the rich asshole administration to reconsider housing bias protections
Dr. Ben Carson Secretary of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
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President some rich asshole’s administration signaled on Thursday it may reverse housing anti-discrimination protections established under Democratic former President Barack Obama that exposed companies to a broad range of legal claims under federal law.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said it will reconsider the 2013 rule issued during the Obama administration that laid out when so-called disparate impact claims can be brought against lenders, insurers and other major players in housing under federal fair housing law.
Disparate impact is a legal tool that has been used for decades to bring bias lawsuits over actions that have a discriminatory effect even with no evidence of discriminatory intent.
In a 2015 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such claims can be brought under the landmark Fair Housing Act, but insurance companies in particular have fought against its application to their industry. HUD said its review will examine whether the Obama-era regulation is consistent with the Supreme Court ruling.
Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham
The ‘world that expects more from us’: Novartis CEO apologizes to employees for hiring the rich asshole ‘fixer’ Cohen
Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis (Photo via Novartis)
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President some rich asshole’s attorney Michael Cohen was caught in a series of lobbying scandals when it was discovered he was attempting to sell his influence to the president. Now one of the companies that hired him is admitting the blunder.
“We made a mistake in entering into this engagement and, as a consequence, are being criticized by a world that expects more from us,” said CEO Dr. Narasimhan in an email to employees, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Wednesday, CNN reported that Cohen scored hefty cash from Novartis, AT&T, Korea Aerospace and Columbus Nova. Novartis confessed earlier this week that it paid Cohen’s company Essential Consultants, LLC $100,000 monthly.
Narasimhan told employees he went to sleep Wednesday night “frustrated and tired.” He went on to urge the staff to focus on the company’s mission “serving patients.”
US sanctions force Russia tycoon to hand back jets
Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska attends the 7th annual VTB Capital "Russia Calling!" Investment Forum in Moscow, Russia, October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo
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Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska has handed back three private jets he was leasing because U.S. sanctions imposed on him last month make it impossible to keep using the planes, the firm retained by the owners to sell the aircraft said on Thursday.
The aircraft are Gulfstream executive jets, favored by jet-setting business people for their long range and plush interiors. They are now on sale, with the asking price for two of them set at $29.95 million each.
The return of the aircraft is an indication of how deeply the sanctions have affected Deripaska’s business empire, extending beyond the direct impact on his Rusal aluminum firm, whose sales and supply chains have been heavily disrupted.
Alireza Ittihadieh, director of Freestream, an aviation sales company that listed the three jets for sale, said the jets were owned by lenders Credit Suisse and Raiffeisen, and were then leased via a management company to Deripaska-controlled firms.
“Who was using it? Senior management, including Deripaska himself,” Ittihadieh told Reuters in a phone interview.
“He’s sanctioned, his companies are sanctioned, he has to return the aircraft. He has to early-terminate the leases, under sanctions rules,” he said, without specifying which sanctions rules applied in this case.
A representative of Rusal’s press service said the firm declined to comment.
A spokesman for Credit Suisse declined to comment on a specific case, but said: “Credit Suisse works with international regulators wherever it does business to ensure compliance with sanctions. This includes compliance with the recent sanctions involving Russia.”
A spokeswoman for Raiffeisen said she could not reply to Reuters questions because Thursday was a public holiday in Austria. She also said that “due to the banking secrecy law we cannot comment on potential clients.”
the rich asshole drug-pricing speech adds dose of uncertainty for healthcare investors
President of the United States some rich asshole speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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Investors are bracing for widespread volatility in healthcare stocks on Friday, when U.S. President some rich asshole is expected to give a highly anticipated speech about controlling prescription drug prices.
The S&P 500 healthcare sector has declined about 1 percent in 2018, underperforming the broader S&P 500 by more than two percentage points. Investors say concerns about drug pricing regulations have contributed to pressure on group.
the rich asshole’s speech, delayed from earlier in the year, has injected added anxiety. He has addressed the issue of lowering prices in the past, saying as president-elect in January 2017, for example, that drugmakers were “getting away with murder” in what they charge the government for medicines.
“Investors don’t like uncertainty and this speech has created a fair amount of uncertainty,” said Les Funtleyder, healthcare portfolio manager at E Squared Capital Management. “We don’t really know what is necessarily priced in, what level of detriment to all these industries is priced in.”
Healthcare policy speeches by senior government officials in recent weeks also may have changed the thinking of investors.
“The sense is that the proposals could go a little further than what we have seen in the budget and other places,” said Ipsita Smolinski, managing director at healthcare research and consulting firm Capitol Street.
The speech could affect a broad group of stocks in the healthcare sector, which makes up 13.6 percent of the S&P 500.
The speech could affect a broad group of stocks in the healthcare sector, which makes up 13.6 percent of the S&P 500.
“The president never shies away from fiery rhetoric, and we expect that in his speech he will finger manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), insurers, hospitals, and foreign countries as responsible for high drug costs,” Height Capital Markets analyst Andrea Harris said in a note.
Harris said she expects “material headline risk” to the stocks but that the administration “will not implement the most material policies that the rich asshole will suggest in the speech in the next two years, if ever.”
The healthcare sector was rallying on Thursday, up 1 percent in afternoon trading against a 0.7 percent gain by the S&P 500. Shares of companies potentially in the cross-hairs of the rich asshole’s speech were higher, including pharmaceutical wholesaler Cardinal Health Inc and drug-benefit manager Express Scripts Holding Co.
Some analysts said on Thursday that investors could be becoming less worried about the speech while others said it was hard to predict what the rich asshole might say.
Overall, shares of large pharmaceutical and biotech companies have struggled this year. While companies have endured product or other disappointments, analysts have pointed to concerns about pressures on drug-pricing as a cloud over the stocks.
By contrast, healthcare sectors seen as immune to such pricing concerns – makers of medical devices and research tools – have outperformed.
Friday’s speech may provide some clarity for investors, but the prospect of healthcare and drug pricing being a hot topic heading into the mid-term U.S. congressional elections in November may lead worries about the sector to persist.
“Even if we didn’t have a speech, people would be thinking about November and what may or may not happen and wouldn’t be investing with the same gusto that they otherwise would,” Funtleyder said.
“Even if we didn’t have a speech, people would be thinking about November and what may or may not happen and wouldn’t be investing with the same gusto that they otherwise would,” Funtleyder said.
Additional reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bangalore; Editing by Steve Orlofsky
Watch CNN’s Jake Tapper crack up after rolling a supercut of Pence praising the rich asshole’s ‘broad shoulders’
CNN's Jake Tapper. Image via screengrab.
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CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Thursday pointed out that among Vice President Mike Pence‘s many notes of praise for some rich asshole is one peculiar and repeated compliment about the president’s physique.
“Pence often expresses his adoration for the president on camera,” the anchor said, “and an unusual adoration for his ‘broad shoulders.'”
She then played a supercut of Pence repeatedly making reference to the rich asshole’s broad shoulders, often in conjunction with discussions of his “big heart.”
“I have faith in this president’s broad shoulders and big heart,” the vice president said in a clip from a July 2017 speech — a phrase he used multiple times to describe his “friend” the rich asshole.
Keilar went on to introduce fellow CNN host Jake Tapper in an appearance plugging his new political thriller The Hellfire Club, and assured him that he also has a “big heart.”
“What about the broad shoulders?” he asked before joking that viewers should “find yourself a man who will talk about you the way that Vice President Pence talks about the president.”
Watch below, via CNN:
Oops! some rich asshole Jr. likes a tweet that hilariously trashes his father
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)
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some rich asshole, Jr. apparently didn’t read a tweet closely enough before “liking” it on Twitter – or, maybe he did. It lists among the president’s accomplishments, “Multiple playmates/pornstars.”
The Twitter account @TrumpsAlert says it is a “bot tracking the rich asshole family follow and unfollows, so we can try and figure out what is going on inside the White House.” It also tweets out “likes” by the rich asshole and his family.
And on Thursday it points us to this tweet that a review of some rich asshole, Jr.’s Twitter account shows he “liked.”
Here’s the tweet the president’s son liked:
the rich asshole announces North Korea summit will be in Singapore
Washington (CNN)President some rich asshole will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore, the US president announced Thursday on Twitter.
"The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th," the rich asshole tweeted. "We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!"
The summit, which has been in the works since the rich asshole accepted Kim's invitation to meet in March, will be the first ever meeting between a sitting US president and North Korean leader.
US officials had also considered holding the summit at the Korean demilitarized zone or in Mongolia, but ultimately settled on the city-state of Singapore as the location.
CNN reported Wednesday the rich asshole administration officials were moving forward with plans for the meeting to take place in Singapore.
Leading choice
Singapore was the early leading choice among top administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House chief of staff John Kelly, who from the beginning recognized that the summit location would play an outsized role in how the talks are viewed around the world.
Their chief concern was the appearance of neutrality -- both in the location's politics (no countries such as China or Russia that are seen as "too communist") and its geography. Logistics were a secondary but still major concern. Once Kim demonstrated he was willing to get on one of his airplanes to fly to China this week, officials were convinced Singapore -- some 3,000 miles from Pyongyang -- would work.
the rich asshole last week said a date and time for the meeting had been set. But despite that, a location and date were not finalized until Pompeo met with the North Koreans. Both they and the South Korean government were pressing for talks at the DMZ and were encouraged by the rich asshole's public endorsement of holding them there.
"Numerous countries are being considered for the MEETING, but would Peace House/Freedom House, on the Border of North & South Korea, be a more Representative, Important and Lasting site than a third party country? Just asking!" the rich asshole had tweeted last week.
His tweet caught aides off guard, since that site had been internally ruled out. Aides had been tasked with seeing whether Singapore could provide similarly celebratory atmospherics should the talks succeed.
Pompeo, Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton continued to argue that the DMZ could appear conciliatory to Kim and that he may get the wrong message if the rich asshole traveled there. It took a couple weeks to dissuade him from the idea of holding the talks there, but eventually he came around to Singapore.
Released prisoners
The announcement came a day after North Korea released three imprisoned Americans during US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's most recent visit to Pyongyang.
Beyond securing the release of the three Americans, Pompeo also finalized details for the upcoming summit between the rich asshole and Kim.
the rich asshole has struck a cautiously optimistic tone in discussing the prospects of reaching a deal during his upcoming summit with Kim, saying he is hopeful a historic agreement can be brokered while also warning the talks could prove unfruitful. But the President saw the release of the three Americans as yet another reason for optimism as he prepares for the summit.
"We are starting off on a new footing -- I really think we have a very good chance of doing something very meaningful. A lot of very good things have happened," the rich asshole said as he greeted the former prisoners at Joint Base Andrews early Thursday morning.
"I really think he wants to do something and bring the country into the real world," he added of Kim. "It's never been taken this far, there has never been a relationship like this. I really think a lot of progress has been made."
Ex-the rich asshole aide Nunberg reveals on MSNBC that Mueller team pressed him over Cohen money months ago
Sam Nunberg on MSNBC_ -- screengrab
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Appearing on MSNBC, a ducking and weaving Sam Nunberg refused to say specifically what he told a grand jury empaneled by special counsel Robert Mueller looking into outside influence in President some rich asshole’s campaign, but admitted he was questioned about the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen’s finances.
Speaking with host Katy Tur, Nunberg was pressed by the host about Cohen’s cash windfall after the rich asshole was elected.
“Where did all that money that was being paid into this account go?” Tur asked. “Did it go directly to Michael Cohen? Did it go somewhere else? If it did go directly to Michael Cohen, and why did Michael Cohen need a home equity line of credit to pay the $130,000 to Stormy Daniels?”
“I’m going to pose that question to you: where did the money go? It’s a lot of cash,” Tur asked the former aide.
“You’re going to get me in trouble and I’m going to get called back to the grand jury,” a laughing Nunberg replied. “I’ll just say i have no idea.”
“Have you been called back to the grand jury? And do you expect to?” Tur asked.
“I have not, but who knows?” Nunberg explained. “Is the answer: I could be? I don’t know. They have an open — it’s an open invite, i guess.”
Nunberg admitted that he had no idea what Cohen was doing with the money and that he didn’t believe any ended up in the rich asshole’s pocket — or that the president may have known about it, saying, “The president hates people making money off of him. Only one person that gets away with it in his face is Lewandowski. He hates it.”
Asked about his interactions with Mueller’s investigators, Nunberg did offer up a few details on its focus on Cohen.
“What did the special counsel want to know about Michael Cohen? Was he a big topic during your interview?” Tur asked.
“Once again, I won’t talk about exactly happened in the grand jury,” Nunberg elaborated. “But during the voluntary interview as they go through all these issues and they go through your history, they wanted to know my history, my interactions with Michael. Obviously the rich asshole Tower Moscow was a major issue.”
“They were interested in Michael’s role with the campaign,” he continued. “In other words, what was Michael going to do — they didn’t ask me anything about the transition because I didn’t know anything about that. ”
“Anything about Michael Cohen and payments? Payments to anybody?” Tur asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Nunberg remarked. “Like I told you, they asked about what his role was going to be and they asked if I had any knowledge about payments, which I didn’t. So, I mean, certainly it is an area of interest for them.”
You can see the interview below via MSNBC:
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May 10, 2018
Mike Pence has a lot of nerve — and he's also completely wrong.
Mike Pence is all-knowing about the White House when he needs to be — and also completely out of the loop when it suits him.
In an interview with NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell, for example, he tried to play it both ways in the span of 60 seconds.
Asked about the most recent bombshell in a series of scandals about the rich asshole’s lawyer Michael Cohen — that he sold multiple corporations access to the rich asshole administration for millions of dollars — Pence was dismissive and ignorant.
“That private matter is something I don’t have any knowledge about,” Pence said.
The very serious allegations are certainly not a private matter; they implicate the rich asshole administration directly. Both AT&T and pharma giant Novartis have confirmed payments to Cohen in exchange for access, and Novartis admitted its CEO had dinner with the rich asshole after making its final payment to Cohen.
These are very serious charges — which is why special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating them. Yet Pence is trying to shrug it off as a “private matter” he knows nothing about.
Just seconds before, however, he was suggesting a great deal of knowledge. He asserted that the administration has “fully cooperated” with Mueller’s investigation, and specifically cited the provision of “over a million documents” it has turned over.
And based on that, Mueller should end the investigation, “in the interest of the country,” according to Pence.
So which is it?
Does Pence know enough about the investigation and the administration to call on Mueller to end it? Or is he merely the hapless, unknowing vice president who is conveniently excluded from the biggest and most incriminating issues? And if so, how does he know the pay-for-access story is merely a “private matter” rather than a criminal one?
Throughout his term in office, Pence has tried to keep just enough distance between himself and the ever-expanding chaotic mess that is the White House. That’s a smart move for him, of course. Why would he want to be implicated, especially if he is quietly plotting to run for the top job?
But it also makes it hard for him to credibly insist that Mueller’s investigation, mountains of evidence, and already collected guilty pleas — which he does or does not know anything about, depending on the moment — is much ado about nothing.
Michael Avenatti slams right-wingers for speculating about his crowd-funded lawsuit: ‘Get over it’
Stormy Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti during a press conference outside the rich asshole Tower. Image via screengrab.
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Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti has a message for right-wingers who continue to speculate about where he gets his money: do your research and “get over it.”
Just over 12 hours after Avenatti explained the mix of crowdfunding and client-paid fees that make up his funding to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, a former businessman published an editorial calling his and Daniels’ highly-public lawsuits against some rich asshole “fishy” and wondered where he actually gets the money from. Though Mark Penn, the editorial’s author, worked for Hillary Clinton, the article got picked up by right-wing pundits under the #WhoPaysAvenatti hashtag — and the lawyer has had enough.
It’s important to note that I never reached out to Alsaleh personally until now and only discovered his tweet from searching “Avenatti filter:verified.” I just asked him (in Arabic) if he can prove the wild claim he tweeted.
“أيمكنك إثبات ذلك؟” translates to “Can you prove it?”
Old: Michael Avenatti’s porn star/hush payment case allegedly being aligned with Russia.
New: Michael Avenatti allegedly being aligned with financing from Saudi Arabian royalty.
“When you point the finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.”#WhoPaysAvenatti
In an official statement and on Twitter, Avenatti took his detractors to task by once again explaining how he makes money. He slammed those who wish to “develop a false narrative that they can use” to undercut his case’s credibility — and said he, Daniels and their backers “will not stand for it.”
“Once again (for at least the 20th time) — ALL fees and expenses of this case have either been funded by our client, Ms. Stephanie Clifford [Daniels’ legal name], or by donations from our crowdjustice.com page,” Avenatti wrote in his legal fees statement. “Please re-read that if you are unclear. Read it again if need be. Keep reading it until you get it.”
“No political part or PAC is funding this effort,” he continued. “No left wing conspiracy group is behind this. And no big fat cat political donors are leading the charge. Get over it.”
Avenatti implored his followers on Twitter to join him in “mocking” journalists who repeat the question “for their inability to do basic research.”
Who is paying my legal bills? Yet again, here is the answer (in Dropbox). The next time you see a "journalist" ask this same question, please join me in mocking them for their inability to do basic research. #bastadropbox.com/s/bwmfocdimn2u…
“This is a search for the truth,” he wrote at the conclusion of his statement. “And in the spirit of Ms. Clifford’s courage, we are not going away anytime soon.”
Kellyanne Conway’s husband approvingly touts story showing young GOP voters want the rich asshole primaried
Kellyanne Conway speaks to Fox News (screen grab)
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George Conway, the husband of the rich asshole adviser Kellyanne Conway, has posted another tweet that is certain to raise eyeballs in the West Wing.
Conway, who regularly criticizes the president on his Twitter feed despite his wife’s employment at the White House, approvingly tweeted out a link to a column at the Weekly Standard by conservative pundit Ben Shapiro that detailed the generation gap between younger and older voters in their attitudes about President some rich asshole.
As noted by Weekly Standard reporter Haley Byrd, Shapiro’s column cites polling data showing 82 percent of Republican voters between the ages of 18 and 24 would like to see the rich asshole face a primary challenger in 2020, whereas 74 percent of Republican voters aged 65 and older say the rich asshole should not be challenged.
The Trump divide here tells you everything you need to know about the current age dynamics of the Republican Party.
Q: Should Trump be challenged in 2020?
—Among GOP voters aged 18-24, 82% say yes
—Among GOP voters aged 65 and older, 74% say no weeklystandard.com/shapiro-win-ba… pic.twitter.com/QNmy6zJDYz
Conway not only linked to this, but also chimed in with his own observation that a solid majority of Republican voters between the ages of 25 and 44 would also like to see a primary challenge to the rich asshole in 2020.
Conway has never been shy about criticizing President some rich asshole, despite the fact that his wife is one of the president’s most ardent defenders on cable news shows.
Last year, for instance, he ripped into the president for undermining his own proposed travel ban with a series of impulsive tweets. He has also recently been retweeting articles that criticize the president’s alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels, as well as stories that mock the rich asshole for being unable to hire top-notch legal counsel to defend him in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
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May 10, 2018
Shepard Smith exposed Gina Haspel's lie that she 'followed the law' when she helped torture prisoners.
Fox News host Shep Smith exposed an important aspect of the rich asshole CIA director nominee Gina Haspel’s disgraceful performance at her confirmation hearing by knocking down the claim that torture was legal during the Bush years.
Haspel repeatedly claimed during Wednesday’s hearing that she and the CIA “followed the law then, and we follow the law now,” referring to the Bush-era torture program.
But while reporting on that hearing Wednesday, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith noted some facts that contradict Haspel’s claim.
“Waterboarding is torture and is not permitted under Army Field Manual guidelines,” Smith said. “Torture is illegal under international law. The Supreme Court noted in 2004 that the United States has a historical record of regarding waterboarding as a war crime and has prosecuted individuals for such practice in the past.”
Smith is correct that the United States has prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime, and torture is illegal under both international and U.S. law.
Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) also noted during the hearing that there is no basis for Haspel — or anyone else — to claim the torture program was legal. Heinrich also cited international law, and noted that there has not been a single court ruling to back up the memo that torture apologists use to make this claim.
During the hearing, Haspel repeatedly refused to say that the torture program was immoral, or even that it was wrong. She even lashed out at critics of the torture program.
But even her insistence that it was technically legal at the time is a lie. Such remorseless lying belies any meager promises Haspel has made to resist the rich asshole, who has praised her precisely because she participated in torture.
Even if she kept her promise to refrain from future torture, Gina Haspel’s confirmation would send the message that America condones torture.
But the fact that Haspel can’t tell the truth about torture even now is evidence that her promise is not to be trusted either.
Policy adviser for pro-the rich asshole group caught on camera saying Nazis didn’t go far enough
Juan Pablo Andrade, adviser to America First Policies (Screen cap).
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Juan Pablo Andrade, a longtime the rich asshole supporter and a policy adviser to the pro-the rich asshole organization America First Policies, was caught on camera praising the Nazis while he was attending a conference held by right-wing organization Turning Point USA.
The video, which was obtained by Mediaite, shows Andrade sitting at a table and saying his one complaint about the Nazis was that they “didn’t keep f*cking going.”
Mediaite says that it’s unlikely that Andrade was simply making a tasteless joke either, as he was in the room surrounded by figures from the “alt-right” white supremacist movement.
“While it may seem odd that a political figure tied so closely to the rich asshole administration felt the freedom to endorse Nazi genocide on-camera, Andrade did so in distinctive company,” the publication reports. “Also in the hotel room was a close friend of Andrade’s, Cæsar Svbervi, an alt-right activist who participated in the Charlottesville white supremacist march and has been filmed with Richard Spencer.”
Sources with knowledge of Turning Point USA’s operations tell Mediaite that Svbervi at one point was added to a “black list” of activists that were to be kept away from its conferences to avoid stirring up unneeded controversy. However, the organization later scrapped the black list entirely “in an effort to boost attendance numbers.”
Read the whole story — and watch the video of Andrade praising Nazis — at this link.
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May 10, 2018
the rich asshole has a habit of reaching out to all the wrong people — while ignoring American heroes.
the rich asshole doesn’t often have time to reach out to the families of slain U.S. soldiers, the survivors of gun massacres, and brave American heroes. But he does have time to reach out to people like Don Blankenship, after the Republican and convicted criminal lost his bid to become the GOP’s nominee for the U.S. Senator from West Virginia.
the rich asshole touched base Wednesday after the state’s primary contest.
“the rich asshole and Blankenship spoke briefly, according to three people familiar with the discussion,” Politico reported. “The conversation was described as straightforward, polite and cordial, with the president calling to exchange pleasantries and offer his congratulations on waging the campaign.”
the rich asshole’s kind words came after Blankenship ran an extraordinarily racist campaign, airing attack ads that ridiculed GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife as a “wealthy Chinaperson.” In a campaign ad, Blankenship attacked McConnell for getting “tens of millions of dollars” from his “China family.”
In one other recent ad, Blankenship nicknamed McConnell “Cocaine Mitch,” a reference to allegations that cocaine was found on board a ship operated by his father-in-law, James Chao.
After that, he received a warm call from the rich asshole to offer congratulations.
The latest addition to the GOP’s rogues gallery, Blankenship was the “Trumpier than the rich asshole” candidate —who also happens to be a convicted criminal who served time in prison for conspiring to violate mine safety regulations after an explosion at his Upper Big Branch Mine killed 29 people in 2010.
Fearing that Blankenship couldn’t win in November against incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, the rich asshole this week tweeted that West Virginia supporters should not support Blankenship. But the rich asshole still gave him a call.
the rich asshole’s embrace of an ugly character like Blankenship stands in contrast to his routine refusal to call to offer up warm words to people who are far more deserving.
the rich asshole has yet to publicly acknowledge the loss of 22-year-old Army specialist Gabriel Conde who became the second American to die while fighting in Afghanistan this year.
Last October, when ISIS gunmen in Niger killed four Army Special Forces troops in an ambush, the rich asshole refused to acknowledge Americans’ sacrifice, let alone honor them or offer condolences.
the rich asshole has refused to publicly praise the heroic actions of James Shaw Jr. Police say the unarmed Shaw risked his life when he leapt to action during a shooting at a restaurant in Tennessee.
And more recently, the rich asshole has only reached out to the families of the Parkland, Florida, school massacre if they support his calls to arm teachers.
But at least convicted criminal Blankenship got a friendly call from the rich asshole after running a racist campaign.
Rudy Giuliani resigns from his law firm — which was embarrassed by his train-wreck TV interviews: report
Rudy Giuliani speaks to MSNBC (screen grab)
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the rich asshole lawyer Rudy Giuliani has completely resigned from his position as an attorney at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig — and it sounds like his old employer has become embarrassed by his disastrous recent cable TV news interviews.
The New York Times reports that Giuliani stepped down from Greenberg Traurig this week, and the firm is publicly saying that he is doing so to completely focus on his work of defending President some rich asshole in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“After recognizing that this work is all consuming and is lasting longer than initially anticipated, Rudy has determined it is best for him to resign,” the firm’s chairman tells the Times.
Behind the scenes, however, the Times’ sources say that “firm partners had chafed over Mr. Giuliani’s public comments about payments that another of some rich asshole’s lawyers, Michael D. Cohen, made to secure the silence of a pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with some rich asshole.”
Even more damning, reports the Times, was Giuliani’s suggestion that “such payments were common at his firm,” as he told Fox News that Cohen’s payments to Daniels were “money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do, out of his law firm funds.”
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May 10, 2018
the rich asshole can taint any occasion.
The return of three hostages from North Korea couldn’t stop the rich asshole from engaging in two of his favorite pastimes: lying and bashing the press.
At 3 o’clock Thursday morning, the rich asshole traveled to Joint Base Andrews to greet the three Americans who were released from detention in North Korea Wednesday. During a photo op with Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak Song, the rich asshole fielded a few questions, and lashed out at the New York Times.
“I think our secretary of state, despite the fact that the New York Times said he was missing — he was in North Korea — but I think our secretary of state has done a fantastic job” the rich asshole said. “Mike, did you know that you were missing? They couldn’t find you. They couldn’t find him. They couldn’t find him because he was in North Korea.”
the rich asshole also used the photo op to indulge another favorite pastime: bragging about television ratings.
the rich asshole made a similar attack on the Times Wednesday evening on Twitter, writing, “The Failing New York Times criticized Secretary of State Pompeo for being AWOL (missing), when in fact he was flying to North Korea. Fake News, so bad!”
But, as is often the case, it was the rich asshole who was spreading fake news, or lies. The very second paragraph of the article that the rich asshole cites notes “when some rich asshole made what could be the most significant diplomatic announcement of his presidency — that he would exit the Iran nuclear agreement — his chief diplomat was again thousands of miles away, this time on an unannounced visit to Pyongyang, the North’s capital.”
The words “missing” and “AWOL” do not appear anywhere in the article, but did appear in a Fox News article attacking the Times on Wednesday.
the rich asshole recently achieved the milestone of telling his 3,000th lie in office, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker, and also just threatened to bar reporters from the White House for negative coverage, which he calls “fake news.”
This performance is yet another reminder that with the rich asshole, the lying never stops, and neither do his attacks on our most important institutions.
POLITICS
Mike Pence To Robert Mueller On Russia Probe: ‘Wrap It Up’
“Why does Mike Pence want to kill this investigation?” asked Joe Scarborough.
Vice President Mike Pence wants special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe into possible connections between some rich asshole’s presidential campaign and Russia, to “wrap it up.”
On Thursday morning, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviewed Pence and asked about Mueller.
She first pressed Pence on whether Mueller could be trusted. Pence didn’t answer that question or her follow-up about whether “this investigation is a hoax.”
Instead, Pence responded, “What I think is that it’s been about a year since this investigation began. Our administration has provided over a million documents. We’ve fully cooperated in it. And in the interest of the country, I think it’s time to wrap it up. I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion.”
His comment raised a red flag for “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, who mentioned the interview with Mitchell on his show on MSNBC later that morning.
Scarborough theorized that Pence might not be revealing all that he knows about the investigation, particularly about former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“Mike Pence has been claiming that he was just out in the dark,” said Scarborough.
“And that he was just this clueless, hapless Indiana Hoosier that some rich asshole and the rest of the White House said nothing to. But you’ve just got to start asking yourself, if Mike Pence wants to kill an investigation that is pursuing how the Russians tried to undermine American democracy in 2016 — my gosh, makes me sad to say this … but I guess we have to start asking the question why does Mike Pence want to kill this investigation?”
Scarborough called Pence the “Spiro Agnew for the rich asshole administration,” referring to Richard Nixon’s first vice president, who resigned after pleading no contest to an income tax evasion charge.
John McCain reveals why he gave the Steele dossier to the FBI — and why he’d ‘do it again’
Senator John McCain (AFP Photo/Wakil Kohsar)
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In a new excerpt of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) memoir published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, the senator reveals how he got his hands on the now-infamous Steele dossier that claimed President some rich asshole has been completely compromised by the Russian government.
According to McCain, it was a retired British diplomat — former U.K. ambassador to Russia Andrew Wood — who gave him a copy of Steele’s dossier, which he compiled throughout 2016 as part of his work with private intelligence firm Fusion GPS.
McCain says that he could not independently verify any of the allegations contained in the dossier — but he was nonetheless disturbed enough by them to pass them on to then-FBI Director James Comey.
“I had an obligation to bring to the attention of appropriate officials unproven accusations I could not assess myself and which, were any of them true, would create a vulnerability to the designs of a hostile foreign power,” McCain writes. “I discharged that obligation, and I would do it again. Anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell.”
Later in the excerpt, McCain explains how Putin’s election meddling to help the rich asshole win fits in with his broader strategy of undermining Western democracy.
“He is exploiting the openness of our society and the increasingly acrimonious political divisions consuming us,” McCain writes. “He wants to widen those divides and paralyze us from responding to his aggression. He meddled in one election, and he will do it again because it worked and because he has not been made to stop.”
POLITICS
the rich asshole Announces Details Of Meeting With Kim Jong Un
the rich asshole will meet with Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore.
President some rich asshole announced Thursday that the historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will take place on June 12 in Singapore.
The revelation follows Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s second visit to Pyongyang to meet with North Korean officials. the rich asshole said Wednesday that a date and site had been set, but declined to reveal the details.
The rich asshole administration has worked for months to bring the reclusive regime to the negotiating table. Enlisting China in helping spearhead the denuclearization dialogue, the rich asshole has successfully set up the first face-to-face meeting between North Korean and American leaders.
Kim Jong Un has also met with the leaders of China and South Korea to discuss regional security, resulting in the two Koreas declaring an official end to the Korean war.
Kim expressed support for the “historic meeting,” calling it a first step toward the “building of a good future” on the Korean Peninsula.
In another sign that negotiations with the North Koreans are progressing, Pompeo returned to Washington, D.C., early Thursday with the three Americans that had been held captive in North Korea.
Fox News legal analyst calls out ‘dangerous’ stunt Devin Nunes is trying to pull with classified intel
Andrew Napolitano (Fox News)
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Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano warned the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee could potentially risk national security if he politicized classified documents related to the special counsel probe.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the House Oversight Committee chairman, were invited by the Justice Department for a classified briefing related to FISA warrants granted in the FBI investigation of the rich asshole campaign associates.
Nunes has demanded classified documents related to the warrants and threatened to hold top Justice Department officials in contempt if they don’t comply, but Napolitano said he doesn’t trust the GOP lawmakers’ motives.
“They have top secret security clearances so they can see these things,” Napolitano said. “The question is, will they use them for law enforcement and intelligence purposes or will they use them for political purposes?”
FBI and national intelligence officials warned the White House last week that information requested by Nunes could put a confidential U.S. intelligence source at risk, but House Republicans say they’re “entitled” to the documents.
Napolitano said politicized intelligence could potentially jeopardize U.S. operatives and allies.
“It is dangerous — I’ve been saying this for a long time — for politicians, even with security clearances, to examine raw intelligence data and use it for political narrative,” Napolitano said. “That keeps intel people from wanting to reveal what they have found because they don’t want their names and their methods to be out there.”
Napolitano said congressional investigators understood the risks better than elected officials.
“Congress’ investigators are usually retired or former CIA, FBI, Secret Service, so they know exactly what they’re doing,” he said. “But they have a law that requires them to protect the names of sources and protect the means that the sources use. Otherwise, the source of the source contact in a foreign country — gone.”
POLITICS
3 Americans Jailed In N. Korea Are Home. But the rich asshole May Have Made Others’ Situation Worse.
For Americans behind bars in Iran, Egypt, Turkey and elsewhere, homecoming ceremonies appear to be a long way off.
WASHINGTON ― President some rich asshole warmly received three Americans back from North Korean imprisonment early Thursday, calling their release a vindication of his aggressive foreign policy strategy. But many Americans jailed by other repressive regimes around the world appear to have gained little from the rich asshole’s ad-hoc and often confrontational international approach, their advocates say, and in several cases the president may have actually made it harder for them to come home.
After tweets promoting the event and White House emails inviting camera crews, the rich asshole posed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland with Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul, whom the North Koreans released to show goodwill ahead of a summit between the U.S. commander in chief and North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un.
Elsewhere, American families remained separated from their loved ones.
Consider the Americans trapped in Iran. At least six are known to be there: Robert Levinson, Xiyue Wang, Karan Vafadari, Morad Tahbaz and father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi. Some U.S. green card holders are also detained.
the rich asshole’s decision this week to withdraw the U.S. from a groundbreaking international agreement over Iran’s nuclear program dramatically escalated tensions between the two countries and torpedoed the main dialogue between American and Iranian officials.
Supporters of the jailed U.S. citizens were already worried that the administration did not focus on their plight as it frequently issued laundry lists of various other troubling Iranian actions and did not impose punishments specifically over the detentions.
“The rhetoric and the commitment and the inclusion of a need to secure the release of the American citizen hostages and the end of hostage-taking as a matter of their foreign policy has not been operationalized into meaningful and unequivocal action,” Jared Genser, an attorney for the Namazis, told HuffPost.
Genser had a White House meeting less than 24 hours after the rich asshole withdrew from the deal and noted that the issue was on officials’ radar. He even got a top aide to take the rich asshole a laminated printout of a tweet about the Namazis that he issued during his campaign. ”We hope the president is able to do for the Namazis what he’s now done on North Korea,” Genser told HuffPost.
But without deal-related economic benefits to use as leverage with Iran, the rich asshole might have little influence over Tehran on the prisoner issue, according to Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post journalist who had been jailed in the Islamic Republic and was released in 2016, at least in part because of goodwill the Obama administration created through the nuclear negotiations.
“If the rich asshole decides to leave the deal, he will effectively be abandoning American citizens — the very same ones he has vowed to save,” Rezaian wrote last month. After the rich asshole’s speech, Rezaian asked what happened to concern for those Americans.
They didn’t make it into the rich asshole’s address, which instead repeated criticisms of the Iranian government. Asked about the cases at a State Department background briefing, an official said Americans’ safety was the administration’s priority but then acknowledged the skepticism among the press. “Well, I know, you can make that face, but it’s true,” the official added.
The rich asshole administration has also harshly criticized the government of Venezuela and on Tuesday called for the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro. American Joshua Holt has been imprisoned in the country since 2016. the rich asshole mentioned Holt by name when he announced new sanctions against Venezuela last year. But the dialogue that might secure Holt’s release is being led not by his administration but by key outside figures who are talking with Maduro’s inner circle.
And in Syria, the rich asshole officials’ efforts to start a dialogue with the regime of President Bashar Assad over the fate of missing journalist Austin Tice appear to have fallen apart because of poor coordination. Weeks after then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo broached the subject with the Syrian government, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley surrendered what could have been a key bargaining chip: She walked back the United States’ anti-Assad position, handing Damascus a boon that Washington might have used as leverage.
Assad further damaged hopes for Tice once the Syrian leader turned chemical weapons on his people again that April and the rich asshole responded with airstrikes.
Conversely, other governments holding U.S. citizens have received warm words from the rich asshole ― and little pressure to send the Americans back.
The president repeatedly praised Egypt’s strongman President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi on the campaign trail and in his early months in office. He then held a high-profile celebration when Sisi released an American aid worker who spent nearly three years in jail, Aya Hijazi. More than one year later, the rich asshole has yet to publicly name any of the multiple other U.S. citizens who are among more than 50,000 people in Egypt’s poorly run jails.
“There’s a sentiment in Congress and among those families who’ve been victimized by Egyptian officials in various ways that the administration isn’t doing enough,” said Praveen Madhiraju of the nonprofit Pretrial Rights International. He represents two of an estimated 15 Americans held in Egypt: Mustafa Kassem and Ahmed Etiwy. Earlier this year, Vice President Mike Pence became the highest-ranking U.S. official to mention them in public. (Many families of Americans detained abroad choose to keep their identities hidden, often on the advice of U.S. officials who say a public outcry can hinder diplomacy.)
Capitol Hill pressure and anger over Cairo’s dealings with North Korea has pushed the rich asshole administration to withhold $300 million of the $1.3 billion military aid package Egypt receives from the U.S. annually. But the perception that Sisi will have an easy ride under the rich asshole persists, and there’s little indication of consistent attention to the issue.
“The United States has enormous leverage with Egypt to secure the release of the Americans and the green card holders jailed there, and the only way that we will see all these cases resolved is for the White House to follow up on Pence’s comments,” said Genser, who also represents two U.S. permanent residents held without due process since last summer.
Turkey, whose autocratic leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has also received plaudits from the rich asshole, is meanwhile holding American pastor Andrew Brunson and trying him before what his home-state senator, Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), has called a “kangaroo court.” While the president has mentioned that case repeatedly, his approach to helping Brunson so far has involved multiple steps aimed at pleasing Erdogan. The rich asshole team has discouraged congressional talk of sanctions against Turkey and encouraged Washington law enforcement to drop charges against Turkish security guards who beat protesters in the capital last year.
“Despite the fact that the Turks have an almost 100 percent track record of responding to sticks, we still feed them carrots,” a Senate aide told the Wall Street Journal last month. “It makes no sense.”
Schumer trolls the rich asshole after tweet attack with #BeBest hashtag
BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 05/10/18 11:16 AM EDT
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) trolled President the rich asshole on Twitter on Thursday with the hashtag for first lady Melania the rich asshole’s new positive social wellness campaign.
Schumer was responding to a tweet from the president earlier Thursday criticizing the New York Democrat for wanting to stay in the Iran nuclear agreement.
“Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fought hard against the Bad Iran Deal, even going at it with President Obama, & then Voted AGAINST it!” the president tweeted. “Now he says I should not have terminated the deal - but he doesn’t really believe that! Same with Comey. Thought he was terrible until I fired him!”
Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fought hard against the Bad Iran Deal, even going at it with President Obama, & then Voted AGAINST it! Now he says I should not have terminated the deal - but he doesn’t really believe that! Same with Comey. Thought he was terrible until I fired him!
The first lady has sparked criticism for speaking out against cyber-bullying while her husband frequently attacks others online.
“I’m well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic. I have been criticized by many for my commitment to tackling this issue, and I know that will continue,” she said during a meeting with tech leaders in March.
“But it will not stop me from doing what I know is right,” she continued. “I’m here with one goal: helping children in our next generation.”
The unveiling of the “Be Best’ campaign earlier this week was met with controversy when it became known that the booklet distributed with the initiative was first published by the Federal Trade Commission during the Obama administration.
POLITICS
Watch 1998 Rudy Giuliani Completely Torpedo 2018 Rudy Giuliani’s the rich asshole Arguments
“You gotta do it. I’m mean, you don’t have a choice.”
Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and part of President some rich asshole’s legal team, is coming under fire... from himself.
Comments he made in 1998 during the investigation into President Bill Clinton seem to undermine the arguments he’s making today for the rich asshole.
On Sunday, Giuliani said the president doesn’t have to testify even if subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“We don’t have to,” Giuliani insisted. “He’s the president of the United States. We can assert the same privileges other presidents have.”
But he sang a different tune in an interview with interviewer Charlie Rose two decades ago.
“You gotta do it,” he said. “I’m mean, you don’t have a choice.”
Rose then asked what would happen if the president refused.
Giuliani replied:
“Then there is a procedure for handling that. You go before a judge and a judge decides whether or not he has a recognizable exemption or privilege from testifying. And if a judge decides that he doesn’t, you have to testify. You don’t have a choice about it.”
Later in the same interview, Giuliani said the Watergate case that brought down President Richard Nixon “resolved the fact that the president is not above the law, is not able to avoid subpoenas.”
He said the president has the right to go to a judge to see if the proceeding is improper. “And, if a judge agrees with that, fine,” Giuliani said. “But, if a judge doesn’t, then you have to testify.”
Giuliani said that, as far as criminal law is concerned, the president should be treated as a citizen.
The former mayor also torpedoed another argument that’s been used by the rich asshole, that the investigation is hurting the country.
In 1998, he said the nation could handle it. “The wisdom of the American public may be far greater than we realize,” he said at the time.
Ethics expert explains how Michael Cohen’s corporate shakedowns could funnel money directly to the rich asshole
Longtime the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen (Shutterstock).
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the rich asshole fixer Michael Cohen last year shook down major corporations for cash in exchange for promised access to President some rich asshole — but were his actions illegal?
Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, this week talked with the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent to outline the range of possibilities for just how dirty Cohen’s pay-for-play operation was, including one scenario that involves Cohen funneling corporate cash directly to the president himself.
In this scenario, Cohen’s Essential Consultants LLC would serve as a “pass through” entity that would send a portion of its earnings to either the rich asshole personally or to the rich asshole’s businesses. In fact, argues Bookbinder, this kind of scheme wouldn’t be too much different from foreign officials who are trying to curry favor with the rich asshole by staying at his hotels.
“If it were to turn out that the president had some kind of interest in Essential Consultants, it wouldn’t be so different from everything else that’s going on, in the sense that he’s got all these businesses that people who want to impress him are giving money to,” he said. “If the payments are linked to efforts to influence a specific action, that could become bribery.”
Of course, even if Cohen were to be guilty of running a bribery scheme, it would be more difficult to prove that the rich asshole himself had direct knowledge of such plans.
the rich asshole: Schumer doesn't really believe US should have stayed in Iran deal
BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 05/10/18 10:58 AM EDT
President the rich asshole slammed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday for saying he should not have pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, tweeting that, in reality, Schumer does not believe the U.S. should have stayed in the deal.
the rich asshole also targeted Schumer's defense of former FBI Director James Comey after the president fired him last year, saying Schumer thought Comey was terrible before he was fired.
Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fought hard against the Bad Iran Deal, even going at it with President Obama, & then Voted AGAINST it! Now he says I should not have terminated the deal - but he doesn’t really believe that! Same with Comey. Thought he was terrible until I fired him!
Schumer quickly hit back at the rich asshole on Twitter, citing first lady Melania the rich asshole's new anti-bullying initiative "Be Best."
The president had ripped Schumer's Iran position during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, saying that "they were totally" against the deal from the beginning.
"They don’t say it with their full throat; they don’t say it with heart,” the rich asshole said during a Cabinet meeting. “Because they have one problem: They were totally against it. Like Chuck Schumer was totally against the deal. He voted against the deal.”
“It’s like, oh, perhaps he changed his mind. But, by the way, the deal only got worse," the president continued.
the rich asshole announced Tuesday he would pull the U.S. from the multination deal, which gave Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for accepting limits on its nuclear program.
The president's move marked the fulfillment of one of his major campaign promises.
Schumer originally opposed the deal in 2015 after the Obama administration helped broker it.
"I have decided I must oppose the agreement and will vote yes on a motion of disapproval," Schumer said in 2015.
Hurting from low sales and the rich asshole tariffs, Harley Davidson will close its Kansas City plant
A year ago the president promised to help the company.
Members of the Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a labor union that represents Harley-Davidson Inc. employees, met with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Wednesday to discuss the corporation’s plans to close their Kansas City factory while opening an assembly plant in Thailand. The Kansas City factory currently employs 800 workers.
According to Harley-Davidson, Kansas City’s work will be moved to the company’s plant in York, Pennsylvania, creating 400 jobs there.
Union members, however, claim at least part of their work will be outsourced to Thailand.
“Part of my job is being moved to York, but the other part is going to Bangkok,” said Richard Pence, a machinist at the Kansas City plant, to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Pence also said engineers from the plant are heading to Thailand in a few months to help set up shop there, and he has reason to believe some of the equipment from the Kansas City plant will also be shipped off to Thailand along with the jobs.
Harley-Davidson claims there is no connection between the shuttering of the Kansas City factory and the opening of an assembly plant in Thailand.
“The plant under construction in Thailand is a separate and unrelated issue. Part of our long-term strategy is to grow our international business to 50 percent of our annual volume by 2027. The Thailand facility will allow us to be competitive and provide riders greater access to our brand and our products in an expanding global marketplace,” the company said in a statement. “Increasing production capacity in Asia is consistent with the company’s long-term strategy to focus on growth internationally. It is not intended to reduce U.S. manufacturing.”
The popular motorcycle company also has a plant located in India.
Just over a year ago, President some rich asshole met with Harley-Davidson executives and union representatives to ensure them that he would make it easier to create more jobs and factories in the United States.
“In this administration, our allegiance will be to the American workers and to American businesses, like Harley-Davidson, that were very strong in the 1980s and I remember this — you were victims of trading abuse — big trading abuse, where they were dumping all sorts of competitors all over the place,” the rich asshole said in February of 2017. “And Ronald Reagan stepped in and he put on large tariffs and you wouldn’t be talking about Harley-Davidson probably right now if he didn’t do that.”
In 1984, Reagan did raise tariffs on Japanese motorcycle companies like Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha. Many experts claimed the move saved Harley-Davidson, which was struggling due to competition from the Japanese market, however, there is debate over how much the tariffs actually helped the company.
the rich asshole’s tariffs, ironically enough, are only hurting Harley-Davidson even more.
The president’s implementation of tariffs on steel imports could add $30 million to the company’s costs. Even worse, European leaders have hinted at possible retaliation for the tariffs against American companies like Harley-Davidson.
“A trade war has no winners and if it does not happen for the better, then we can work with our American friends and other allies on the core issue of this problem, overcapacity,” European commissioner for trade Cecilia Malmström said at a press conference in Brussels. “But if it does happen we will have to take measures to protect European jobs.”
Because roughly 16 percent of Harley’s sales are to Europe, the company released a statement cautioning against the tariffs: “A punitive, retaliatory tariff on Harley-Davidson motorcycles in any market would have a significant impact on our sales, our dealers, their suppliers and our customers in those markets.”
Harley-Davidson is based out of Wisconsin, the home state of House Speaker Paul Ryan. He also cautions against the tariffs, warning of the damage it would cause to the business.
“We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan,” said AshLee Strong, Ryan’s spokeswoman. “The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly don’t want to jeopardize those gains.”
The motorcycle company’s story is likely familiar to workers of Indiana’s Carrier plants, which closed and moved to Mexico. Candidate the rich asshole promised to save these jobs, yet ultimately failed to act appropriately. Around 700 workers were affected and forced to train Mexican citizens to do their jobs.
some rich asshole Jr. plans to ‘use his influence’ to expand GOP majorities in Congress: report
Don the rich asshole Jr. (Fox News)
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some rich asshole Jr., the eldest son of President some rich asshole, reportedly has a plan to increase the number of Republicans in Congress.
According to Axios, the president’s son “wants to use his influence within the Republican base” to expand GOP majorities in the House and Senate.
Following the loss of West Virginia Senate candidate Don Blankenship (R), the rich asshole Jr. has offered to help the remaining Republican candidate, Patrick Morrissey, by campaigning on his behalf, the report said.
the rich asshole Jr. is said to believe that a pro-gun, anti-media agenda he calls “MAGA conservatism” can defeat Democratic candidates in West Virginia, Missouri, Montana and Indiana.
Axis also reported that the rich asshole Jr. has hired Andy Surabian, who formerly worked with Steve Bannon, to provide strategic advice.
Poll: Majority of Republicans say FBI is framing the rich asshole
BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 05/10/18 10:49 AM EDT
A majority of Republicans said President the rich asshole is being framed by the FBI and the Department of Justice, according to a new poll from The Economist/YouGov released Wednesday.
When asked if the rich asshole is being framed, 61 percent of Republicans said he is. Seventeen percent said he is not and 21 percent said they are not sure.
The number is dramatically different among Democrats, with only 7 percent believing the rich asshole is facing a biased FBI that is framing him. The majority of Democrats — 78 percent — said he is not being framed.
One-fourth of independents said he is being framed, compared to the 39 percent who said he is not.
the rich asshole has in recent months leveled heavy criticism at the FBI and the Justice Department regarding the investigation into possible Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election.
He frequently refers to the probe as a “witch hunt” and accuses leadership at the agencies of being corrupt.
During an appearance on the “Fox & Friends” morning show last month, the rich asshole threatened to intervene at the Justice Department.
"Because of the fact that they have this witch hunt going on, with people in the Justice Department that shouldn't be there — they have a witch hunt against the president of the United States going on," the rich asshole said.
"You look at the corruption at the top of the FBI — it's a disgrace," the rich asshole said. "And our Justice Department, which I try and stay away from, but at some point I won't."
A separate poll from CBS News on Tuesday found that a majority of Americans say special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference is politically motivated.
The poll surveyed 1,500 adults online who were randomly selected from YouGov’s opt-in internet panel using sample matching. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
the rich asshole administration ends critical NASA greenhouse gas monitoring program
The move comes less than a month after a climate science denier took over the agency.
The rich asshole administration has gutted a crucial research program run by NASA that helped monitor greenhouse gases. Without the program, experts say they will have difficulty tracking national carbon emissions.
Science Magazine reported Wednesday that the White House has ended NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10 million-per-year program that has supported 65 projects since 2010. The effort measures carbon dioxide and methane using satellites and similar mechanisms.
Greenhouse gases are historically difficult to measure, something the CMS has sought to remedy. That data gathered is used both nationally and internationally, helping cities and countries around the world map their carbon emissions. Among other things, with the CMS gone it will be challenging to verify the emission reductions laid out by the Paris climate agreement in 2016.
Steve Cole, a D.C.-based NASA spokesperson, told Science that the program ended after a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill approved in March by Congress failed to even mention the effort. Citing “budget constraints and higher priorities within the science budget”, Cole said that existing grants will run their course but no new projects will receive a green light.
Kelly Sims Gallagher, who directs Tufts University’s Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, told the publication the decision was a “grave mistake.”
“If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement,” said Gallagher.
One major ongoing effort for the CMS recently has been understanding the nature of carbon contained in forests. Working with the U.S. Forest Service, NASA scientists have helped to generate critical research and access remote areas, including the isolated and remote Alaska interior. Tropical forest carbon inventories have also greatly improved with CMS assistance, allowing for more accurate measuring in developing areas.
Experts indicated they did not believe the end of the CMS would signal the end of monitoring and measuring carbon altogether. Rather, Europe is likely to rise up to fill the space left behind by the United States, part of a continuing trend under President the rich asshole’s leadership.
The rich asshole administration has sought repeatedly to undermine climate efforts, rolling back a number of Obama-era environmental initiatives and announcing a U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement last June. NASA has served as a source of ire before for the White House, which has sought to cut funding for the agency’s Earth Science division twice. That division is associated with measuring climate trends.
The decision to end the CMS marks a major swipe at NASA’s climate efforts and indication of what the agency may look like under Jim Bridenstine, who took over last month. Bridenstine’s confirmation process took seven and a half months, the longest time NASA has ever gone without a permanent leader.
A Republican Oklahoma congressman, Bridenstine is the first elected official to serve in this position, something Democratic lawmakers worry will make him too political. He is also a climate science denier without any scientific credentials.
Under pressure from Congress during his confirmation, the congressman pledged his support for the Earth Science division. Bridenstine has historically suggested the division be moved out of NASA entirely, potentially to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which is also reeling from spending cuts.
Morning Joe implicates vice president in Mueller probe: ‘Why does Mike Pence want to kill this investigation?’
Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough implicated Vice President Mike Pence in the coverup of potential Russia collusion by the rich asshole campaign.
The vice president told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that special counsel Robert Mueller should end his yearlong investigation into President some rich asshole and his associates that has resulted in five guilty pleas and 19 indictments.
“Our administration has been fully cooperating with the special counsel, and we’ll continue to,” Pence told Mitchell. “What I think is that it’s been about a year since this investigation began. Our administration has provided more than a million documents. We’ve fully cooperated in it, and in the interest of the country, I think it’s time to wrap it up.”
“I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion,” the vice president added.
The “Morning Joe” host said Pence’s comments raised serious questions about his own potential legal jeopardy in the probe.
“I think it is a fair time to start asking this question: What did Mike Pence know and when did he know it?” Scarborough said. “Mike Pence is an honorable man, Mike Pence says that Gen. (Michael) Flynn lied to him. Really? Did he? Is this the way Mike Pence wants this investigation to begin and then end prematurely before we get the truth to all the questions?”
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the transition period that Pence oversaw, and Scarborough said new evidence continues to be revealed in the Mueller probe.
“We’re finding out now that Russian oligarchs may have had money funneled to them by Michael Cohen,” Scarborough said. “The Southern District of New York is getting deep into this. We’re going to find out what Mike Pence knew and when Mike Pence knew it, about for instance that meeting that Don Jr. set up. Did Mike Pence know anything about some rich asshole lying when he brought everybody together talking about the purpose of that meeting?”
Scarborough cast doubt on Pence’s continuous claims of ignorance to what appears to be wrongdoing by his running mate and his campaign associates.
“I mean, Mike Pence has been claiming that he was just out in the dark and that he was just this clueless, hapless Indiana hoosier that some rich asshole and the rest of the White House said nothing to,” Scarborough said. “But you’ve just got to start asking yourself, if Mike Pence wants to kill an investigation that is pursuing how the Russians tried to undermine American democracy in 2016, my gosh, makes me sad to say this, Mike, but I guess we have to start asking the question why does Mike Pence want to kill this investigation? What did Mike Pence though about Gen. Flynn? Was he lied to or is Mike Pence the one who has been lying to us all this time?”
European leaders had reportedly agreed to the rich asshole’s Iran deal demands. the rich asshole walked anyway.
A report by the Associated Press claims European allies had given the president what he wanted when he chose to violate the landmark nuclear deal.
European leaders were prepared to give President the rich asshole exactly what he wanted in terms of a buffed up Iran nuclear deal when the U.S. president decided to violate the agreement anyway, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
According to the outlet, which spoke with a number of White House and State Department officials, foreign diplomats, and outside advisers, the rich asshole — who has been promising to scrap the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) since he first launched his presidential campaign in June 2015 — had requested a number of demands intended to “toughen” the deal, to which European allies had eventually agreed. The specific language was reportedly being worked out when the rich asshole chose to announce the U.S. withdrawal on Wednesday.
Three major U.S. allies — including Germany, the United Kingdom, and France — had already acquiesced to two of the rich asshole’s biggest demands: “new penalties on Iran’s ballistic missile inspections [and] expanded access for U.N. nuclear inspectors.” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had come to Washington, D.C. armed with a solution to the rich asshole’s third demand, an “extension of the restrictions on Iran’s enrichment beyond the current life of the deal.”
The JCPOA currently limits Iran’s development of centrifuges until 2025, and its uranium enrichment until 2030. Johnson had reportedly suggested that although these “sunset” clauses are immovable, foreign leaders could instead extend supervision of “Iran’s civil nuclear needs” to ensure that the nation “stayed within the bounds and didn’t approach a bomb.”
Under the limits of the JCPOA, Iran was already estimated to be at least one year away from being able to produce enough nuclear material for a bomb, but European leaders had also agreed that some sort of wording about this could be put in a supplemental agreement.
“[European leaders had] conceded that some expectation could be put into place in perpetuity that Iran should never get closer than one year from building a bomb. All that was left was to figure out creative language for how that constraint would be phrased that everyone could support,” the AP reported.
“We all played our part in helping the rich asshole administration maximize the pressure on North Korea, a strategy that now appears to be bearing fruit,” Johnson wrote in a New York Times op-ed Sunday. “We share the same concerns about Iran. I believe we are very close to a position that would address President the rich asshole’s concerns and strengthen trans-Atlantic unity.”
Johnson’s attempts at bridging the remaining gaps were reportedly not enough. By Monday afternoon, the rich asshole had tweeted that an announcement on the JCPOA was imminent. By Tuesday afternoon, the president had announced he would violate the deal altogether, against the wishes of close U.S. allies.
According to the AP, the rich asshole had not warned his international counterparts of his decision beforehand.
“France, Germany, and the UK regret the U.S. decision to leave the JCPOA,” French President Emanuel Macron tweeted Tuesday. Macron had previously urged the rich asshole, during a joint press conference in Washington, not to violate the agreement, saying he did “not want to repeat the mistakes of the past,” although he later admitted that the U.S. president would likely break from the deal anyway to please his supporter base.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian took a more aggressive tone, calling the rich asshole’s decision “isolationist, protectionist and unilateral logic,” but adding that France would continue to uphold its end of the deal.
“The deal is not dead. There is an American withdrawal from the deal but the deal is still there,” he told RTL Radio Wednesday evening.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the rich asshole’s decision meant European leaders would need to step up. “I think yesterday showed us that we in Europe will have to take more responsibility,” she told a group of Cabinet members Wednesday. “Germany, France and the UK have decided that we will abide by the agreement, and we will do everything we can to see that Iran also abides by its responsibilities in the future.”
Neither the AP report nor the rich asshole’s decision to violate the Iran deal are wholly surprising: previously, European leaders had said they were willing to work with the rich asshole to address any legitimate concerns he had with the deal, agreeing to impose sanctions on Iran if it violated any of the parameters, but the rich asshole wasn’t satisfied. The U.S. president reportedly wanted an entirely new deal, something which the Europeans said would never happen.
The president maintained that the JCPOA, as it stands, was not sufficient to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon — despite confirmation from his own defense secretary that the nation was abiding by the JCPOA guidelines.
“I’ve read it now three times…and I will say that it is written almost with an assumption that Iran would try to cheat,” Secretary James Mattis told lawmakers back in April, according to The Hill. “So the verification, what is in there, is actually pretty robust as far as our intrusive ability [to check on whether Iran is complying].”
the rich asshole’s decision to violate the Iran deal may have further consequences beyond straining U.S. relations with Europe. Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to NATO, argues that the move could also give away his intentions for North Korea, heading into his impending nuclear summit with leader Kim Jong-un.
“the rich asshole officials say that it sends a clear signal that Washington isn’t interested in just any deal — it wants complete denuclearization. But Pyongyang likely sees the decision as proof the United States cannot be trusted — that any deal reached with one president can be discarded by the next,” Daalder wrote in a column for Esquire on Wednesday. “That will make reaching any agreement with North Korea that much more difficult.”
the rich asshole says he will meet Kim on June 12 in Singapore
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 05/10/18 10:46 AM EDT
President the rich asshole announced Thursday his high-stakes summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will take place on June 12 in Singapore.
"The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th," he tweeted. "We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!"
The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th. We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!
The announcement capped off weeks of negotiations over the date and location for the talks that began in early March, when the president said he would accept Kim’s invitation to meet.
the rich asshole has previously suggested the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas would be the best place for the historic summit, but U.S. officials had urged him to stage the talks in a neutral third country.
Singapore maintains diplomatic relations with both the U.S. and North Korea.
The meeting will mark the first time a sitting U.S. president meets with the leader of North Korea.
the rich asshole has sought to keep the North Koreans off-balance ahead of the talks, suggesting that he could call them off if Pyongyang takes any steps toward ramping up nuclear activity.
“Everything can be scuttled. Lot of things can happen. A lot of good things can happen, a lot of bad things can happen. I believe that we have — both sides want to negotiate a deal,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
the rich asshole revealed the details of the meeting after North Korea released three American detainees who were imprisoned there on charges that were widely viewed as politically motivated.
the rich asshole met the three men early Thursday morning on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington, D.C., and suggested their release could pave the way toward an agreement on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
The president told reporters “it’s a great honor” to have the men back on U.S. soil, but said, “The true honor is going to be if we have a victory in getting rid of nuclear weapons.”
Some foreign policy experts have said the rich asshole is making a mistake in entering into talks with Kim, saying the meeting rewards his aggressive behavior and political repression.
They are also worried that the rich asshole could make too many concessions to Kim in pursuit of a nuclear deal, such all withdrawing all or some U.S. troops from South Korea.
the rich asshole and his team are confident, however, that he will find a way to end the nuclear threat posed by North Korea.
“President the rich asshole found a way to communicate in terms, I believe, that Kim Jong Un could finally hear,” Vice President Pence said Thursday in an interview with ABC News. “He could hear that this president was serious about achieving the objective that has eluded the world community for a quarter century: denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Pence says Cohen selling access to the president is none of your business
"Is that draining the swamp?"
During an interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence downplayed the pay-for-play scandal involving President the rich asshole’s longtime personal attorney and fixer as “a private matter.”
Mitchell pointed out to Pence that “you now have the president’s lawyer getting millions of dollars from companies that he says he can get access, including one company that had a Russian connection. Is that draining the swamp?”
Pence dismissed the scandal, and tried to distance himself from it.
“Well, what I can say is that, that private matter is something I don’t have any knowledge about, and the White House issued a statement saying the same,” he said.
Watch:
During interview with @mitchellreports, Vice President Pence calls for Bob Mueller to "wrap it up," dismisses Cohen pay-for-play revelations and payments from Russian oligarch as a "private matter... I don't have any knowledge about."
Pence’s comments come a day after we learned that the Novartis pharmaceutical company provided the rich asshole’s attorney, Michael Cohen, with $1.2 million in payments beginning in February 2017. Cohen doesn’t have any background in health care policy, and in a statement, Novartis admitted he did no real work for them.
As Talking Points Memo details, Novartis entered into the agreement with Cohen shortly after the rich asshole ramped up his rhetoric against pharmaceutical companies. On January 11, 2017, then then-president-elect accused them of “getting away with murder.” Norvartis’ statement says it “believed Michael Cohen could advise the company as to how the rich asshole administration might approach certain US healthcare policy matters.”
Novartis wasn’t alone — AT&T also provided Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants, with $200,000. Like Novartis, AT&T says Cohen did no “legal or lobbying work,” but the company made the payment while it was seeking approval from the rich asshole’s Justice Department to merge with Time-Warner.
Other companies made payments to Essential Consultants as well. A total of $500,000 came from Columbus Nova, a company controlled by a Russian oligarch named Viktor Vekselberg. Though Columbus Nova claimed it is “solely owned and controlled by Americans,” ThinkProgress reported on Wednesday that an archived version of its website indicates it was controlled by Vekselberg when the payments to Cohen began in January 2017.
Essential Consultants is the same shell company Cohen used to make a $130,000 hush payment just before the election to an adult film actress who says she had an affair with the rich asshole. the rich asshole initially claimed to have no knowledge of the payment, but was contradicted last week by his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who told Sean Hannity that the rich asshole reimbursed Cohen for the payment in installments throughout 2017.
Giuliani has since retracted his claim about the rich asshole reimbursing Cohen, but the White House has yet to provide an alternative timeline. On Wednesday, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders referred reporters’ questions about the Cohen scandal to Giuliani.
In short, Cohen appears to be at the center of a major pay-for-play scandal involving the president of the United States. But for vice president, it’s apparently nothing more than a “private matter.”
“Wrap it up”
During another portion of the interview with Mitchell, Cohen urged special counsel Robert Mueller to “wrap it up.”
“Our administration has been fully cooperating with the special counsel, and we’ll continue to,” Pence said, ignoring a question about whether he shares the rich asshole’s belief that the investigation is a “hoax.”
“What I think is that it’s been a year since this investigation began, our administration has provided over a million documents, we’ve fully cooperated in it, and in the interest of the country I think it’s time to wrap it up,” Pence said. “And I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion.”
Pence may have motives for encourage Mueller to end his investigation that go beyond looking out for the best interests of the country. As law professor Jed Shugerman has detailed, Pence was involved in the Comey firing and Michael Flynn scandal, meaning he too might be in legal jeopardy.
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