine who served in Iraq.
“If that congressman is so concerned, maybe he ought to show up and actually support legislation that would fix these problems,” Sanders said.
Gallego gave a blistering response.
Hey @PressSec - Unlike your boss, I did show up and served my country in the Marines. Now, I show up in Congress to serve my country again and act as a check to some of your boss’s worst plans. twitter.com/atrupar/status…
The congressman elaborated on his thoughts during a CNN interview Thursday morning.
“I will gladly work with the president when his ideas aren’t stupid and detrimental to the United States,” Gallego said. “Unfortunately this is what this plan is. It was not planned out. It’s using our National Guard troops who are greatly trained — you’re going to pull them out of their private lives to essentially go and solve a political problem.”
“This is a failing presidency,” he said, and pointed out that if the rich asshole had made good on his promise to support bipartisan legislation, “there would be more assets at the border than he’ll end up doing with these National Guards troops.”
Presidents Obama and Bush also deployed troops to the border, but neither of them did so based on racist lies they heard on Fox News days earlier. And neither presided over record low border apprehensions.
the rich asshole is wasting time, money, and effort on a non-existent “problem” so he can stoke a political base that shares the hatred of immigrants that the rich asshole espouses. And while he’s misusing the military to promote his racist agenda, he is also preparing to leave Syria in the control of the Russians.
Through it all, the rich asshole has left the lives of Dreamers hanging by a thread, refusing to consider any deal on DACA while trying to blame Democrats for his own immigration woes.
That his White House would attack a Democratic congressman who served his country shows just how desperate the rich asshole and his team really are.
the rich asshole dines with energy lobbyist whose client seeks power bailout
Energy companies lined up for Jeff Miller's services after Rick Perry, his former boss, was named Energy secretary.
A GOP lobbyist and strategist, who managed Rick Perry’s 2016 presidential bid, reportedly dined with President the rich asshole Wednesday night. The dinner comes at the same time as one of the lobbyist’s clients, FirstEnergy Solutions, is seeking emergency intervention by the administration to save its coal and nuclear power plants.
Jeff Miller, president of lobbying firm Miller Strategies LLC, attended a dinner in Washington, D.C. organized by America First Action, a pro-President the rich asshole super PAC. Over the past year, Miller has lobbied for numerous energy companies, including FirstEnergy Solutions, a subsidiary of Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp.
FirstEnergy Solutions — Miller’s client — declared bankruptcy on April 1. But two days prior to that, FirstEnergy Solutions sent a letter to Miller’s former boss, and now head of the Department of Energy (DOE), Rick Perry, urging him to issue a power emergency in the eastern U.S. so that the company could make money off its coal and nuclear plants.
The letter followed a failed effort by Perry in 2017 to get the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to subsidize coal and nuclear plants that had 90 days of fuel on site. The commission rejected the request in January. FERC’s new chairman, Kevin McIntyre, who voted against the bailout proposal, had FirstEnergy as a client at his law firm of Jones Day, where he was a partner, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Perry has not hinted at how he will rule on the company’s request, although having his former campaign manager in his ear as a well-paid lobbyist can’t hurt FirstEnergy Solutions’ chances.
Miller has been credited with Perry’s political reinvention — the square glasses and helping him remember all the agencies he’ll cut. Perry now heads one of those agencies, and FirstEnergy Solutions is hoping the former governor of Texas will use his power to help the company return to its profitable days.
Many industry observers appeared bewildered by FirstEnergy Solutions’ emergency request. The top trade group for the oil and gas industry, for example, was highly critical of FirstEnergy’s request. The American Petroleum Institute called on FirstEnergy “to stop misleading the public on the future of its power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania.”
FirstEnergy hired Miller in August 2017 and paid him a total of $220,000 for the rest of the year to work on “issues associated with organized electricity markets.” Miller remained a FirstEnergy lobbyist when Perry proposed the bailout of coal and nuclear plants in September 2017 and continues working on behalf of FirstEnergy today.
Scott Amey, an attorney with Project on Government Oversight, told ThinkProgress in an interview last year that Miller’s past work for Perry helped him quickly build up a large client base. “If he has a personal relationship with the secretary of energy that’s going to be a selling point for him,” Amey said.
Miller had not responded to ThinkProgress’ request for comment on his lobbying on behalf of FirstEnergy.
Southern Co., the primary sponsor of a troubled nuclear power plant project in Georgia, also hired Miller to lobby on its behalf. The company paid Miller $200,000 in 2017 for his services, presumably for his access to Perry and other members of the rich asshole administration, according to lobbying records. Southern Co. is relying on $3.7 billion in DOE-backed loans to build a nuclear power plant in Georgia.
Miller’s other clients last year included the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nation’s top nuclear power lobbying group; Occidental Petroleum Corp.; Dow Chemical Co.; and Valero Energy Corp.
Over a nearly two-year period, Miller served as campaign manager for Perry’s 2016 run for the Republican nomination for president. In January 2016, Perry, doing poorly in the polls, ended his campaign and endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for the nomination.
Miller also helped guide Perry through the Senate confirmation process to become Energy secretary, according to an E&E News report.
FirstEnergy was formed in 1997 through the merger of Ohio Edison Co. and Centerior Energy Corp. Over the next 15 years, it sought to shrink its regulated business, where public utility commissions approved reliable returns, with the goal of producing even bigger profits in its unregulated unit.
At the time, FirstEnergy was seeking to follow the lead of Enron, which was taking many risky steps to extract big financial returns from newly competitive electricity markets. Enron crashed and burned in 2001 when it filed for bankruptcy as a result of its poor strategic decisions and financial shenanigans.
FirstEnergy has also made many strategic mistakes over the years, including transferring its power plants from its regulated utility subsidiaries — where it could get stable returns on its investments — into an unregulated subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions. In 2011, FirstEnergy also acquired Allegheny Energy, a merger that turned out to be disaster because Allegheny Energy owned several uneconomic coal plants.
By betting on coal and failing to diversify, FirstEnergy Solutions was forced to file for bankruptcy protection last weekend.
In a recent op-ed, Dick Munson, director of Midwest clean energy for the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote, “FirstEnergy long has been trying to make up for its bad business decisions, and the utility giant now wants taxpayers or ratepayers to cover its mistakes with giant subsidies.”
Scott Pruitt’s ethics scandal hasn’t stopped him from rolling back environmental protections
Pruitt proves that he can deal with a massive scandal and serve industry at the same time.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is facing calls to resign over ethical scandals, including recent news that he rented a condo co-owned by the wife of an energy industry lobbyist for $50 per night last year.
But the growing scandal surrounding Pruitt hasn’t stopped the administrator from dutifully carrying on with the rich asshole administration’s agenda of rolling back environmental regulations and protections. But far from signaling that Pruitt is out of touch with the growing scandal, his single-minded pursuit of environmental rollbacks show he is trying to focus instead on what he does best — pursuing the rich asshole administration’s deregulatory agenda — in the hope that it might be enough to save his job.
On Monday, Pruitt kicked off the week by announcing his intention to roll back tailpipe emission standards established by the Obama administration. The standards — which were met with some resistance from the auto manufacturing industry — would have set greenhouse gas emission standards for cars, pick-up trucks, and sport utility vehicles for model years 2022-2025, and could have significantly reduced both greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector and oil use by automobiles.
During a speech on Tuesday — given after the New York Times broke the news that the EPA had signed off on a pipeline project linked to the lobbying firm chaired by the husband of the condo’s co-owner, while Pruitt was still staying at the condo — Pruitt announced that the agency would “reexamine” the standards in an effort to create more regulatory certainty for industry. Pruitt also argued that the Obama administration had cut the policy-making process short “with politically charged expediency.”
But he didn’t stop there. Despite news that Pruitt had gone around the White House to approve raises for two political appointees, using a little-known provision in the Safe Water Drinking Act that allows the EPA administrator to unilaterally hire up to 30 employees to the agency, Pruitt continued to push ahead with his deregulatory agenda this week. On Wednesday, The Hill reported that Pruitt released a memo delegating himself more authority over issues related to the Clean Water Act.
The memo gives Pruitt the authority to make “final determinations of geographic jurisdiction,” which gives him more leeway in deciding whether a particular project — things like power plants to coal refineries — will have a detrimental environmental impact. The EPA argued that this would help centralize decision making, despite Pruitt’s longstanding promise to return more power in environmental permitting decisions to the states through “cooperative federalism.”
On Wednesday, Pruitt appeared on several conservative-leaning outlets, in an apparent attempt to tamp down on the scandal that had — according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — reached the president.
During an interview with the Washington Times, Pruitt teased an “executive order” coming on Friday that would revise how the EPA regulates ambient air pollution like ozone and particulate matter. The standards, known as National Ambient Air Quality Standards, or NAAQS, are a key way the EPA can regulate air pollution from things like power plants or heavy-industry. Pollutants regulated under the NAAQS framework are pollutants that have been shown to pose serious risks to human health — from particulate pollution that could penetrate deep into lungs and exacerbate respiratory illness, to heavy metals like lead.
Pruitt has already made moves to weaken the EPA’s regulation of ozone under the NAAQS framework, announcing in June that he would delay the enforcement of stricter limits for ozone pollution for one year. It’s unclear what Pruitt’s announcement on Friday will cover, but it’s possible that it will be a similar delay or weakening of enforcement standards for a particular pollutant.
Over the last year, Pruitt has been one of the rich asshole administration’s most effective weapons, ruthlessly pursuing the president’s deregulatory agenda. During Pruitt’s first year as administrator, the agency finalized the rollback of 22 environmental rules, and undertook action on 44 more regulations — second only to the Department of Transportation in overall deregulatory actions taken by a federal agency under the rich asshole administration.
Many have pointed to Pruitt’s effectiveness, and loyalty to the rich asshole administration’s agenda, as a reason the administrator’s job is likely safe despite numerous ethical scandals. And as the White House — and the EPA’s own Office of Inspector General — look deeper into the scandals, it seems as if Pruitt is hoping to save his job by doing what he has historically done best: dismantle environmental regulations.
“We are getting things done and that’s what’s driving these folks crazy, and I will tell you, the truth and the facts are on our side,” Pruitt told the Washington Times. “And we’re just going to keep pushing and keep telling the story and trusting the American people get it.”
the rich asshole’s incoherent position on the border ‘crisis,’ in one tweet
"The situation at the border has now reached a point of crisis."
Barely a month ago, President the rich asshole bragged about illegal border crossings being at a historic low.
“45 year low on illegal border crossings this year,” the rich asshole tweeted on February 28. “Ice and Border Patrol Agents are doing a great job for our Country. MS-13 thugs being hit hard.”
What a difference five weeks makes. On Wednesday, the rich asshole signed a proclamation directing the deployment of National Guard troops along the southern border to confront “a point of crisis.”
“The lawlessness that continues at our southern border is fundamentally incompatible with the safety, security, and sovereignty of the American people,” the rich asshole’s proclamation says, adding that he has “no choice but to act.”
the rich asshole’s sudden embrace of a bellicose rhetoric about the border is traceable to a Fox News segment about a “caravan” of migrants that aired on Sunday morning, and prompted a string of angry tweets from the president.
Other reporting indicates the rich asshole’s new hard-line tone on immigration — he tweeted about the topic more than a half-dozen times on Sunday and Monday — may have something to do with conversations he had with Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro during his Easter weekend getaway to Mar-a-Lago.
The “caravan” of immigrants that was of such concern to the rich asshole petered out in Mexico, long before it approached the border. But conveniently for the president, on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security released numbers showing a one-month uptick in border crossings for March. The White House seized upon the uptick to make a case that the need for troops at the border is “a crisis” and “urgent.”
On Thursday, the rich asshole tried to thread the needle, taking credit for border crossings being at a historic low, while simultaneously arguing that even that even a low number of crossings is “UNACCEPTABLE.”
The rich asshole administration has a pattern of misusing a single data point to further its political agenda. Earlier this year, the White House and Department of Justice touted FBI crime statistics showing a very slight drop in U.S. violent crime in 2017, and used them to argue that “[f]or the first time in a long time, Americans can have hope for a safer future.”
There was just one problem with that messaging — long-term data shows that violent crime in America’s largest cities has been steadily decreasing for more than two decades, through both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Along similar lines, the number of illegal border crossings typically goes up in March as the weather improves. But in order to justify the rich asshole’s hasty decision to deploy troops to the border, his administration would have you believe that last month’s numbers reflect a historic crisis necessitating a military response.
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April 5, 2018
The GOP has a problem talking to women. This time, Rep. Kevin Cramer compared Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's voting record to cheating on a spouse.
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) was supposed to be the GOP’s best shot at dethroning Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, but his clumsy, barely disguised misogyny would make you think otherwise.
In a recent radio interview with right-wing talk radio host Scott Hennen, he attacked Heitkamp with a weirdly sexualized analogy, comparing her anti-the rich asshole voting record to marital infidelity.
“Here’s the good news about some rich asshole,” he said. “Most of the time, he’s for North Dakota. And that’s my point where I’ve heard her say, ‘Gee, I voted with him 55% of the time.’ Can you imagine going home and telling your wife, ‘I’ve been faithful to you 55% of the time?’ Are you kidding me? Being wrong half the time is not a good answer.”
In other words, because Heitkamp refused to vote with the rich asshole to strip health care from poor people and pass the tax scam for corporations and billionaires, she’s basically an unfaithful spouse.
As CNN noted, “the comment is an awkward analogy, given the rich asshole’s long and well-publicized history of marital indiscretions.”
But Cramer didn’t even seem to realize his creepy comment is a bizarre thing to say in support of the rich asshole, the real-life serial adulterer who is facing a lawsuit for paying off a porn star.
And unfortunately, Cramer is not alone. Republican Senate candidates seem to have a serious problem when it comes to interacting with women.
In Missouri, for instance, three separate Republicans running for Senate have faced controversy for misogynistic comments. Courtland Sykes said feminists are “she-devils” with “snake-filled heads,” and that he expects women to give him “a home-cooked dinner at six every night”.” Josh Hawley said that sex trafficking was caused by “the sexual revolution.” And Austin Petersen was caught hitting on a student who asked him how he would win women voters.
And earlier this week, Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner said he would have to “talk to my wife” about how birth control works, even though he passionately wants to regulate it.
The Republican Party, in fact, has such a problem with women that they are experiencing a brain drain of qualified candidates, with many conservative women opting or being told to sit out running for office this year because of the rich asshole.
Republicans are heading for electoral disaster if they continue to treat half of the U.S. population so dismissively. And the behavior of candidates like Cramer proves a serious course correction is not likely any time soon.
Manafort authorized anti-Clinton ‘black ops’ in Ukraine — years before Russia used the same tactics to help the rich asshole
Paul Manafort (Photo: Screen capture)
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President some rich asshole’s former campaign manager authorized a secret media operation while working for Ukraine’s former president that targeted Hillary Clinton — years before the same techniques were used against her in the 2016 election.
Paul Manafort signed off on the project to place articles in the Wall Street Journal and smear then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton through briefings to websites such as Breitbart News, reported The Guardian.
Manafort’s associates also proposed doctoring Wikipedia entries to undermine a key opponent of Ukraine’s then-president Viktor Yanukovych, setting up a fake think tank in Vienna to spread pro-Yanukovych views and a social media blitz aimed at targeted audiences in the U.S. and Europe.
The Guardian obtained materials detailing these efforts from 2011 to 2013, when Manafort was paid millions of dollars to lobby on behalf of Yanukovych’s pro-Kremlin government.
Those strategies anticipate efforts by the Kremlin and Russian trolls to manipulate Facebook and Twitter to attack Clinton and boost the rich asshole during the 2016 election campaign.
Manafort has been indicted on multiple counts, including money laundering, in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the rich asshole campaign and Russia.
The secret strategy to undermine Yulia Tymoshenko, who Yanukovych had defeated in the 2010 election, was masterminded by former Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reporter Alan Friedman, who was based in Italy and had been previously accused of secretly working as a paid lobbyist.
Longtime Manafort lieutenant Rick Gates, who has since pleaded guilty in the Mueller probe and agreed to cooperate, also too part in the media blitz, in addition to Konstantin Kilimnik — a Manafort associate the FBI believes has ties to Russian intelligence.
Friedman wrote in one document obtained by The Guardian that his project would use “guilt by association” to “deconstruct” Tymoshenko through anonymous videos and other social media content.
“We know that video exists of Tymoshenko uttering some of her outrageous claims in court,” he wrote. “The video can be floated into the social space to reinforce the impression that she is at best reckless and unstatesmanlike and at worst malicious, defamatory and antisemitic.”
Doctors slam the rich asshole’s trans military ban for rejecting science
"There is no medically valid reason to exclude transgender individuals from military service. "
The largest doctors’ association in the country is lambasting Defense Secretary James Mattis for signing off on a ban on transgender people serving in the military.
The CEO of the American Medical Association (AMA), James Madara, sent Mattis a letter this week — published by Politico — decrying the conclusion that a “history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria” is disqualifying for military service.
“We believe there is no medically valid reason — including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — to exclude transgender individuals from military service,” Madara writes in the letter. He goes onto to say that the memo to President the rich asshole laying out the justifications for the ban “mischaracterized and rejected the wide body of peer-reviewed research on the effectiveness of transgender medical care.”
That breadth of research led the AMA to approve a resolution in 2015 supporting trans military service.
The letter also reiterates the AMA’s support for all insurance plans covering the treatment of gender dysphoria, including the military’s. “The financial cost is negligible and a rounding error in the defense budget,” Madara writes. “It should not be used as a reason to deny patriotic Americans an opportunity to serve their country. We should be honoring their service.”
Madara’s letter follows similar responses from the heads of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. The latter group specifically said it was “alarmed by the administration’s misuse of psychological science to stigmatize transgender Americans and justify limiting their ability to serve in uniform and access medically necessary health care.”
With the nation’s leading professional medical organizations rejecting the rationale for banning trans military service, it seems increasingly unlikely that the memo was informed by anyone who isn’t biased against transgender people.
As ThinkProgress and Slate have reported, Vice President Pence convened his own “working group” consisting of anti-LGBTQ activists, whose recommendations regarding trans military service were forwarded instead of the findings from Mattis’ military committee. That helps explains why the distorted research the medical organizations have criticized directly parallels the talking points of anti-LGBTQ groups like the Heritage Foundation and Family Research Council — which were both represented in Pence’s working group.
Mattis has been mum about the ban, which is still not in effect thanks to various court injunctions. In one telling statement, however, the Pentagon acknowledged that the White House coordinated on drafting the ban.
the rich asshole’s presidency is literally eroding our sanity — according to science
some rich asshole (AFP Photo/Timothy A. Clary)
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If you’ve found yourself compulsively checking your social media accounts at an unhealthy rate since President some rich asshole’s election in 2016, you aren’t alone.
A new psychological study published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders claims that the rich asshole’s election has led to a reported increase in stress that includes “political intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviors,” which researchers describe as “obsessive-compulsive-like symptoms specific to politics in some individuals.”
The study — which was conducted by researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine, the Fordham University Department of Psychology, and the VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands — found that 25 percent of its subjects reported experiencing multiple OCD-like behaviors related to politics every day, aided in no small part by the real-time availability of information on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
This is significant, the researchers say, because these behaviors are “associated with all measures of psychopathology and disability.”
Interestingly, it wasn’t just Democrats who experienced these kinds of behaviors, as the study found “no differences in psychopathology… between major party affiliations.”
“The findings suggest that politically-focused intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviors are associated with psychopathology domains in a manner comparable to general obsessive-compulsive symptoms,” the authors write.
The exhaustive conspiracy theories about Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, explained and debunked
Gillian Edevane
Posted with permission from Newsweek
In the seven weeks since the Parkland, Florida school shooting, a group of passionate teenage survivors have emerged as the public faces of a national movement to increase gun control. In the process, the students have also unwittingly become fodder for conspiracy theorists, whose viral rumors have traveled from the underbelly of the internet to the newsfeeds and timelines of millions.
Viral conspiracy theories are common following shootings, but there's something about two specific teenagers—Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg—that has right-wing pockets of the internet putting on their tinfoil hats, expending considerable resources to tank the teens' reputations.
Below, Newsweek has rounded up the most pervasive conspiracy theories floating around about students Hogg and Gonzalez, debunking them in the process. When possible, information has been added about the conspiracy’s creation date and origin.
The entire Hogg family is connected to the CIA, FBI and CNN
YouTube is teeming with vloggers who claim David Hogg is somehow a spy or a pawn for the CIA or FBI. According to them, the teen was strategically planted to boost support for gun control and disarm the populace. Other theories promoted by far-right corners of the internet claim Hogg is working with his FBI agent father to curb constitutional rights. Like many conspiracy theories, these likely started with a tiny kernel of truth: Hogg’s father is a retired FBI agent-information that the teen volunteered offhand during a television interview.
Yet another conspiracy theory claims that Hogg or his mother is a CNN VIP who is "pimping" her son. This developed after a photo surfaced of Hogg and his sister, Lauren, touring the studios as children. According to Snopes, the family was actually on a $35 VIP tour. Rebecca Boldrick, the mother of the Hogg siblings, also told Newsweek she works as a school teacher, which the Broward County School confirmed.
Hogg didn’t attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
The dark recesses of the web also have been promoting the idea that Hogg is older than 17 and that he didn’t really attend the school where the shooting took place. In some versions of the conspiracy theory, a picture from a different yearbook with another student named David Hogg is used, while others circulate a mugshot from a 26-year-old California man named David Hogg as proof. The two don’t have same eye color or look alike.
UC Santa Barbara Professor Miriam Metzgerf, who studies media, technology and trust, said information that is easily proven false often escapes scrutiny in a digital age, especially when shared by users who share close relationships or world views.
“It boils down to what we can call confirmation biases,” Metzgerf told Newsweek. “If it sits with your own world view, something that appeals to you in some way, that's a very strong factor in determining what people believe...if it comes from a good friend, as well.”
David Hogg and HoggWatch
There’s an entire website, HoggWatch, dedicated to monitoring Hogg's public remarks, featuring headlines such as “Florida shooting survivor David Hogg exposed as son of FBI deep-state agent, caught reciting scripted talking points to trash Trump.”
NBC News reported on Monday that the site was eight days old, although at least one article on the site is dated to February 19. According to the site biography, it was created by Mike Adams, who also runs a website peddling dubious and dangerous healthcare news. Instead of pushing one conspiracy theory, Hoggwatch is seemingly devoted to all of them.
Hogg wasn't at the school when the shooting took place
Conservative blog Red State, which boasts about 700,000 combined followers on Facebook and Twitter, wrote an article that falsely claimed Hogg wasn’t on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus during the February 14 shooting. As evidence, the article pointed to an interview in which Hogg said he arrived on campus at 6 p.m. on the day of the shooting, which was hours after the suspected shooter was captured by police occurred.
Hogg actually spoke about returning to the campus at 6 p.m. As Newsweek previously reported, Hogg actually documented hiding with other students while the school was on lockdown.
The author of the Red State article apologized and issued a correction after she learned of her mistake, but several right wing blogs picked it up and failed to issue corrections. Like many on this list, it’s a theory that is easily proven false but is still bouncing around Twitter and Second Amendment forums.
Gonzalez ripped up the Constitution
On March 24, the same day more than a million people marched for gun control in cities across the U.S., a doctored image and gif began floating around of Gonzalez. It appeared to show the 18-year-old ripping up the Constitution. It was shared widely among conservative social media users with large followings, including conservative actor and Firefly star Adam Baldwin.
In fact, the picture was a doctored image of from a photoshoot Gonzalez and a few other students did for Teen Vogue.
“The fact that we even have to clarify this is proof of how democracy continues to be fractured by people who manipulate and fabricate the truth,” Teen Vogue’s Chief Content Officer Phillip Picardi wrote on Twitter.
Gonzalez admitted to bullying suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz
As Newsweek previously reported, this theory claimed that Gonzalez admitted to bullying suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz, driving him to shoot and kill 14 classmates and three teachers.
The disparaging rumor has been percolating in the dark recesses of the web since at least early March, and it resurged after the March for Our Lives protest. It uses an out-of-context snippet from a speech Gonzalez gave in Florida on February 17, in which she responded to President Donald Trump's suggestion that the shooting could have been prevented with adequate mental health care.
Her full remarks are as follows:
"There is one tweet I would like to call attention to. ‘So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities again and again.’ We did, time and time again. Since he was in middle school, it was no surprise to anyone who knew him to hear that he was the shooter.
Those talking about how we should not have ostracized him, you didn't know this kid! OK, we did. We know that they are claiming mental health issues, and I am not a psychologist, but we need to pay attention to the fact that this was not just a mental health issue. He would not have harmed that many students with a knife."
18-year-old Gonzalez attacked a Second Amendment supporter's truck at a March for Our Lives rally
C'mon. It's literally Britney, b*tch.
This meme was most assuredly created to mock conspiracy theorists, particularly ones born before 1981. Some commenters clearly didn't understand that.
Whether jokes or not, the conspiracy theories have serious consequences—from harassment to stalking to physical violence. Erica Lafferty, whose mother, Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung was shot and killed at Sandy Hook, said conspiracy theories are part of a “new normal” for victims caught in the crosshairs of politically charged debates.
"I cannot count the number of times that I've been called a 'crisis actor,” Lafferty, who now works for Everytown For Gun Safety, told Newsweek. “Unfortunately, this is the new normal for survivors of national tragedies—we're told that our loved ones never existed and that our grief is just pretend."
Viral conspiracy theories are common following shootings, but there's something about two specific teenagers—Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg—that has right-wing pockets of the internet putting on their tinfoil hats, expending considerable resources to tank the teens' reputations.
Below, Newsweek has rounded up the most pervasive conspiracy theories floating around about students Hogg and Gonzalez, debunking them in the process. When possible, information has been added about the conspiracy’s creation date and origin.
The entire Hogg family is connected to the CIA, FBI and CNN
YouTube is teeming with vloggers who claim David Hogg is somehow a spy or a pawn for the CIA or FBI. According to them, the teen was strategically planted to boost support for gun control and disarm the populace. Other theories promoted by far-right corners of the internet claim Hogg is working with his FBI agent father to curb constitutional rights. Like many conspiracy theories, these likely started with a tiny kernel of truth: Hogg’s father is a retired FBI agent-information that the teen volunteered offhand during a television interview.
Yet another conspiracy theory claims that Hogg or his mother is a CNN VIP who is "pimping" her son. This developed after a photo surfaced of Hogg and his sister, Lauren, touring the studios as children. According to Snopes, the family was actually on a $35 VIP tour. Rebecca Boldrick, the mother of the Hogg siblings, also told Newsweek she works as a school teacher, which the Broward County School confirmed.
Hogg didn’t attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
The dark recesses of the web also have been promoting the idea that Hogg is older than 17 and that he didn’t really attend the school where the shooting took place. In some versions of the conspiracy theory, a picture from a different yearbook with another student named David Hogg is used, while others circulate a mugshot from a 26-year-old California man named David Hogg as proof. The two don’t have same eye color or look alike.
There’s a photo going around claiming David Hogg did not attend Douglas, but a school in California. Here’s a video to debunk that:
UC Santa Barbara Professor Miriam Metzgerf, who studies media, technology and trust, said information that is easily proven false often escapes scrutiny in a digital age, especially when shared by users who share close relationships or world views.
“It boils down to what we can call confirmation biases,” Metzgerf told Newsweek. “If it sits with your own world view, something that appeals to you in some way, that's a very strong factor in determining what people believe...if it comes from a good friend, as well.”
David Hogg and HoggWatch
There’s an entire website, HoggWatch, dedicated to monitoring Hogg's public remarks, featuring headlines such as “Florida shooting survivor David Hogg exposed as son of FBI deep-state agent, caught reciting scripted talking points to trash Trump.”
NBC News reported on Monday that the site was eight days old, although at least one article on the site is dated to February 19. According to the site biography, it was created by Mike Adams, who also runs a website peddling dubious and dangerous healthcare news. Instead of pushing one conspiracy theory, Hoggwatch is seemingly devoted to all of them.
Hogg wasn't at the school when the shooting took place
Conservative blog Red State, which boasts about 700,000 combined followers on Facebook and Twitter, wrote an article that falsely claimed Hogg wasn’t on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus during the February 14 shooting. As evidence, the article pointed to an interview in which Hogg said he arrived on campus at 6 p.m. on the day of the shooting, which was hours after the suspected shooter was captured by police occurred.
Hogg actually spoke about returning to the campus at 6 p.m. As Newsweek previously reported, Hogg actually documented hiding with other students while the school was on lockdown.
The author of the Red State article apologized and issued a correction after she learned of her mistake, but several right wing blogs picked it up and failed to issue corrections. Like many on this list, it’s a theory that is easily proven false but is still bouncing around Twitter and Second Amendment forums.
Gonzalez ripped up the Constitution
On March 24, the same day more than a million people marched for gun control in cities across the U.S., a doctored image and gif began floating around of Gonzalez. It appeared to show the 18-year-old ripping up the Constitution. It was shared widely among conservative social media users with large followings, including conservative actor and Firefly star Adam Baldwin.
In fact, the picture was a doctored image of from a photoshoot Gonzalez and a few other students did for Teen Vogue.
“The fact that we even have to clarify this is proof of how democracy continues to be fractured by people who manipulate and fabricate the truth,” Teen Vogue’s Chief Content Officer Phillip Picardi wrote on Twitter.
Introducing our March cover stars: The activists leading the #MarchForOurLives. Meet the new voices of gun reform — from Parkland and beyond — raising their voices to make gun violence a thing of the past: tnvge.co/qBWeLcR #NeverAgain pic.twitter.com/ic3TjImMKM
"We, the youth of the United States, have built a new movement to denounce gun violence and call for safety in all of our communities. This is only the beginning." @Emma4Change pens a searing op-ed on this generation's plans to make change: tnvge.co/JgOllsa #NeverAgain pic.twitter.com/FWTpOD1WKL
Gonzalez admitted to bullying suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz
As Newsweek previously reported, this theory claimed that Gonzalez admitted to bullying suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz, driving him to shoot and kill 14 classmates and three teachers.
The disparaging rumor has been percolating in the dark recesses of the web since at least early March, and it resurged after the March for Our Lives protest. It uses an out-of-context snippet from a speech Gonzalez gave in Florida on February 17, in which she responded to President Donald Trump's suggestion that the shooting could have been prevented with adequate mental health care.
Her full remarks are as follows:
"There is one tweet I would like to call attention to. ‘So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities again and again.’ We did, time and time again. Since he was in middle school, it was no surprise to anyone who knew him to hear that he was the shooter.
Those talking about how we should not have ostracized him, you didn't know this kid! OK, we did. We know that they are claiming mental health issues, and I am not a psychologist, but we need to pay attention to the fact that this was not just a mental health issue. He would not have harmed that many students with a knife."
18-year-old Gonzalez attacked a Second Amendment supporter's truck at a March for Our Lives rally
C'mon. It's literally Britney, b*tch.
This meme was most assuredly created to mock conspiracy theorists, particularly ones born before 1981. Some commenters clearly didn't understand that.
Whether jokes or not, the conspiracy theories have serious consequences—from harassment to stalking to physical violence. Erica Lafferty, whose mother, Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung was shot and killed at Sandy Hook, said conspiracy theories are part of a “new normal” for victims caught in the crosshairs of politically charged debates.
"I cannot count the number of times that I've been called a 'crisis actor,” Lafferty, who now works for Everytown For Gun Safety, told Newsweek. “Unfortunately, this is the new normal for survivors of national tragedies—we're told that our loved ones never existed and that our grief is just pretend."
Ivanka the rich asshole mocked as ‘complicit’ on post-punk band Gang of Four’s upcoming release
Ivanka the rich asshole (detail from Gang of Four album cover)
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Veteran post-punk band Gang of Four mocks Ivanka the rich asshole on their upcoming release, “Complicit.”
The band will feature a photograph of President some rich asshole’s eldest daughter and White House adviser on the new EP, which is due for release on April 20, reported Pitchfork.
Ivanka the rich asshole is also name-checked on the EP’s second song, “Ivanka (Things You Can’t Have).”
“When we think of ‘the media,’ everyone has lots of ideas about what we mean,” said band member Andy Gill, explaining their decision. “It could be social media, where hundreds of memes criss-cross the world; informing, misinforming, beginning or reinforcing ideas that may last a lifetime and beyond. Ideas about Jews, Muslims, or, say, the world trade centre or perhaps, the criminality of certain American politicians. And then there is the receding traditional media with disappearing jobs like ‘journalists’ and ‘fact checkers.’ That’s the media the rich asshole family despise.”
Ben Carson ally Armstrong Williams: Stormy should be silenced because she’s a sex worker and bad ‘role model’
Armstrong Williams appearson C-SPAN (screen grab)
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Conservative host Armstrong Williams, a close ally of HUD Secretary Ben Carson, suggest on Thursday that adult film star Stormy Daniels does not to deserve to tell her story about an affair with President some rich asshole because she is a sex worker.
During an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, a caller on the Republican line complained that CNN has spent too much time covering the scandal surrounding the rich asshole and Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
“Excellent point,” Williams replied. “They’re trying to put horns on the president. They’re trying to put horns on Republicans. Depending on your ideology, that determines on who gets to wear the horns, who gets to be evil. And the other label — who gets to be the do-gooders.”
“Do a little balance,” he advised the news media. “People don’t care about Stormy Daniels. They don’t care about [an alleged affair with Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal]. They don’t care about what he’s done in his sex life when he was a playboy. If Melania the rich asshole is willing to stay with him — for better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death they do they part — that’s between he and his wife. Many marriages in this country involve infidelity and betrayal. And yet, they find a way to patch their wounds together and move on.”
C-SPAN host John McArdle wondered if Williams would grant Clifford an interview on his television station and allow her to tell her side of the story.
“Would you have allowed that to go forward?” McArdle asked. “Would you have aired that?”
“I have no interest in it,” Williams insisted. “None. Absolutely not. I make no apologies about it.”
“To me, why give her that kind of credibility?” he continued. “Is she a role model for your kid and for America and for parents? No. And she’s going back to selling porn videos! Absolutely not! That’s not who we are as a Americans. I just wish she’d go away.”
Williams called on the rich asshole and Clifford to deal with the matter “privately.”
“I don’t want to hear from Stormy Daniels,” he concluded.
Watch the video below.
‘A f*cking horror show’ — The Wire’s David Simon torches Sinclair anchors who read Trumpian ‘Fake News’ statement
David Simon who produced The Wire gives an interview/Screenshot
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Over the weekend, anchors at TV stations around the country owned by Sinclair read a Trumpian propaganda statement in which they vowed to fight “fake news.”
Being forced to spread conservative propaganda that undermines other media convinced at least one Sinclair employee to quit in protest. Like most in the TV industry, the anchors signed draconian contracts that make them pay huge damages if they quit before the term is up, which has won them some sympathy.
Not from David Simon. A former Baltimore Sun reporter who went on to be the producer of HBO’s The Wire among other street-wise dramas torched everyone involved in a series of tweets. The anchors should have refused or quit and sued if they were fired or otherwise punished, he argued.
“[It] is too much to say they were so enslaved that their own consciences couldn’t dictate an act of journalistic integrity,” he said. “They could have refused to lie or misrepresent themselves on camera and the courthouse remedy remained for them.”
Simon says that “any journalist with even a passing familiarity to the established ethos of the profession” because going to court to punish the anchors would have been “a f*cking horror show” for Sinclair, he says.
Read the whole thing below.
Thread: Much argument has been made on behalf of the entrapped and entombed Sinclair journalists who presumably can do little but misrepresent themselves, their own opinions and even basic facts because of contractual obligations that penalize them for quitting those jobs. Well..
..I confess that I am suffering from a deficit of empathy. Not because the contracts are not draconian, but because I believe that for any journalist who wants to fight for their own integrity, the remedy is plainly obvious. Yes, it requires some struggle and some steel, but...
..I confess that I am suffering from a deficit of empathy. Not because the contracts are not draconian, but because I believe that for any journalist who wants to fight for their own integrity, the remedy is plainly obvious. Yes, it requires some struggle and some steel, but...
...my read of what has been revealed of the contracts does not suggest that there is any clause that declares that employees must convey their own on-air opinions or deliver reportage regardless of accuracy of fact. Would that the paperwork did so -- all the more humiliating...
...my read of what has been revealed of the contracts does not suggest that there is any clause that declares that employees must convey their own on-air opinions or deliver reportage regardless of accuracy of fact. Would that the paperwork did so -- all the more humiliating...
...for Sinclair if it did. Instead, the contracts seem to cover such activity under the generalized heading of "insubordination." Fine, but any journalist with even a passing familiarity to the established ethos of the profession could sign such a contract and assume that...
...for Sinclair if it did. Instead, the contracts seem to cover such activity under the generalized heading of "insubordination." Fine, but any journalist with even a passing familiarity to the established ethos of the profession could sign such a contract and assume that...
...willfully misleading viewers cannot be acceptable or included under any such definition of insubordination. And that point could be argued in court, and well, with the help of civil liberty and labor attorneys. From Sinclair's perspective, the prospect of having their...
...willfully misleading viewers cannot be acceptable or included under any such definition of insubordination. And that point could be argued in court, and well, with the help of civil liberty and labor attorneys. From Sinclair's perspective, the prospect of having their...
...journalistic ethics and contractual brutalities pried open by legal discovery and then aired openly in court, is little less than a fucking horror show. "Your honor, when I signed that contract, I had no idea that I would be called insubordinate for refusing to lie..."
...journalistic ethics and contractual brutalities pried open by legal discovery and then aired openly in court, is little less than a fucking horror show. "Your honor, when I signed that contract, I had no idea that I would be called insubordinate for refusing to lie..."
...on camera to our viewers, claiming opinions to be uniquely my own that were dictated by the company for me to say, or citing facts and arguments that my own reporting cannot credit..." Point being that while it might be fair to say that Sinclair journos can't quit their jobs..
...on camera to our viewers, claiming opinions to be uniquely my own that were dictated by the company for me to say, or citing facts and arguments that my own reporting cannot credit..." Point being that while it might be fair to say that Sinclair journos can't quit their jobs..
...without risking considerable penalty, it is too much to say they were so enslaved that their own consciences couldn't dictate an act of journalistic integrity. They could have refused to lie or misrepresent themselves on camera and the courthouse remedy remained for them. So..
...without risking considerable penalty, it is too much to say they were so enslaved that their own consciences couldn't dictate an act of journalistic integrity. They could have refused to lie or misrepresent themselves on camera and the courthouse remedy remained for them. So..
..do not count me as someone who looks upon these Sinclair employees as being anything less than prostituted when they go on-camera and betray the basic ethics of the profession. Quit? Maybe not. Tell the truth? Definitely. The sunlight of open court was a road not taken.
..do not count me as someone who looks upon these Sinclair employees as being anything less than prostituted when they go on-camera and betray the basic ethics of the profession. Quit? Maybe not. Tell the truth? Definitely. The sunlight of open court was a road not taken.
Dem lawmaker delivers brutal comeback to Sarah Sanders’ complaint about his failure to work with the rich asshole
Rep. Ruben Gallego (Screen cap).
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Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) appeared on CNN Thursday to hit back at White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who on Wednesday called on him to work with President some rich asshole to fix border security problems.
When asked to respond to Sanders’ statement, Gallego responded that there is no need for him to work with the president if the president is pushing bad policies.
“I’ll gladly work with the president when his ideas aren’t stupid and detrimental to the United States,” he said. “Unfortunately, this is what this plan is. It was not planned out. It’s using our National Guard troops, who are greatly trained. You’re going to pull them out of their private lives to essentially go and solve a political problem.”
Gallego didn’t stop there, however, and went on to say that the rich asshole’s plan to send the National Guard to the border was a pitiful attempt to score points with his voter base.
“This is a failing presidency,” he said bluntly. “Their ideas are failing. Now they’re throwing red meat at the base by essentially sending troops to the border… This is what happens when you have a failing president and a bad administration.”
Watch the video below.
Scarborough uses racial epithet to slam Dwayne Johnson’s presidential bid: He’s as qualified as a ‘lawn boy’
Dwayne Johnson sporting a fashionable black t-shirt on the red carpet at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. By David Shankbone (David Shankbone) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Thursday dismissed Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s possible bid for the presidency and compared the actor to a “lawn boy.”
Johnson, who is of Samoan and African ancestry, discussed the possibility of running for president in a recent Rolling Stone interview, but he concluded he was not the right person to face off against President some rich asshole in 2020.
When the topic came up on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Republican analyst Steve Schmidt argued that Johnson had qualities that would make him a formidable opponent to the rich asshole.
“There is an element of genuine kindness, interest, he’s a nice person who takes time with every fan,” Schmidt explained. “He’s smart, he’s articulate, he understands that there are things that he doesn’t know. It seems he has a type of humility that is profoundly oppositional to some rich asshole. I don’t look at Dwayne Johnson as a celebrity. I look at Dwayne Johnson as someone who possesses qualities of character that are quite oppositional to the incumbent president.”
Scarborough, however, was not convinced that Johnson could rise to the task of being commander-in-chief.
“That’s like saying you let the lawn boy do brain surgery on your mother,” the MSNBC host opined. “And he was kind of a nasty lawn boy, didn’t know how to do brain surgery and he killed your mother. But there’s another lawn boy across the street who is nice and has a better way about him when he’s mowing your lawn and collecting payment for mowing your lawn.”
“I mean, ‘The Rock’ doesn’t know any more about government than some rich asshole,” Scarborough added. “But yet, we’re talking about ‘The Rock’, we’re talking about Oprah… I could go down the list.”
Watch the video below from MSNBC.
Top aide to embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt steps down
Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), speaks to employees of the Agency in Washington, U.S., February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
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A top aide to the embattled Environmental Protection Agency head has resigned.
Samantha Dravis, associate administrator of the EPA’s office of policy, has stepped down from her position amid an ethics scandal involving EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, according to CNN reporters.
Samantha Dravis, associate Administrator of EPA's office of policy and close aide to Scott Pruitt, has submitted her resignation, her attorney tells @sganim
CNN guest laughs in Rick Santorum’s face for defending embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt
Jennifer Granholm laughs at Rick Santorum (Screen cap).
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Former Republican Senator Rick Santorum on Wednesday tried to excuse the rich asshole EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s decision to fly first class — and fellow panelist Jennifer Granholm responded by laughing in his face.
During the discussion of Pruitt’s numerous ethics controversies, Santorum said that Pruitt needed to fly first class instead of coach because he needed to avoid angry environmentalists who had purportedly been heckling him.
“Scott Pruitt has been under enormous threats, more than any other person in the administration other than the president himself,” he said. “Death threats. There are security concerns. He says he was harassed a lot when he was flying in coach.”
At this point, host Alisyn Camerota turned to Granholm and asked her if there was “a force field in first class” that would prevent mean people from harassing Pruitt — and Granholm cracked up laughing.
“No,” she chuckled. “This guy has more ethics problems than all of these others.”
Camerota then read off a list of all the ethics controversies surrounding Pruitt.
“He rented a condo from the wife of a D.C. lobbyist — that alone might raise eyebrows,” she said. “He has it under market at $50 a night. He’s given raises to two people he knows for a long time, they call them friends. And they are substantial raises. He spent tens of thousands on luxury travel, including lots of first class tickets.”
Granholm responded by saying Pruitt’s behavior is a classic case of “swampy corruption.”
Watch the video below.
‘Utterly bass-ackwards’: CNN’s John Avlon pummels the rich asshole for governing based on Fox News segments
CNN's John Avlon (Screen cap).
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CNN political analyst John Avlon on Thursday slammed President some rich asshole for seemingly making impulsive decisions on national policy based solely on things he watched on “Fox & Friends.”
After host Alisyn Camerota noted that the rich asshole first started tweeting about immigrant “caravans” shortly after “Fox & Friends” did a weekend segment about them, Avlon mocked the president for crafting policy while “couch surfing.”
“It is utterly bass-ackwards in terms of the way policy is supposed to work,” Avlon said. “The President of the United States doesn’t need to be couch surfing — getting the appearance of an insight then governing by impulse. He has access to the world’s leading experts and information.”
The New York Times’ David Sanger similarly said the rich asshole’s policy process is unlike anything he’s seen from any White House.
“You don’t do it in response to something you heard on TV, or something you heard anecdotally over dinner,” he said. “That’s fundamentally the issue with this White House — they’re not terribly data driven, which then leads to consistent policy. They’re driven by what the president has heard, then he makes a pronouncement, and then the policy makers scramble to make a policy that gives some rationality to something he’s just heard.”
Watch the video below.
MSNBC’s Steve Schmidt warns the rich asshole voters are about to ‘start paying the bill for his incompetence’
Steve Schmidt (MSNBC)
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Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said President some rich asshole’s incompetence was on full display now that he’s purged his White House of naysayers and replaced them with flunkies — or no one at all.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said the past week of the rich asshole’s attacks showed he was no longer constrained by presidential norms, and the “Morning Joe” host warned that the U.S. was being dragged into a dark place.
“The lies, the misrepresentations, the distortions, the abuses of constitutional norms, the dictatorial type actions where he’s actually targeting one of the most innovative companies in America for political purposes, it seems like we’re about to go into hyperdrive,” Scarborough said.
Schmidt agreed, and said that the rich asshole’s disrespect for the rule of law was matched only by his inability to carry out the duties of his job.
“No doubt about it, he has put on a full-on clinic of incompetence over the last week, the likes of which we’ve never seen around the office of president of the United States,” Schmidt said. “As you point out, there is zero net illegal immigration coming across the southern border, and, in fact, the American border with Mexico does not need to be militarized.”
The GOP campaign strategist said the rich asshole was about to severely damage the U.S. economy because he didn’t understand how it actually works.
“We see now all of his trade rhetoric being actualized, being actualized in a way that have a profound impact on actual American workers as the Chinese and other countries retaliate,” Schmidt said. “For example, when we look at NAFTA, we look at North America, we look at the Canadian/U.S. trade relationship, there is more than a trillion dollars that flows across the border between the United States and Canada in integrated supply chains in Canada and the United States. Should he disrupt that, it will have a profound impact on the American economy.”
He said the president’s statements and actions were already making investors jittery, and he warned the consequences would eventually spread.
“We saw his incompetence (Tuesday) affect markets, down hundreds of points at the opening, and there’s no other reason driving that but this president’s policy actions which are based — founded not on any intellectualism, not on any ideology — but on complete nonsense,” Schmidt said.
the rich asshole was hurting U.S. standing in the world by attacking allies and threatening to back out of international agreements, all while standing by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“We’re seeing a year-plus in a profoundly incompetent president out of his depth, no idea what he’s talking about on a range of issues, and now the American people I suspect are about to start paying the bill for his incompetence,” Schmidt said.
Roger Stone’s ties to WikiLeaks keep getting weirder — putting him in real legal peril
Roger Stone (Photo: Screen capture)
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Additional links Roger Stone and WikiLeaks have come to light as President some rich asshole’s ally faces mounting scrutiny about his activities prior to the 2016 presidential election.
A new report this week from the Wall Street Journal found that Stone sent an email to his associate Sam Nunberg on Aug. 4, 2016, saying that said he had had dinner with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange the previous night. CNN reports that, on that same day, Stone went on the fringe online right-wing show InfoWars and predicted that Assange had major evidence of wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation.
“Let’s remember that their defense to all the Clinton Foundation scandals is not that ‘we didn’t do,’ but ‘you have no proof, yes, but you have no proof,'” Stone said. “I think Julian Assange has that proof and I think he is going to furnish it for the American people.”
The next day, he praised Assange on Twitter.
Stone says that he didn’t meet with Assange and that the email to Nunberg was a “joke.” It’s not really clear what’s supposed to be funny about the email, but Stone did provide the Journal with evidence that suggests he was in Los Angeles on Aug. 3, nowhere near Assange’s location in London’s Ecuadoran embassy.
Nevertheless, this potential connection is just one more link between Stone and WikiLeaks that may cause him trouble. The Journal says the email came up in Stone’s testimony for special counsel Robert Mueller before a grand jury.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Stone never turned the email over during his testimony as a part of the body’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a sign he may not have been completely honest before Congress.
And Nunberg — the associate Stone emailed about Assange — has previously suggested Stone might have something to hide. Before eventually decide to cooperate with Mueller, Nunberg initially said he would refuse to testify. He told CNN that investigators want him to testify against Roger.
“They want me to say that Roger was going around telling people he was colluding with Julian Assange. That’s what they want. I’m not going to do it,” Nunberg said.
‘That’s a lie — full stop’: Morning Joe shows devastating video proof of Sarah Sanders lying about the rich asshole and Russia
Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough blasted White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders for lying about President some rich asshole’s relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“Morning Joe” producers ran a supercut of Sanders and outgoing national security adviser H.R. McMaster repeatedly contradicting one another on the rich asshole administration’s policy toward Russia following 2016 election interference and the poisoning of a former spy in Britain.
“Here we have one more example of Sarah Huckabee Sanders lying, and we’ve been talking about what the president’s been doing over the past week has not been skirting issues,” Scarborough said. “He’s been lying outright about Amazon, he’s been lying about the Washington Post, he’s been lying about Russia, he’s lying about McMaster, now you have, of course, Sarah Huckabee Sanders — two lies there.”
“McMaster never said that no one’s been tougher on Russia than some rich asshole — that is a lie, full stop,” he continued. “Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied yesterday again — that’s a lie. She also lied when she said that, when she denied that McMaster said the quote was we have failed to hit them enough, and again, she lied about that, as well.”
Scarborough said the president was foolish to trust Putin and pursue a closer relationship with Russia.
“some rich asshole also — it’s just saying we’ll find out later whether this man is an enemy or not to the United States, when he’s interfered with our democracy, he’s attacking our closest ally, the one we’ve always had a special relationship with, killing people on British soil?” Scarborough said. “I mean, what exactly does this man have to do in Syria with Iran, in great Britain, in Ukraine, across the world for some rich asshole to realize that he’s not his friend?”
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough blasted White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders for lying about President some rich asshole’s relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“Morning Joe” producers ran a supercut of Sanders and outgoing national security adviser H.R. McMaster repeatedly contradicting one another on the rich asshole administration’s policy toward Russia following 2016 election interference and the poisoning of a former spy in Britain.
“Here we have one more example of Sarah Huckabee Sanders lying, and we’ve been talking about what the president’s been doing over the past week has not been skirting issues,” Scarborough said. “He’s been lying outright about Amazon, he’s been lying about the Washington Post, he’s been lying about Russia, he’s lying about McMaster, now you have, of course, Sarah Huckabee Sanders — two lies there.”
“McMaster never said that no one’s been tougher on Russia than some rich asshole — that is a lie, full stop,” he continued. “Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied yesterday again — that’s a lie. She also lied when she said that, when she denied that McMaster said the quote was we have failed to hit them enough, and again, she lied about that, as well.”
Scarborough said the president was foolish to trust Putin and pursue a closer relationship with Russia.
“some rich asshole also — it’s just saying we’ll find out later whether this man is an enemy or not to the United States, when he’s interfered with our democracy, he’s attacking our closest ally, the one we’ve always had a special relationship with, killing people on British soil?” Scarborough said. “I mean, what exactly does this man have to do in Syria with Iran, in great Britain, in Ukraine, across the world for some rich asshole to realize that he’s not his friend?”
Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano reveals how Mueller is luring the rich asshole into a trap
Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox News/Screenshot
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Since news of the rich asshole not being a “target” of Robert Mueller’s probe leaked, conservative media has been crowing.
Not so fast, warns Fox News senior judicial analyst, judge Andrew Napolitano. The former prosecutor went on Fox & Friends this morning and, perhaps knowing he was speaking directly to the president, warned him against a false sense of security.
“A target means they are going to indict you, and before they indict you they give you an opportunity to come in and try to persuade them why they shouldn’t,” Napolitano said.
The hosts asked Napolitano how this was different than being a “subject.”
“A subject is somebody that is the topic of an ongoing criminal investigation that has not yet ended,” Napolitano said. “So as much as I want the president to be able to be president and not have this on his back, I would encourage him to not relax and not rejoice.”
Napolitano also laid out a scenario that may have made blood run cold for the president’s attorney.
“There is a theory that this statement was made by Bob Mueller in an off-handed way so that people like the rest of us would talk about it and the president would have a fake sense of security going into the interview,” Napolitano said. “‘Oh, don’t worry, you’re not a target, just come and talk to you’—stay away from that Mr. President, that interview environment is extremely dangerous.”
Watch below.
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Since news of the rich asshole not being a “target” of Robert Mueller’s probe leaked, conservative media has been crowing.
Not so fast, warns Fox News senior judicial analyst, judge Andrew Napolitano. The former prosecutor went on Fox & Friends this morning and, perhaps knowing he was speaking directly to the president, warned him against a false sense of security.
“A target means they are going to indict you, and before they indict you they give you an opportunity to come in and try to persuade them why they shouldn’t,” Napolitano said.
The hosts asked Napolitano how this was different than being a “subject.”
“A subject is somebody that is the topic of an ongoing criminal investigation that has not yet ended,” Napolitano said. “So as much as I want the president to be able to be president and not have this on his back, I would encourage him to not relax and not rejoice.”
Napolitano also laid out a scenario that may have made blood run cold for the president’s attorney.
“There is a theory that this statement was made by Bob Mueller in an off-handed way so that people like the rest of us would talk about it and the president would have a fake sense of security going into the interview,” Napolitano said. “‘Oh, don’t worry, you’re not a target, just come and talk to you’—stay away from that Mr. President, that interview environment is extremely dangerous.”
Watch below.
Here is why Mueller’s move on the rich asshole is the beginning of the endgame
Special counsel Robert Mueller and some rich asshole (Wikimedia Commons)
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With the Washington Post’s revelation that President the rich asshole is not the “subject” of criminal investigation, special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s strategy for completing his probe is coming into view.
Mueller has pinned down the rich asshole with two grand juries, issuing a wide net of indictments on diverse charges that have kept the president off-balance. The sentencing of Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer working for indicted the rich asshole aide Rick Gates, underscored a message for the president: those who lie to investigators face swift consequences.
What has seemed like an interminable inquiry now looks like it will terminate in a one-two punch: an interview with the rich asshole followed by a report on the question of obstruction of justice.
All of this may well happen before the 2018 midterm elections.
Subject to Change
The president’s defenders can take solace in the studiously telegraphed message of the Post’s article: that the rich asshole is not the “target” of investigation. In law enforcement terms, a subject is a person who has engaged in conduct that is under investigation, but there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges.
Substantively, this is not a huge new development. The Post reported last June that Mueller was investigating the rich asshole for possible obstruction of justice. What’s new is how Mueller plans to finish the job.
What Mueller is saying, via the Post, is that he does not have sufficient evidence to charge the president with wrongdoing. Through deft use of leaks—and we can be sure Mueller is not unhappy about the Post story—Mueller is sending the message that he wants to talk to the president, sooner rather than later.
Some of the president’s advisers intuit Mueller’s endgame, according to the Post. They “noted that subjects of investigations can easily become indicted targets—and expressed concern that the special prosecutor was baiting the rich asshole into an interview that could put the president in legal peril.”
That is exactly what Mueller is doing.
Team Turmoil
With the president’s legal team in turmoil, the rich asshole is already in peril. His attorney John Dowd, a heavy-hitter from Wall Street, resigned last month after the rich asshole rejected his advice to refuse Mueller’s request for an interview.
As Mueller closes in, the rich asshole is poorly equipped to fight back.
He can’t find a replacement for Dowd. In normal circumstances, the most famous and capable conservative lawyers in Washington would welcome the chance to represent a Republican president. Ted Olson was the lead attorney in the Bush v. Gore case, which decided the 2000 election. Brendan Sullivan was attorney for right-wing hero Oliver North during the Iran-contra scandal. Both men declined to join the rich asshole’s team.
the rich asshole then hired hatchet man Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney whose TV talking-head skills exceed his courtroom reputation. DiGenova lasted only a few days and was relieved, apparently for reasons of “chemistry.”
Report Due
Mueller is also letting the public know that his investigation is beginning to end, at least on the question of obstruction of justice.
From the Post:
Mueller’s investigators have indicated to the president’s legal team that they are considering writing reports on their findings in stages—with the first report focused on the obstruction issue, according to two people briefed on the discussions.“They’ve said they want to write a report on this—to answer the public’s questions—and they need the president’s interview as the last step,” one person familiar with the discussions said of Mueller’s team.
If the president refuses to be interviewed, Mueller’s team can start writing their report. If the rich asshole agrees to sit down with Mueller, the report will have to wait a little longer. Either way, Mueller’s report on the obstruction of justice question seems likely to be finished well before the November midterm elections.
Mueller then has to submit his findings to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who supervises the special prosecutor because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself. It is Rosenstein, not Mueller, who must decide if Mueller’s findings should be made public.
It is not hard to figure what Rosenstein will do. He is a career Justice Department attorney and a civil servant, like Mueller. He appointed Mueller last May. In December, he deflected demands for Mueller’s head. And—another timely disclosure by Mueller’s office this week—Rosenstein authorized Mueller’s investigation of the rich asshole campaign manager Paul Manafort.
All in all, it’s bad news for the White House. Mueller’s clock is running out and Team the rich asshole is in disarray.
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