GOP senators don't raise McCain in meeting with the rich asshole
BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 05/15/18 02:36 PM EDT
Republican senators didn't raise controversial comments a White House staffer made about GOP Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) during a closed-door meeting with President the rich asshole on Tuesday.
Several GOP senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), said the issue did not come up during their hourlong meeting with the rich asshole.
the rich asshole's powwow with Senate Republicans comes amid a days-long firestorm over comments first reported by The Hill from White House special assistant Kelly Sadler, who dismissed McCain's opposition to Gina Haspel's CIA director nomination by saying McCain is "dying anyway."
McConnell, who praised McCain from the Senate floor on Monday evening, said on Tuesday that Sadler should publicly apologize.
"The person who said that should apologize and should apologize publicly," he told reporters.
The White House, however, has indicated that will not happen.
Deputy press secretary Raj Shah confirmed that Sadler called McCain's daughter, Meghan, to apologize for her remarks but said the matter was being "dealt with internally."
And the rich asshole on Twitter blasted not the insult but "the so-called leaks" coming out of the White House.
McConnell is the latest GOP senator to call for Sadler to apologize. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), McConnell's No. 2, said on Monday that an apology would be "appropriate" after she said a "really dumb thing."
Republican senators have rushed to McCain's defense since late last week. Though he's been absent from Washington since late last year, the 81-year-old senator is deeply respected among his colleagues on Capitol Hill.
But GOP senators, including some of McCain's biggest allies, acknowledged hours before the lunch that they would likely not bring up Sadler's remarks and appeared resigned to the fact that the White House would not issue a public apology.
"You know, that's not what we do in these meetings, okay? No one would have ever brought up something like that," retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker(Tenn.) — a previous target of the rich asshole's — told reporters after the lunch when asked if they brought up McCain.
Instead, they described the private lunch meeting with the rich asshole as a chance to take a victory lap on issues including North Korea, the economy and the Senate's record-breaking case on confirming the president's judicial nominees.
“It was very cordial,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who attended.
Senators say they discussed Iran and trade and that the rich asshole reiterated his demand that they secure the border.
the rich asshole, according to McConnell and GOP Sen. John Kennedy(La.), also made jokes during the lunch.
"The president's in a very good mood and really quite funny," McConnell said.
Kennedy declined to repeat the rich asshole's "funny jokes" but quipped that they were all "clean."
Alexander Bolton contributed. Updated at 3:19 p.m.
‘They’re laughing at him’: Thomas Friedman explains why the rich asshole screwed up the Israel embassy deal
Thomas Friedman (Photo: Screen capture)
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During a Tuesday conversation with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that President some rich asshole made a terrible deal, essentially giving away the farm, on any chance of Middle East peace.
Friedman explained that the Hamas violence and deaths seen in reaction to the embassy moving to Jerusalem were the radical Palestinian response, but he wondered what the rich asshole, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing to work with moderate Palestinians to achieve peace.
“What have the Israelis been doing with the good Palestinian leadership, [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas,” he continued. “Where is the Israeli imaginative, peaceful creation? Neither Hamas or Bibi have any peaceful end on the table right now. It is a tragedy, two bald men fighting over a cone.”
the rich asshole had promised peace in the Middle East, and assigned son-in-law Jared Kushner to achieve it. Yet, Friedman noted they’ve already bungled their shot at any kind of deal. He argued that the rich asshole had a chance to make a deal for the embassy by demanding Israel give a little too. Friedman suggested the deal be to “freeze all Israeli settlements in densely-populated areas in the West Bank, to preserve that zone for the two-state solution” in exchange for the new capital and embassy.
Cooper noted that example “would have been the Art of the Deal,” citing the rich asshole’s famous book.
“That would have been the Art of the Deal. the rich asshole did the Art of the Giveaway,” Friedman retorted.
“Had the rich asshole done that he could have come to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, and said, ‘I know you don’t like this embassy move but I got you something [Barack] Obama never got you, I got a freeze on Israeli settlements.’ Then he could have gone to the world and said, ‘Look what I have done! Advanced the process! I have done something hard and I want you guys to do something hard, accept Israeli tourists, give interviews to Israeli journalists.’ He could have a leverage. Instead he gave away the most valuable diplomatic real estate in the Middle East treasure box and he gave it away for free. Believe me, in jerusalem they are laughing at him. In the Arab world they’re laughing at him. They can’t believe what a sucker he was to take that bait and give it away for free when he could use it, he could have used it for leverage to truly advance the peace process.”
Watch the full take below:
the rich asshole administration releases plan to shift gun export approvals
BY LYDIA WHEELER - 05/15/18 01:32 PM EDT
The rich asshole administration on Tuesday announced a long-awaited proposal to transfer the approval of certain small gun exports, including semi-automatic rifles and ammunition, from the State Department to the Commerce Department.
Foreign policy advocates and gun manufacturers have been anxiously awaiting the rule change, which has been in the works since 2012.
Officials say the goal is to reduce regulatory burdens on manufacturers and promote American exports. But foreign policy experts and gun control advocates have said they think the approval transfer will lead to less congressional oversight of large gun export deals, causing U.S. guns to end up in the hands of criminal organizations, human rights abusers and terrorist groups.
“U.S. firearms exported to Mexican police have been used in massacres and forced disappearances,” John Lindsay-Poland, of Global Exchange’s Project to Stop U.S. Arms to Mexico, said in a statement. “We need international background checks to prevent gun exports to military and private groups that use them to commit violence or collude with organized crime.”
The State Department required manufacturers to pay a $2,250 annual registration fee. That will no longer be required by the Commerce Department.
Under the proposal, the State Department would shift the approval of exports of nonmilitary firearms and ammunition that are already commercially available, those under Categories I, II and III on the U.S. Munitions List — to the Commerce Department. Approvals for exports of certain parts and components of the guns will also shift.
A State Department spokesperson said firearms and related articles that are inherently for military use, like fully automatic guns or weapons that are not otherwise widely available in retail outlets, will remain under State Department purview.
Though flamethrowers are listed under Category II, a State Department official said the agency will continue to control those with a range of over 20 meters, which distinguishes those used to clear brush from those used in military combat.
The State Department official said the agency will also continue to control gun silencers, sound suppressors and mufflers as well as large component parts for fully automatic weapons.
The rule will be open to public comment for 45 days after it is published in the Federal Register. A Commerce Department official said the agency will review and respond to all of the comments it receives before releasing a final rule.
--Updated at 3:56 p.m.
the rich asshole nominates homophobic former Family Research Council chief to board of ‘religious freedom’ crusaders
Former Family Research Council chief Gary Bauer (Photo: Wikipedia)
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It was announced Tuesday that President some rich asshole nominated Gary Bauer to be the latest member of the Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Bauer once led the Family Research Council, the anti-LGBT organization that advocates that homosexuals are harmful to society. The group has even been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Before that, Bauer was known for his opposition to having an LGBT advisor to former President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the 1980s.
“Millions of Americans try to raise their children to believe that homosexuality is immoral,” he wrote in a 1987 memo. “In many states homosexual practices are illegal, including sodomy. For you to appoint a known homosexual to a Presidential Commission will give homosexuality a stamp of acceptability. It will drive a wedge between us and many of our socially conservative supporters.”
Candidate some rich asshole boasted of his support for LGBT Americans during the 2016 campaign.
“Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs,” the rich asshole even wrote in a June, 2016 tweet.
the rich asshole’s sudden support for Chinese company just became awkward, thanks to his own nominee
And yet the White House doesn't seem bothered.
During his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Bill Evanina — President the rich asshole’s nominee to head the newly created National Counterintelligence and Security Center — acknowledged that the Chinese telecom company the rich asshole tweeted on behalf of on Sunday, ZTE, represents a national security threat.
Evanina was responding to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) about a non-classified, bipartisan House Intelligence Committee report from 2012 about Chinese telecom companies, including ZTE. The company announced it was shutting down its smartphone business earlier this month after the Commerce Department punished it for repeatedly violating U.S. sanctions by selling products with American-made components to Iran and North Korea.
“The report concluded that the risks associated with ZTE’s provision of equipment to U.S. critical infrastructure could undermine American national security interests,” Wyden said. “Do you agree with that bipartisan support?”
“Senator Wyden, I do,” Evanina replied.
“They recommended that the United States should view with suspicion the continued penetration of the U.S. telecommunications market by ZTE. Do you agree with that?” Wyden followed up.
“Yes,” Evanina said.
Wyden tried to get Evanina to comment on the rich asshole’s tweet, but he declined. Later, however, Evanina told Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) he wouldn’t use a ZTE phone and would recommend that anyone in “any sort of position that is sensitive” avoid using them as well.
Watch:
On Sunday, the rich asshole posted an unusual tweet stating that “President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”
During the White House press briefing on Monday, deputy press secretary Raj Shah confirmed that the Commerce Department had been directed by the rich asshole “to look into the matter” of helping ZTE, but wasn’t able to explain why beyond noting “the issue has been raised at many levels by the Chinese government with various levels of our administration.”
Shortly after the briefing ending, the rich asshole posted a tweet noting that ZTE “buys a big percentage of individual parts from U.S. companies” and that his concern about the company “is also reflective of the larger trade deal we are negotiating with China and my personal relationship with President Xi.”
What the rich asshole did not mention, however, is that two days before his first tweet about ZTE, “a state-owned Chinese construction company called the Metallurgical Corporation of China announced it would float a $500 million loan to Indonesian developers to facilitate the construction of a vast ‘integrated lifestyle resort’ called MNC Lido City that includes the rich asshole-branded hotels, residences, and a golf course,” as Vox puts it.
During Monday’s briefing, Shah could not explain how the rich asshole Organization’s involvement in a foreign project partly financed by the Chinese government adheres to the Constitution’s emoluments clause and the rich asshole’s personal promise not to pursue new foreign business deals while he’s president.
“I’ll have to refer you to the rich asshole Organization,” Shah told a reporter who asked about the propriety of the deal.
While it’s unclear what link, if any, exists between the Chinese financing of a the rich asshole-linked project and the rich asshole’s sudden desire to help a large Chinese company, the president’s tweets are particularly odd given the rich asshole’s repeated attacks on China during his campaign, saying things like, “we can’t continue to allow China to rape our country,” and his repeated vows to put “America first.”
‘He out the rich asshole’d the rich asshole’: CNN’s Erin Burnett panel reveals how the rich asshole got schooled by Kim Jong-Un
CNN Erin Burnett and Jean Lee [Photo: Screen grab from video]
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News broke Tuesday afternoon that North Korea suspended their highly anticipated talk with South Korea.
While the information came as a shock to the White House, CNN’s Erin Burnett pointed out President the rich asshole’s ‘flowery’ language towards North Korea president King Jong-Un.
The rich asshole called Kim “honorable, “open,” and “excellent.” Burnett suggests that the rich asshole administration could have been “fooled” by King Jong-UN recent acts of politeness.
Jean Lee, Director for Korean history and public policy at the Wilson Center said:
“He might be eating his words, but I think North Korea is taking a page out of the president’s playbook by issuing contradictory statements and sewing confusion. So hopefully he understands this is something he’s been doing as well and the North Koreans are returning that.
“He out the rich asshole’d the rich asshole,” Burnett said.
Watch their views unfold about North and South Korea below:
the rich asshole renews call for immigration crackdown
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 05/15/18 12:26 PM EDT
President the rich asshole on Tuesday renewed his call for a crackdown on illegal immigration during an event honoring fallen law enforcement officers.
Speaking outside the U.S. Capitol, the rich asshole called on lawmakers to fund his proposed border wall, pass new measures cracking down on so-called sanctuary cities and end what he called “catch and release” immigration laws.
“We don’t want it anymore. We’ve had it. Enough is enough,” the rich asshole said at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service.
He said current policies “release violent criminals back into our communities” and put police and border patrol officers’ lives at risk.
the rich asshole also revived another controversial, but unfulfilled, campaign pledge: mandating capital punishment for people who kill police officers.
“We must end the attacks on our police and we must end them right now,” the president said. “We believe criminals who kill our police should get the death penalty. Bring it forth.”
the rich asshole has become increasingly frustrated with U.S. immigration laws, blasting them as too weak and blaming them for an uptick in illegal border crossings this year.
He reportedly dressed down Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for not being aggressive enough in going after people who cross illegally into the U.S.
the rich asshole’s remarks are the latest sign he believes the government is moving too slowly to fulfill some of the core promises of his 2016 campaign, including building a “big beautiful wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border and shutting off illegal immigration.
Many of the administration’s proposals and actions, including using family separation to deter illegal crossings, have run into fierce opposition from immigrants rights groups and lawmakers.
Rudy Giuliani warns Mueller to listen to the rich asshole — and threatens him with ‘additional step’
Special counsel Robert Mueller and some rich asshole (Wikimedia Commons)
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President some rich asshole’s legal counsel Rudy Giuliani said in an interview Tuesday that the White House is starting a campaign against special counsel Robert Mueller. If the prosecutor doesn’t heed their threats and cave into their demands, they might take “additional steps,” Bloomberg reported.
“We are going to try as best we can to put the message out there that it has been a year, there has been no evidence presented of collusion or obstruction, and it is about time for them to end the investigation,” Giuliani said. “We don’t want to signal our action if this doesn’t work — we are going to hope they listen to us — but obviously we have a Plan B and C.”
Giuliani also said that there is no reason for Mueller to interview the rich asshole. If Mueller wants to talk to the president, the former New York mayor said that he would need to turn over the 1.2 million pages of documents cataloging White House interviews and court documents. He also intends to demand that the investigation end shortly.
“It is hard to recommend an interview when the questions presented indicate they have no evidence, and it is hard not to get at least the appearance they are attempting to trap him into perjury,” Giuliani said.
The White House intends to roll out the campaign on the one-year anniversary of Mueller being appointed to oversee the investigation. To put the timeline in context, the Watergate investigation took more than two years and the GOP’s Benghazi investigation continued for four years after the 2012 attacks. In the investigation into former President Bill Clinton, special counsel Ken Starr was appointed Aug. 1994. Impeachment for Clinton was initiated in Dec. 1998.
the rich asshole Is Herding Immigrant Kids Into Concentration Camps After Ripping Them From Their Families
Remember that shameful time when we shoved Japanese-Americans (or seemingly anyone whose eyes were even slightly slanted) into concentration camps? Apparently, those were part of the “great” America the rich asshole wants to bring back. This time, however, his target is immigrant children. Yes, children.
Recently, the rich asshole administration announced that they would be ripping undocumented immigrants’ kids from their arms as soon as they crossed the border and separating them from their families — and if you were wondering what they were going to do with the kids after that, the absolute worst things going through your head weren’t nearly bad enough.
The Washington Post reports that the rich asshole is preparing to take those children whom he ripped from their families and shove them into Kiddie Koncentration Kamps — and he’s forcing our men and women in the armed forces to participate in what is perhaps his most indecent act yet.
The children will be shoved into warehouses on our military bases according to Defense Department communications. If this seems to horrible to be true, plans are already moving forward for Department of Health and Human Services personnel to visit military installations in Texas and Arkansas to evaluate their suitability for the camps.
This frightening and Hitlerian decision is, according to the rich asshole administration officials, intended to halt what they view as a “sharp increase in the number of families crossing the border illegally this spring, many of whom are Central Americans seeking asylum,” the Post reports.
“If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law,” Attorney General and former Keebler Elf Jeff Sessions announced in a speech last week.
“If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally” Sessions says. “It’s not our fault that somebody does that.”
While President Obama used military installations to shelter immigrants who were, like these children, fleeing violence in their own countries, he did not rip them from their families and he actually intended to help the kids. the rich asshole and his goons’ own statements show that the intent here is punishment rather than assistance.
the rich asshole supporters have previously referenced our super-awesome concentration camps for Japanese-Americans when talking about Muslim registry and internment. Many among us, including so-called “liberals,” said that he’d never actually do anything like that.
Now he’s doing it with children.
Michael Avenatti calls Cohen Clueless: he would not ‘know the truth if it fell out of the sky and landed on his head’
Jake Tapper/ Michael Avenatti [Photo: screen grab from video]
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Piece by piece, lawyer Michael Avenatti is narrowing in on the rich asshole’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Avenatti said he was “on a search for the truth.”
"You seem to be painting a picture of Michael Cohen. Put this picture together for us,” Tapper said.
Avenatti went into detail about Cohen’s spending habits and how he could be selling access to the president. It was revealed that Cohen lied directly about the rich asshole’s relationship with Russia in 2016.
However, Avenatti was not surprised about Cohen’s lies.
“Michael Cohen would not know the truth if it fell out of the sky and landed on his head,” Avenatti said.
Watch below:
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Republicans who have suggested the rich asshole deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for a meeting with North Korea's leader that hasn't even happened yet might want to hit the pause button.
When the rich asshole announced his plan to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, a group of right-wing radical House Republicans nominated their dear leader for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Maybe they should have waited for the meeting, scheduled for June 12, to actually take place first.
North Korea is now suggesting that meeting might not happen after all. The Washington Post reports that North Korea is threatening to pull out of the summit over joint military exercises conducted by the U.S. and South Korea.
“This exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said, “and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula.”
The drills, known as the Max Thunder exercise, are held annually. But given the tenuous new relationship between the rich asshole and the leader he not so long ago mocked as “Little Rocket Man,” North Korea is apparently using this as an excuse to cast doubt on next month’s meeting.
Not that the rich asshole possibly getting played by North Korea comes as a surprise to everyone.
In fact, former CIA Director John McLaughlin said a month ago — when Republicans were already showering the rich asshole with praise for his possible future summit — that’s exactly what had already happened.
“I am quite confident that North Korea has been studying [the rich asshole] very carefully,” McLaughlin said. “They understand he likes to claim credit for success. And they’ve already given him one thing that is potentially positive.”
Perhaps the rich asshole and his enablers should have saved some of the self-congratulatory hyperbole.
“Since taking office, President the rich asshole has worked tirelessly to apply maximum pressure on North Korea to end its illicit weapons program and bring peace to the region,” the letter nominating him for a Nobel reads.
Given North Korea’s threat on Tuesday — one that, according to many reports, the White House had not anticipated — that nomination might have been just a tad premature.
North Korea threatens to scrap the rich asshole summit
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un delivers a speech at the 4th national conference of war veterans in Pyongyang on July 25, 2015 (AFP Photo/)
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North Korea threatens to scrap the rich asshole summit over US-South Korea military drills, according to Yonhap.
WATCH: Dumbass Ivanka the rich asshole Can’t Even Say Our Country’s Name Correctly
Ivanka the rich asshole is an idiot just like the rest of her dumbass family, but if you need a perfect example you should consider that she is incapable of so much as saying the name of our country properly.
Ivanka, a woman who thinks her kid had a “birthday” at 8 months old because apparently words don’t have meaning anymore, was gleefully speaking at the opening of her daddy’s Jerusalem embassy as Israeli forces slaughtered unarmed protesters wholesale (including a baby) when she managed to somehow fuck up the name of our country.
“On behalf of the 45th President of the United States on America,” she says while the assembled crowd of morons claps. Naturally, everyone on the internet laughed at her — especially since she appeared to check the correct name of our country on the plaque next to her as she said it:
You know it’s bad when Ralph Wiggum sounds more intelligent than Ivanka.
Good God!!!! She doesn't even know where she lives!!!!
You had one job...
6 kids died for her to say this.
H
m
T
nKeep wondering if Ivanka is just the post-phonebooth, superpowered version of Tomi Lahren.
Her daddy says she’s the best kisser.
And they think Michelle Wolf was really needed— They write their own jokes!
Sometimes it’s difficult to “vogue” and speak words at the same time.
Isn't that how Kremlin Barbie is suppose to say it?
Is this how we make America great again?
the rich asshole administration won't approve lifetime limits on Medicaid
BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL - 05/15/18 11:48 AM EDT
The rich asshole administration will not approve state requests to impose lifetime limits on Medicaid coverage, breaking with conservatives who have pushed for the strict limitation.
“We’ve indicated we would not approve lifetime limits, and we’ve made that pretty clear to states,” Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma said Tuesday.
When asked about drug testing, Verma said only that the administration wants to evaluate state goals on an individual basis.
Earlier this month, the administration rejected Kansas’s request to impose lifetime limits on beneficiaries, but Maine, Arizona, Utah and Wisconsin had also requested the ability to cap how long people can receive benefits.
All of the state lifetime cap proposals reflected the administration's view that only the "able-bodied" will be impacted. Children, pregnant women and people with disabilities would be exempt from coverage limits.
Kansas’s proposal would have limited Medicaid coverage to three years, at which point people would lose access to Medicaid forever. Utah and Arizona are both seeking a maximum of five years of eligibility.
The rich asshole administration has made state flexibility on Medicaid a priority, but the refusal to consider lifetime limits shows that it is not willing to consider just any flexibility.
Advocates are already suing over the rich asshole administration’s decision to allow work requirements for Medicaid, and approving lifetime limits would have likely set off another legal battle.
Ex-White House religious freedom director outlines why the rich asshole’s new ‘faith’ office is so dangerous
Christian leaders praying over some rich asshole in the Oval Office (Photo: Screen capture)
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The former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships has raised concerns about President some rich asshole’s new “Faith and Opportunity Initiative” — and said it may actually limit religious freedoms.
Melissa Rogers, the former head of the White House’s faith office under President Barack Obama, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that during the last administration, the office “focused on the government’s partnerships with faith-based and community groups” and provided religious people resources to help them navigate such programs and groups.
The rich asshole’s new initiative, however, will strike “religious liberty protections for Americans who get government-subsidized social services.”
Under the Obama administration’s faith office, religious groups that received government funds were required to inform beneficiaries whose beliefs don’t line up with theirs of comparable services. Rogers used the case of an Orthodox Jewish man “placed in a government-subsidized job program that meets in a church” that would need accommodation because “his religious beliefs bar him from entering a church.”
“The order the rich asshole signed in early May eliminates the alternative-provider requirements,” the former director of the White House’s faith office wrote. “the rich asshole’s order also strikes the requirement that beneficiaries receive written notice of protections for their religious liberty.”
Though the rich asshole White House did not explain its change in the office, it did provide two justifications: that such referrals were a waste of time, and that anti-abortion religious groups receiving federal funding should not have to refer beneficiaries to providers that offer abortions.
“Available data suggests that referrals in general are rarely requested, and this specific kind of referral request seems even more unlikely,” Rogers wrote. “In such a case, however, the religious provider could request and receive an accommodation under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, one that would honor the objection and find another way to make the referral.”
“Removing religious liberty protections in the name of religious freedom taints the cause,” she continued. “Honoring freedom for faith-based providers, while taking it away from people receiving services, is wrong.”
Paul Manafort just got very bad news from a federal court
Bob Mueller isn't going anywhere.
Former the rich asshole campaign chair Paul Manafort, faces an array of criminal charges in two different federal courts, including money laundering charges and allegations that he worked as an unregistered agent for the Ukrainian government.
In response to these charges, Manafort claimed that he could not be prosecuted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller because the particular charges against him are outside of Mueller’s properly delegated authority. On Tuesday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, one of the two judges hearing the cases against Manafort, rejected these arguments. Much of her opinion tracks ThinkProgress’ analysis from last January, explaining why Manafort’s arguments were unlikely to prevail.
The charges before Judge Jackson arise out of Manafort’s “lobbying and political consulting activities on behalf of Ukraine, the pro-Russia political party in Ukraine, and the former president of Ukraine who fled to Russia in 2014.” Manafort claims that these charges are beyond Mueller’s authority, which extends to “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President some rich asshole,” and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation,” among other things.
As Judge Jackson explains, Manafort’s challenge to Mueller’s authority fails for four reasons.
First, the indictment “falls squarely” within Mueller’s authority to investigate the rich asshole campaign’s ties to Russia. Manafort was the campaign’s chairman, and “his work on behalf of the Russia-backed Ukrainian political party and connections to other Russian figures are matters of public record.”
Second, even if Mueller had exceeded his authority, the regulations governing appointments of special counsel provide that they “are not intended to, do not, and may not be relied upon to create any rights, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or equity, by any person or entity, in any matter, civil, criminal, or administrative.” So Manafort has no right to challenge an alleged violation of those regulations.
Third, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had broad authority to “authorize the Special Counsel to investigate not only ‘links and/or coordination,’ but also, ‘any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.'” So even if the charges against Manafort were not sufficiently tied to Russia, they could still potentially proceed under the remainder of the powers delegated to Mueller.
Finally, Mueller was appointed “to take over an existing investigation.” And it appears that the challenged indictment “were already a part of the ongoing inquiry that was lawfully transferred to the Special Counsel by the Department of Justice in May of 2017.” Additionally, Rosenstein “confirmed in writing that he assigned the Special Counsel the specific responsibility to investigate the very allegations that comprise the” challenged indictment.
So the charges in Jackson’s courtroom will proceed against Manafort, and they will be prosecuted by Robert Mueller.
To be clear, nothing in Jackson’s decision is especially surprising — Manafort’s challenge to Mueller’s authority was always a long shot that was unlikely to prevail. Nevertheless, Manafort’s claims seemed to take on a new life earlier this month when Judge T.S. Ellis, the judge hearing the remaining charges against Mueller, asked some skeptical questions about Mueller’s authority during a recent hearing.
The fact that Ellis asked such questions does not mean that he will rule in Manafort’s favor. Indeed, there is some evidence that Ellis is the kind of judge who likes to play devil’s advocate.
In fact, a courthouse observer told me that this judge is often hardest in court on the side he rules in favor of. https://t.co/5PkyqBHdUk— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) May 4, 2018
Nevertheless, Ellis’s questions inspired some breathless headlines from news outlets covering the trial. And President the rich asshole cited them in a speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA) to claim that Mueller’s indictment is a “phony Russia witch hunt.”
Judge Jackson’s opinion is a warning that the rich asshole might want to stop counting his chickens.
the rich asshole in clear violation of Constitution’s Emoluments Clause as China funds new the rich asshole resort project
President some rich asshole (AFP / NICHOLAS KAMM)
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The government watchdog group that has previously sued President some rich asshole over alleged ethics violations sharpened its focus this week on a billion-dollar development project involving the rich asshole Organization that is being partially financed by the Chinese government—calling it a clear violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
Norm Eisen, board chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), warned the president, “See you in court” over reports of the rich asshole’s latest constitutional violation.
This is a violation of the Emoluments Clause. A big one. See you in court some rich asshole https://t.co/JuSmCYChyh
— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) May 14, 2018
A billion-dollar resort project being developed in Indonesia by the president’s business empire, the rich asshole Organization, is to receive $500 million from the Chinese government. The president’s company has been involved in the project since 2015, according to the South China Morning Post.
After winning the 2016 election, the rich asshole refused to fully divest from his real estate business, choosing instead to place the company in the control of his two eldest sons. He still receives reports on the organization’s holdings and business dealings, and is able to withdraw funds from the rich asshole Organization accounts at any time.
the rich asshole’s continued involvement with his business empire has resulted in multiple violations of the Emoluments Clause, argues CREW. The group has sued him for illegally taking payments from foreign heads of state as well as state governors, as many international and American politicians have stayed at the rich asshole’s hotels, dined at his restaurants, and held events at his resorts since he became president.
“Diplomats openly claim that they patronize the President’s hotels to curry favor with him as President—a blatant violation on any reading,” wrote CREW last year in its response to the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
On Monday, the White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah refused to answer questions on the subject or explain the administration’s position on the deal during a press briefing when Los Angeles Times reporter Noah Bierman asked pointedly about the rich asshole’s involvement in a major project funded largely by the Chinese government—and how one could argue that the project does not violate the emoluments clause.
Shah dodged the question, suggesting that the the rich asshole Organization is entirely separate from the rich asshole’s presidency.
The White House cannot explain how the the rich asshole Organization’s involvement in a project in Indonesia partially financed by the Chinese gov't adheres to the emoluments clause and the rich asshole’s personal promise not to pursue new foreign business deals as president. https://t.co/oewgyXVOdH— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) May 15, 2018
Even Karl Rove admits the rich asshole is ‘the biggest leaker’ in the White House
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The complete lack of discipline starts at the top — and even veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove knows it.
the rich asshole lashed out at leaks coming from “traitors and cowards” who lurk amidst his White House staff. But even veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove admits that the rich asshole is the worst offender of them all.
“Who’s the biggest leaker in the White House?” Rove asked in an interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday. “It’s the president of the United States who calls up media figures all of the time and tells them stuff that he shouldn’t be telling them.”
Rove, who served as chief of staff under President George W. Bush, also stressed that the leaks are harming the White House.
“I’ve never seen a White House leak as much against itself as this one and these are people putting their own personal agendas above those of the country and the president that they serve,” he noted.
“Frankly it’s ridiculous, it’s despicable, it’s reprehensible and it does not help anyone.”
Then again, this is a White House that functions with zero self-discipline, translating into a record-setting pace of departures.
And that culture comes from the top.
The White House itself admitted that the rich asshole is often the one leaking stories they later deny. Indeed, he seems to love running a reality TV-style administration where players are pitted against each other.
The topic of leaks surged back into the headlines recently after anonymous sources confirmed that White House aide Kelly Sadler said Sen. John McCain’s opposition to prospective CIA director Gina Haspel didn’t matter because McCain, who has brain cancer, is “dying anyway.”
How widespread is the West Wing problem? When press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders held a meeting to discuss the McCain leak, the contents of that meeting were also quickly leaked.
the rich asshole may publicly denounce leaks that make his administration look bad. But his threatsto “find out who [the leakers] are” ring fairly hollow.
Keep in mind that prior to running for president, he had a long history of leaking stories about himself to the press. He would call reporters pretending to be a fictitious public relations man, such as John Barron.
Meanwhile, the attempted crackdown on leaks has led to some Keystone Kop scenarios. The Daily Beast recently reported that former National Security Council official Ezra Cohen-Watnick set out to monitor the communications of White House colleagues to figure out which staffers were feeding information to reporters.
But perhaps he ought to be monitoring the Oval Office, as well.
WATCH: the rich asshole pretends not to hear reporters’ questions about an apology for John McCain
President some rich asshole (Screen cap).
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President some rich asshole on Tuesday ignored reporters when he was asked if the White House owes Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) an apology after staffer Kelly Sadler mocked the Arizona senator because he is dying of brain cancer.
While walking through the Capital to a meeting with Republican lawmakers, the rich asshole stopped to talk to a group of reporters and noted that First Lady Melania the rich asshole was doing “really well” after undergoing a procedure on her kidney.
"The doctors were incredible” the rich asshole said. “Walter Reed [hospital] was fantastic. Thank you very much.”
Before the rich asshole could walk away, reporters shouted questions about how the White House intended to handle Sadler’s controversial remark that McCain “doesn’t matter” because he’s dying.
“Do you owe John McCain an apology?” one reporter bellowed.
But the rich asshole waved and walked away with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) at his side.
Several Republican senators have already said that they will not confront the rich asshole about the McCain remarks at today’s meeting.
Watch the video below.
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May 15, 2018
Once again, those who supported the rich asshole find that he's uninterested in returning the favor. Instead, his policies seem designed to make their lives worse.
the rich asshole’s policies often end up hurting his own supporters, as Lucerne International CEO Mary Buchzeiger confirmed at a trade hearing this week.
The hearings, held by office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), covered the rich asshole’s proposed tariffs on goods imported from China. On Tuesday, Buchzeiger gave her stark assessment of what the plan would do to her livelihood.
“The tariffs proposed by President the rich asshole would cripple my business and many like it in the Midwest,” Buchzeiger, a Republican who refers to the rich asshole as “my president,” said at the hearing. “The beating heart of what often is called ‘the rich asshole Country’ would be stifled by the unintended consequences of these tariffs.”
She added that under the rich asshole’s tariffs, she would be “essentially forced out of business.”
Buchzeiger is just the latest apparent the rich asshole supporter to get the shaft from his trade war. Wisconsin-based motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson took a hit to its stock price, just months after the rich asshole tax scam caused it to close its Kansas City plant.
And farmers in the rich asshole-supporting areas will suffer from retaliatory tariffs from China. A March study by the Brookings Institute showed that 12 of the 15 states that will likely take the biggest tariff hits are red states.
the rich asshole himself has admitted that the trade policies will cause “pain.” But he shrugged off the devastating consequences like those Buchzeiger describes as “a little hit.”
the rich asshole and the Republicans have hurt their own voters by sabotaging health care. And they are currently seeking to impose restrictions on food assistance that would also disproportionately affect red states. And as Americans suffer through the opioid crisis, his response has been a cruel farce, particularly for those in areas that support him.
The USTR’s tariffs hearing continues through Thursday, giving many more companies the opportunity to weigh in. But if the rich asshole’s record is any indication, even those on his side may be wasting their breath.
White House abruptly cancels their daily press briefing after yesterday’s disaster
White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders (Screenshot)
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The White House late Tuesday morning mysteriously canceled the “daily” press briefing after Monday’s absolutely disastrous one held by Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah. No reason was given for the cancellation.
But the rich asshole White House is facing even greater scrutiny this week than usual. Due today is the President’s formal disclosure, mandated by law, of any “liabilities that exceeded $10,000 at any time during calendar year 2017.” That would include any payments made to Stormy Daniels or any other potential payments to any other possible mistresses.
The rich asshole is also under heightened scrutiny and facing increasing outrage over his astonishingly tone-deaf tweets in support of a Chinese cell phone manufacturing giant that the U.S. government banned from selling its goods. the rich asshole promised to lift sanctions that he says are putting ZTE out of business. ZTE has been identified as violating American trade controls against Iran and North Korea and accused of engaging in cyber espionage against Americans.
Also odd is the First Lady’s sudden kidney surgery on Monday, which the President did not attend. The White House is refusing to discuss it, other than to issue a short press release. An administration spokesperson actually cited HIPAA regulations, claiming they prevented her from talking about Melania the rich asshole’s operation.
“I am not going to expand beyond the statement I put out. The First Lady is in good spirits and she is resting. There are HIPAA laws to consider, but she also deserves personal privacy,” Stephanie Grisham, communications director for the first lady, told CNN Tuesday “when asked why the routine procedure would require a multi-day hospital stay.”
Monday’s press briefing itself was a disaster.
Of the now 60 or more Palestinians killed by Israel forces, the White House insisted Hamas was entirely to blame. The dead include at least eight children and even an infant.
Raj Shah came up empty when pressed on who authorized two far right wing extremist pastors to preach at Monday’s opening celebration ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. Shah told reporters he just didn’t know how they came to be invited to speak.
One, Pastor Robert Jeffress, has said that Jews are going to hell. Also, anyone who practices any religion other than Christianity – including those of the Islamic and Mormon faiths. And, gay people.
The other, John Hagee, once said Hitler was fulfilling God’s plan when he slaughtered millions of Jews.
Shah said he did not know who invited them. He did not offer to find out, nor did he even condemn the pastor’s remarks. He merely questioned that they had made them, and said they don’t reflect the rich asshole White House’s positions.
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May 15, 2018
the rich asshole's embrace of cronyism has led him to nominate Gordon Hartogensis, brother-in-law of Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao, to run a government agency for which he has no prior experience.
the rich asshole has nominated Gordon Hartogensis, a man who does not appear to have any relevant experience, to run the government agency overseeing millions of pensions. The nominee also happens to be the brother-in-law of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.
An official White House release announced that Hartogensis has been nominated to be director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).
As part of the announcement, the White House did not reveal the family ties between Hartogensis and McConnell or Chao. He is married to Chao’s sister, Grace.
According to his bio on the White House release and his LinkedIn profile, Hartogensis has experience working with pensions and retirement. He certainly doesn’t have experience working for an agency the size of the PBGC.
The agency oversees and protects the retirement incomes of nearly 40 million Americans. It’s responsible for maintaining private pension plans and aiding retirees who rely on those plans.
Hartogensis’ most recent and current position was with the Hartogensis Family Trust, where he “managed a portfolio” of assets for his relatives. Before that he was a Forex trader and a technology executive.
Other than his connection to the rich asshole’s political ally McConnell and his Cabinet member Chao, nothing in Hartogensis’ resume and work history indicates someone who should be in such an important position.
By comparison, current director Thomas Reeder, nominated by President Obama, brought years of experience working at the Treasury Department. He also served as senior benefits counsel on the Senate Finance Committee staff. And he had over 20 years of legal experience at top-shelf law firms.
The omission of Hartogensis’ family background from the White House’s announcement implies a recognition of the appearance of cronyism around his nomination.
CNBC reporter Christina Wilkie said that the administration “won’t answer questions” on Hartogensis.
The nomination shows once again that the rich asshole’s claim to be “draining the swamp” is just a self-serving myth.
He has surrounded himself at the highest level with family members like his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner who have no experience in dealing with major foreign and domestic issues over which they now have control. And he has packed his Cabinet with like-minded thinkers, no matter how ill-equipped they may be for their roles.
the rich asshole’s nomination of Hartogensis as a sop to McConnell and Chao shows that his only inclination when it comes to the “swamp” is to fill it with even murkier water.
WATCH: the rich asshole gives family of fallen officer an awkward compliment at police memorial service
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President some rich asshole on Tuesday paid tribute to a fallen police officer with a strange remark about the dead cop’s genetics.
During an address at a memorial for fallen police officers on Capitol Hill, the rich asshole turned to one person in attendance behind him and told them that “your mom’s legacy will never die,” before then stating that the person’s mother had “good genes” and “the best genes I’ve ever seen.”
Talking about people’s genetic makeup is something of an obsession for the rich asshole.
In the past, he has openly boasted about his family’s genes, and has even gotten his own personal physician to issue glowing reports about his allegedly superior DNA.
Watch the rich asshole praising the dead officer’s genes below.
When a woman has more balls than this guy
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May 15, 2018
Scott Pruitt said he needed a full-time security detail after he received a wave of threats as head of the EPA. Turns out he made the request before he was even in office.
Another Scott Pruitt lie has been exposed, this one about his need for unprecedented, around-the-clock protection for his job overseeing the Environmental Protection Agency.
Trying to explain away the $3 million in taxpayer money that’s already been spent on Pruitt’s bizarre 24/7 security detail, the scandal-plagued EPA had insisted it was because of threats he received after he started on the job.
But in a response this week to a letter sent by Democratic Sens. Sheldon WhiteHouse of Rhode Island and Thomas Carper of Delaware, the EPA’s inspector general confirms that the agency’s lavish and costly plans to protect Pruitt were put in place before he ever started working for the rich asshole.
And yes, Pruitt himself demanded the massive upgrade.
“EPA’s Protective Service Detail began providing 24/7 coverage of the Administrator the first day he arrived,” Inspector General Arthur Elkins wrote.
The EPA’s original, hard-to-believe spin about responding to a wave of threats didn’t add up when the agency was forced to document some of the alleged threats on Pruitt. Turns out one of the instances came during a brief airport encounter when somebody yelled that he and his radical, pro-business agenda was “fucking up the environment.”
Another supposed “threat” was, as BuzzFeed reported, “someone drawing a mustache on Pruitt’s face on the cover of Newsweek and taping the magazine inside of an elevator at an EPA building.”
Also, on Tuesday it was revealed that the bill for Pruitt’s outsize security detail was so expansive that the EPA had to pull staffers off its criminal investigation unit in order to shadow the new EPA chief around.
This is a part of Pruitt’s hallmark corruption. Last month we learned that his demand that his office be fitted with a $43,000 “secure phone booth,” even though the EPA headquarters already had two such booths, violated federal spending laws.
So add more logs to the Pruitt scandal fire.
It’s gotten so bad that the conservative Weekly Standard magazine on Monday publicly called on him to resign.
“We reject the common assumption that public officials should get a pass so long as they hold the right policy opinions, whatever those opinions are,” the magazine announced. “We share Pruitt’s views on environmental deregulation and value his accomplishments in office. But the time has come for him to go.”
Meanwhile, how outlandish have Pruitt’s security demands been? It’s three times the amount of protection Obama’s EPA chief received.
And a previous EPA director during a Republican administration, Christine Todd Whitman, recently confirmed that she would often walk to work alone, without any protection. And that was in the wake of the 9/11 terror attack.
“The ethical tone-deafness of this man is just unbelievable, and it’s costing us taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Whitman said of Pruitt recently. “And people have got to start getting upset about it.”
Pruitt is the first EPA head in history to be guarded by a full-time security detail.
And now we know Pruitt’s agency lied about what it was needed.
The disturbing reason the rich asshole’s evangelical base is thrilled to see violence in Gaza
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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As the United States officially moved its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Monday, clashes in Gaza cast a dark pall over the ceremonies, which featured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, videotaped remarks from President some rich asshole and a speech by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The violence – which resulted from Israeli forces firing on protesters and has so far cost more than 50 lives and more than 2,700 injuries – was a stark contrast to the pomp and circumstance celebrating what some have called a bold move by President the rich asshole. Others, of course, have criticized it as a needless provocation.
This article was originally published at Salon
Critics of the decision worry it will effectively derail efforts to broker a peace between Israelis and Palestinians in order to please wealthy Republican donors like casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who was said to have met personally with the president to convince him of relocating the embassy. Considering Adelson’s influence it’s unsurprising he was in attendance Monday afternoon, but one voting bloc celebrating this event might be more surprising: evangelical Christians.
While video streamed on television of protesters bleeding and dying on the ground, I noticed very quickly a stark contrast on my social media feeds, where relatives and friends back home seemed to rejoice in the chaos. The turmoil in Gaza, according to them, represented a full vindication of the decision and further proof that something otherworldly was taking place in Israel.
I remember hearing something about this in Sunday school, somebody posted alongside pictures of death and destruction.
* * *
Growing up in rural Indiana, I was raised on a steady diet of conspiracy theories and apocalyptic dogma. Objects as innocuous as the clouds in the sky or tasks as commonplace as boiling water were imbued with spiritual import. According to my family Satan was ever-present as the hum of the refrigerator, and every new day meant another opportunity to resist and battle him with the word of God. Going astray or simply entertaining an impure thought was tantamount to being damned to a pit of fire for eternity.
* * *
Growing up in rural Indiana, I was raised on a steady diet of conspiracy theories and apocalyptic dogma. Objects as innocuous as the clouds in the sky or tasks as commonplace as boiling water were imbued with spiritual import. According to my family Satan was ever-present as the hum of the refrigerator, and every new day meant another opportunity to resist and battle him with the word of God. Going astray or simply entertaining an impure thought was tantamount to being damned to a pit of fire for eternity.
Every Sunday we were reminded of just how dire the battle was. Our preacher walked himself into a drenching sweat as he paced our church’s stage, his dog-eared Bible in hand, his gaze turned toward the ceiling as he pleaded with the almighty father to forgive his doomed flock. There was no gray area when it came to salvation. You were either among the chosen or destined to suffer, and our fate hinged on our every decision.
The moment of our judgment, we were reminded, could come at any moment. Death was always just one breath away. But, if somehow we managed to live long enough, we might very well be spectators to the End of the World. In this story there were two armies, one containing the multitude of the holy and the other a rambling throng of sinners lead by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Antichrist himself, each on a collision course that would cross paths any day.
“For you know quite well,” our pastor was fond of quoting, “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
My people didn’t treat this sermon like a metaphor or allegory. This was a foretold event that would come to pass at a time of our Lord’s choosing. When we played in the yard and took up sticks, we were swinging the sword of God and attacking barbarous hordes. While we watched the evening news and its litany of tragedies and disasters, Grandma would shake her head and mumble to herself: “Nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom.”
Every development, every new policy, every war and every epidemic was seen as further proof of approaching Armageddon. My grandma, and other members of my family who trafficked in conspiracy theories, read books and tabloids in search of further “end times” gospel. The specifics were always a little unclear and scattered. One week we were knee-deep in the time of Tribulation, a period of suffering that only Christ could deliver us from, and then we’d be inching up on the Rapture. Public figures were always rumored to be part of Satan’s conspiracy, wars cast as the final showdown between good and evil. b\But the constant story involved the nation of Israel and its eventual showdown with the Antichrist.
The engine for the Antichrist’s reign, Grandma told us, would be the New World Order, or a conglomeration of nations that would bind together, exorcise God, and enslave the holy people. Proof included treaties, any operation undertaken by the United Nations, developments in technology and communications.
Even more frightening, Grandma maintained, was a politician who could unite the country and the world by using his charismatic gifts.
“Beware false prophets,” she told me, alluding to the prophecy that the Antichrist would be accompanied by an evil but personable mystic. “If there’s anything you do, beware false prophets.”
* * *
Nearly 20 years would pass before I’d hear the End Times rhetoric again. My people began to worry more over secular problems like the decline of manufacturing, the closing of their factories, how their paychecks either vanished or else covered less and less of their bills. But in 2008, with Barack Obama’s rise from first-term senator to president of the United States of America, their eyes returned to Apocalypse.
* * *
Nearly 20 years would pass before I’d hear the End Times rhetoric again. My people began to worry more over secular problems like the decline of manufacturing, the closing of their factories, how their paychecks either vanished or else covered less and less of their bills. But in 2008, with Barack Obama’s rise from first-term senator to president of the United States of America, their eyes returned to Apocalypse.
According to a forward a relative printed off back then, the similarities between Obama and the Antichrist were undeniable.
According to THE BIBLE, it read, the anti-christ is a Muslim man in his 40s who will a. have THE GIFT OF SPEECH, b. PROMISE THE WORLD PEACE, c. offer HOPE and CHANGE, d. get into a position of power and then RUIN EVERYTHING while BRAGGING ABOUT HIS GREAT WORKS. Sound like anybody you know???
Like so many forwards, this one was inaccurate. Those attributes weren’t anywhere to be found in the gospel. (For one thing, the Prophet Muhammad was not born until late in the 6th century A.D., so Islam is never mentioned in the Bible.) But the people around me were convinced. When they criticized the Affordable Care Act they likened it to the abominable Mark of the Beast, saying the requirement to buy health insurance amounted to having the numbers 666 burned into your flesh. Obama’s soaring oration was regarded as a malevolent magic, his ability to inspire proof of his wicked powers.
So when some rich asshole challenged President Obama’s citizenship, many of my people read between the lines of the allegations. They doubted that Obama was American too, but they took the charges a step further. If he had been born in Kenya, and if that fact had been covered up by nefarious forces, just who was responsible?
They’d spent their lives being warned of the New World Order, and now here was proof of a larger, global conspiracy. To make matters worse, the confusion and anger surrounding the attacks of September 11 left little doubt which side of the biblical equation Muslims were on, and many suspected Obama of secretly adhering to their faith. For a backdrop to this intrigue, the economy was in free fall and seemed destined to end in depression. They’d been taught to look for signs of impending doom in tragedies, in major changes, in times of uncertainty. They’d been taught to see everything with eyes trained for the end of the world.
It didn’t help that their fears were being stoked by media selling panic. On Fox News they were prodded by Glenn Beck to buy gold coins they could use when society was ruined. Alex Jones hawked bunker rations and water purifiers between segments on New World Order conspiracies helmed by demonic pedophiles intent on killing or enslaving their families.
They bought guns by the armful.
They spent their paychecks on dried food that could survive nuclear wars.
They prepared “bug out” bags for their escape to their bug out location.
They watched round-the-clock news coverage that painted the world as a dangerous place in the midst of dangerous upheaval. Their Christian values were being challenged by the day. Their way of life trampled on just as their preachers and grandparents had warned them. They were ready for the end of all things. They were ready for a savior to appear and lead them into battle.
* * *
Last summer I was traveling the country and speaking to people who had lost touch with friends and family members over political disagreements stemming from the 2016 election. What I found, to a person, was a collection of people still coming to terms with the fact that those closest to them had changed in ways they’d never expected.
* * *
Last summer I was traveling the country and speaking to people who had lost touch with friends and family members over political disagreements stemming from the 2016 election. What I found, to a person, was a collection of people still coming to terms with the fact that those closest to them had changed in ways they’d never expected.
One interview was with a woman in Pittsburgh whose relationship with her father had been strained when he shared racist posts and memes on his Facebook wall. When I asked her for an example she produced her phone, scrolled through her photo album, and said, “This isn’t what I was talking about, but get a look at this.”
The picture she showed me was a meme that I hadn’t yet come across. In it, some rich asshole is signing a bill at his desk in the Oval Office. Behind him looms a ghostly Jesus Christ who guides his hand.
It reminded me of a night in October of 2016, when I’d been reporting from a rich asshole rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, a week after the “Access Hollywood” tape had been released and several women had stepped up to accuse the Republican nominee of sexual assault. There was mounting pressure on the rich asshole to withdraw, but the crowd wouldn’t hear it. They blamed the women, claiming they were either lying or uptight, and they blamed the media for promoting the story. Later, during the rich asshole’s speech, he was recounting how he’d come across famed basketball coach Bobby Knight’s number on his desk and said, “It was like a miracle from God. Right? It was from God.” As the crowd roared he noticed a sign upfront. He pointed and said, “That says ‘Jesus for the rich asshole.’ You’re right.”
Surely the billionaire mogul makes a strange savior, what with his multiple divorces, alleged liaisons with porn stars, and chronic lust for wealth and material things, but it’s important to remember the evangelical crowd grew up with Jimmy Swaggart’s tearful admission that he had sinned with a prostitute and is inundated with gospels that extol the virtues of prosperity. Google “the rich asshole” and “Christ” and see how the two have already been merged in the minds of many supporters.
He might be an imperfect messiah, but the evangelicals are convinced he is one of their own, a fact to which many evangelical leaders vocally bear witness despite his failings. It doesn’t hurt, after all, that he bested Hillary Clinton, a woman Alex Jones described as “possessed” and as smelling like sulfur, which Christians recognize immediately as the telltale odor of the devil. In his opposition to Barack Obama’s legacy, they see the rich asshole as a champion undoing “anti-American” acts by a secret Muslim tyrant who meant to brand them with Satan’s number and herd them into secret FEMA camps. When the Republican Party labels opponents as “globalists,” evangelicals hear echoes of the despotic New World Order.
the rich asshole’s erratic style is more than welcome. While most Americans worried that the rich asshole might provoke North Korea into a nuclear exchange, some evangelicals waited with bated breath for an event that would ultimately send them to heaven. the rich asshole’s violation of the Iran nuclear deal makes some nervous that gasoline is being thrown on an already volatile situation, but to evangelicals who have been waiting since 9/11 for a showdown between Christianity and Islam, it’s just another potential catalyst to paradise.
As websites and tracts focused on End Times scripture tell their readers, uprising and strife are nothing to fear. They are signs that God is keeping his promise of Revelation. The final entry of the Bible, which remains one of the most popular and oft-discussed books in the tome, assures readers the world is heading for a disastrous struggle between the forces of Good and Evil, a struggle in which Israel has been prophesied to play an integral role.
Blood and tumult in the Middle East are reasons to rejoice.
They don’t see chaos as the smoke unfurls in the afternoon sky.
They see glory.
Nikki Haley walks out of U.N. Security Council meeting as Palestinian envoy begins to speak
Israeli forces killed 62 Palestinians, and Nikki Haley won't even sit through a U.N. meeting.
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley walked out of a Security Council meeting on Tuesday when the Palestinian envoy began to speak, just hours after she praised Israel for acting with “restraint” in handling the protests in Gaza.
The Security Council was holding an emergency meeting to discuss the violence in Gaza. Israeli forces killed at least 62 Palestinians protesting along the border fence on Monday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. That number included several children, one of whom was just 8 months old. More than 3,100 others were wounded.
Haley told the Security Council that Hamas, with the help of Iran, was to blame for the violence and pointed to Molotov cocktails being flown into Israel via kites.
“I ask my colleagues here in the Security Council: who among us would accept this type of activity on your border?” she said. “No one would. No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.”
Haley did not mention the Israeli soldiers and snipers firing at the Palestinian protesters or the death toll from Monday. Less than two later, when Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations Riyad Mansour began to speak, she walked out of the meeting.
The rich asshole administration has repeatedly back Israel’s response to the protests on Monday, which created the highest death toll on a single day since 2014.
As Israeli forces dropped drones with tear gas and shot at Palestinian protesters in Gaza on Monday, U.S. President some rich asshole’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner called the protesters “part of the problem and not part of the solution.” Kushner’s family has longtime ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and previously failed to disclose that he once led a group that funded West Bank settlements, which are illegal under international law.
Hours after Kushner’s speech, White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah also claimed that the Palestinian deaths on Monday were “an unfortunate propaganda attempt” by Hamas.
The United States unveiled its new embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, the same day as Israel’s independence day, after having moved its location from Tel Aviv. The move has been roundly condemned by Palestinian leadership and other world leaders, as East Jerusalem — under Israeli occupation since 1967 — has been recognized as the capital of a future Palestinian state by the international community.
But the protests in Gaza were about more than the embassy move. Many of those involved were participating in the “March of Return” protests, which began on March 30, and involved tens of thousands of Palestinians marching to the Gaza border fence to demand the right to return to family homes lost in 1948.
“Our hardships induced this scream for life. The March of Return is a scream for life so that we may leave the walls of our prison,” Ahmad Abu Artema, the 33-year-old main organizer of the March of Return, told CNN. “Why would we die here in silence? We want our message to reach the world. We want to say to the world, ‘Here there is a people. A people searching for a life of dignity, human rights and freedom.'”
the rich asshole must file paperwork on Stormy Daniels hush money today — here’s why it could blow up in his face
Stormy Daniels and some rich asshole/Screenshots
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While the world is occupied with primary elections and Israeli violence against Palestinians, the Stormy Daniels beat quietly continues on.
Today is a major deadline for some rich asshole and this legal team, who must either disclose the debts some rich asshole owed his attorney Michael Cohen for his agreement with Stormy Daniels and any other similar hush-money pay-outs or double-down on a dicey legal strategy. The Ethics in Government Act establishes May 15 as the deadline for reporting any “liabilities that exceeded $10,000 at any time during calendar year 2017.”
That would include the $130,000 owed to Michael Cohen, who paid off Daniels in October 2016.
Does the rich asshole now disclose the Daniels payout and any others, or risk a full-blown investigation into the money by a federal agency?
Walter Shaub and Adav Noti, two attorneys specializing in campaign law wrote about that question for USA Today.
“The answer should be easy, but the president is in a difficult position. He left out the Daniels-related debt in the financial disclosure report he filed on June 14, 2017. Disclosing it now means acknowledging that he should have disclosed it last year,” they write. “Disclosure may also lead to damaging revelations if he omitted other liabilities from any past financial disclosure reports or incurred new ones since June.”
Essentially, the rich asshole has to admit it was a campaign expense that he previously failed to disclose or set himself up for an investigation by the Federal Election Commission.
Shaub and Noti go through all the loopholes that the rich asshole might try to use, all of which seem inconsistent with statements made by one or more members of his team. For example, claiming that the the rich asshole Organization was the debtor could cause legal headaches as hushing Daniels right before the election could lead to criminal prosecution under the law which bans corporations from giving money to federal candidates, if the rich asshole Organization was trying, “even in part, to help the rich asshole get elected and coordinated the payment with him.”
The legal experts said the rich asshole should just give up and come clean.
“Lacking a suitable loophole, the rich asshole should cut his losses. He may already be in trouble for omitting his debt to Cohen from last year’s report. If that omission was knowing and willful, the president may have violated a law that comes with civil and criminal penalties,” they write. “the rich asshole should avoid giving Justice another potential violation to investigate when he files his next financial disclosure report.”
The U.S. can only kill the Iran deal by damaging key alliances
As Iran, the E.U., and Russia work to save the deal, the rich asshole administration tries to figure out which of its partners to sanction first.
In a flurry of meetings, Iranian and European officials met on Tuesday in talks aimed at saving the 2015 nuclear deal after President some rich asshole announced last week that he would be pulling the United States out.
According to the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has complied with the terms of the agreement, which means President the rich asshole, has, in fact, violated the deal. Still, the United States expects Iran to continue to submit to IAEA inspections that the rich asshole administration has entirely disregarded.
All the other signatories to the deal — Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany — still support the deal. The European partners especially lobbied to convince President the rich asshole to stay in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but to no avail.
Richard Nephew, former Director for Iran on the National Security Staff, told ThinkProgress that there is “much they can do” to save the deal and work around U.S. banking sanctions, though “it is unclear whether they will do it.”
“The key issue is exposure to the United States,” said Nephew, answering questions via e-mail.
“If those foreign banks have no exposure to the United States, then it is hard for U.S. sanctions to touch them. A bigger, different issue relates to goods, which are also potentially sanctionable, but this then relates to the will and ability of governments to adopt counter sanctions strategies and even retaliatory sanctions to target U.S. interests in the event of U.S. sanctions use,” added Nephew, who is currently a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday designated the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” accusing him and the bank of backing Hezbollah, a political party with an armed faction that the United States sees as a terrorist organization.
The United States is also talking about reimposing sanctions — again, in violation of the deal — on Iran, and is threatening to go further.
National Security Adviser John Bolton — who has been an advocate for an actual war against Iran for time immemorial — even told CNN on Sunday that the United States is willing to impose sanctions on European companies that continue to trade with Iran.
While this tactic has already yielded some results — Siemens for instance, said it would not commit to any new deals with Iran in order to avoid U.S. sanctions — it’s hard to see how this will work in the long run, especially with British, French, and German companies.
Plus, there are partners such as China and Russia, who aren’t too bothered by U.S. sanctions (Russia is in the process of passing a law that would make complying with U.S. sanctions illegal).
On Monday, one day prior to his meeting with European officials in Brussels, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was in Moscow, meeting with Russian officials to discuss the JCPOA. French President Emmanuel Macron followed up with a visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, with both men reaffirming their commitment to the deal.
Good and substantive meetings with counterparts in Beijing & Moscow; heading to meet with EU High Rep and E3 FMs in Brussels. Will soon determine how P4+1 can guarantee Iran’s benefits under the #JCPOA, and preserve this unique achievement of diplomacy. pic.twitter.com/qH51vd7Dby— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) May 14, 2018
While, as Nephew points out, a partner like Russia is unlikely to buy enough Iranian oil and provide Iran with the goods it needs, it is definitely a “potential factor. They can engage in lots of evasion,” he added.
Trying to achieve a goal by sanctioning one’s trade and diplomatic partners can be like blowing up a bridge while still standing on it.
“Well, it is certainly not the preferred outcome!” said Nephew. When asked if this is a viable course for the United States, Nephew said it certainly was — rational, even — “if you think that this is the only way to solve this problem.”
“But, long-term … this diminishes the attractiveness of your economy if it will just be used for leverage and the utility of sanctions as a tool, if partners will see you as refusing to back down even in the face of an agreement,” he added.
So far, the rich asshole administration has been pretty heavy-handed with sanctions with little to show for it: While his administration had sanctioned over 700 entities and individuals by the end of this first year, with still more to come, it does seem that the rich asshole’s favorite tool might become even less effective as he stretches into the second year of his presidency and has to confront a growing number of foreign policy crises.
“This can lead to work-arounds for U.S. sanctions if not outright counter sanctions efforts,” said Nephew.
the rich asshole flack says Palestinians are to blame for getting killed: ‘They get shot as though it’s someone else’s fault’
Hogan Gidley (Fox News/screen grab)
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White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley on Tuesday argued that Palestinian protesters had themselves to blame after 60 were killed by Israeli forces this week.
According to reports, at least 60 demonstrators were killed in Gaza after President some rich asshole’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem sparked protests.
Gidley suggested that those who were killed had been part of a plot by the terrorist group Hamas.
“We’ve put the onus squarely on Hamas here,” Gidley told Fox News. “This is an organized purposeful propaganda technique by Hamas to try and garner support and sympathy from media outlets and from the rest of the global community. They have a clear disdain for life by using human shields repeatedly.”
“This is the type of action so that they will, in fact, get shot as though it’s someone else’s fault for their action,” he added. “This is clearly on Hamas.”
Watch the video below from Fox News.
White House spox @hogangidley45 blames Hamas for violence in Gaza, says they are just "trying to garner sympathy from media outlets." (More than 60 people died yesterday!) pic.twitter.com/xTrlnGycLa— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 15, 2018
Haley lauds Israel for its 'restraint' after at least 60 dead in Gaza
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 05/15/18 11:04 AM EDT
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, applauded Israeli forces on Wednesday for what she called their "restraint" in the face of protests in Gaza a day earlier that left at least 60 dead.
"No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has," Haley said at a U.N. Security Council meeting. "In fact, the record of several countries here today suggest that they would be less restrained."
Haley also blamed Hamas, a militant Palestinain Islamist group, for backing the demonstrations and encouraging protesters to rush the border fence with Israel over loudspeakers throughout the Gaza strip.
She said it was Hamas — not Israel — that was making the "lives of Palestinians miserable."
Her comments came as the U.S. blocked a Security Council resolutioncalling for a probe into the violence.
The protests in Gaza came as U.S. and Israeli officials gathered in Jerusalem on Monday to inaugurate Washington's new embassy in the highly contested city.
Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, alo said on Monday that responsibility for the violence in Gaza rested "squarely with Hamas," and defended Israel's "right to defend itself."
The embassy opening came on the same day that Israel marked the 70th anniversary of its establishment. For Palestinians, however, the day marks the Nakba — or "catastrophe" — when many were uprooted from their homes in 1948.
President the rich asshole's decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. Embassy was applauded by Israeli officials and pro-Israel groups. But the move was widely condemned by the international community, and leaders throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Jerusalem is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, and Palestinians have long aspired to establish the capital of a future Palestinian state in the eastern portion of the city. Since the rich asshole announced the embassy shift, Palestinian leaders have rejected Washington's role in any future peace talks.
the rich asshole’s alma mater is so embarrassed by the rich asshole’s ‘foibles’ that they won’t even mention the commander-in-chief
President some rich asshole and Huntsman Hall at the University of Pennsylvania, composite image. Penn photo by WestCoastivieS [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons
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When 20,000 convened for the University of Pennsylvania’s commencement on Monday, President some rich asshole (class of 1968) went unmentioned, The Atlantic reported Tuesday.
the rich asshole was also ignored at last year’s commencement. And the year before.
"The Atlantic reported. “When I reached out to Penn, the school declined to discuss the rich asshole.”
“We just don’t comment on individual politicians,” Penn’s vice president of university communications, Stephen MacCarthy, wrote in an email. “We are non-partisan, and try to limit any comments in the political sphere to specific issues that have an impact on the University.”
This is apparently a new policy, as Republican President Gerald Ford and Democratic Vice President Joe Biden both delivered commencement addresses at Penn while in office. So too did Republican First Lady Barbara Bush and Democratic First Lady Hillary Clinton.
“Penn’s silence on its most powerful alumnus stands in contrast with how other universities have related to their own presidential (or near-presidential) graduates,” The Atlantic noted. “That it is Penn and not any other Ivy League school now navigating this terrain is additionally awkward—for Penn, perhaps more than its peers, has long had status anxiety.”
Penn is also unique in that the school’s president, Amy Gutmann, is a scholar of democratic discourse.
“One of the things that does make Penn unique is that its president is a political philosopher, and a giant in her field,” explained Penn Prof. Jonathan Zimmerman. “Most of her work has been about the question of deliberation and discourse in democracy.”
The shunning of the commander-in-chief may be temporary, or it may continue, noted the director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, Barbara Perry observed.
“What will [Penn] do?” she asked. “Will they not want to claim him because of all these personal and professional foibles of his?”
Instead of inviting President the rich asshole to give the commencement address, the school instead invited NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell (class of 1967).
Mitchell, who hosts “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC, did not mention the rich asshole by name, but alluded to the rich asshole Era during her speech.
Today, we are living through a period that feels equally challenging, and disorienting,” Mitchell said. “But now, the challenges are subtler, even more complex—the social dilemmas affecting race, ethnicity, gender. Problems that new laws can address, but not always fix.”
“But in today’s politics, facts are described as ‘alternative,’ and truths are often relative,” Mitchell noted. “So, my next lesson: Be open-minded. Never stop learning.”
Watch Mitchell’s commencement speech:
Financial disclosure deadline traps the rich asshole in a dilemma of his own making
A dilemma for a president who does not like to admit mistakes.
By the end of the day Tuesday, President some rich asshole must file his federal financial disclosure form. This document presents the rich asshole with a dilemma: He must come clean about the nature of the payments made to Stormy Daniels, or else compound his legal problems.
The issue at hand is the $130,000 payment that was made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in October 2016 by the rich asshole’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen. For the bulk of his time in office, the rich asshole has assiduously denied all knowledge of the payment and Cohen, through another attorney, has stuck to his claim that he had never been reimbursed.
On May 2, however, the rich asshole’s newly installed attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared on Hannity and upended everything, revealing that the rich asshole had reimbursed Cohen for the money in a series of monthly payments over the course of 2017.
If Cohen’s payment to Daniels was a campaign expense, made to improve the rich asshole’s chances of winning the election, it presents the rich asshole and Cohen with a host of legal problems. But even it was not made for that purpose, as Giuliani sometimes claims, it was a debt that the rich asshole was required to disclose on his June 14, 2017 financial disclosure. He did not.
In interviews, Giuliani admitted that the rich asshole was “aware that Michael incurred expenses to help him” and “Michael [Cohen] knew he’d be reimbursed for it.” (Giuliani claims that Cohen’s payment was an “expense,” not a loan — a distinction that is not recognized under the law.)
The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has argued that the rich asshole’s failure to disclose his debt to Cohen in June 2017 was a violation of federal law, including “18 U.S.C. § 1001 and the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (‘EIGA’).” The law requires the rich asshole to disclose the “identity and category of value of the total liabilities owed to any creditor . . . which exceed $10,000 at any time during the preceding calendar year.”
This next filing, due Tuesday, covers the calendar year 2017. the rich asshole is faced with a difficult decision. He can come clean, report the debt he owed to Cohen over the course of 2017, and attempt to limit his legal exposure. Alternatively, the rich asshole can again omit the debt, making his legal problems even worse.
Apparently, the rich asshole also owed Cohen additional money in 2017 for unknown reasons. (Total payments to Cohen from the rich asshole over 2017 exceeded $350,000, according to Giuliani.) The nature of those debts may also have to be disclosed.
The clock is ticking.
WATCH LIVE: the rich asshole delivers remarks at the 37th annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service
President some rich asshole (AFP / Mandel NGAN)
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President some rich asshole will speak at the 37th Annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service on Tuesday morning. His speech is scheduled to begin around 11:00 a.m. ET. Watch live video below:
Haspel sticks by Senate testimony that appears to contradict government records
the rich asshole's pick to lead the agency claimed that her earlier testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee was accurate.
Acting CIA Director Gina Haspel, President the rich asshole’s pick to lead the agency, has doubled down on a claim she made during her confirmation hearing last week, in which she stated that a series of interrogation tapes destroyed by CIA officials in 2005 only contained footage “of one detainee,” despite official inventory records proving otherwise.
In answers obtained by ThinkProgress, Haspel, responding to requests for clarification from the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday, claimed that her comments about the number of prisoners depicted in the tapes were, in fact, accurate. In doing so, she pointed to a number of technicalities that she maintained supported her argument.
“My understanding, which is consistent with the record (available to the Committee in a classified forum), is that there were 92 videotapes, two of which were labeled ‘detainee 2,'” Haspel wrote. “The OGC [Office of the General Counsel] attorney who reviewed those tapes in 2002 found that ‘there are no viewable videotapes of the second detainee.’ Therefore, when the tapes were destroyed in 2005, there was only one detainee depicted.”
Haspel’s answer comes on the heels of open testimony she gave before the committee last week, during which she was pressed on her time overseeing a black site CIA prison in Thailand shortly after 9/11. During her tenure there, interrogators subjected prisoners to brutal tactics such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and confinement to small boxes. Haspel was later involved in the destruction of 92 videotapes of those interrogation sessions, for which no CIA officials were ever punished.
During her testimony, Haspel corrected Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who had incorrectly asserted the 92 videotapes had contained interrogation footage of 92 separate prisoners. “No, the tapes were recordings of only one detainee,” Haspel said. “It was 92 tapes of one detainee.”
As ThinkProgress previously reported, that claim contradicted official government records, as well as at least one court document filed by the legal team of one of the prisoners, whom the U.S. government is confining at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.
According to an undated CIA inventory of the tapes, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2011, 90 of the videotapes produced at the black site prison in Thailand were labeled “Detainee #1” and identified as “AZ” or “Abu Z” — otherwise known as Abu Zubaydah, a suspected Al Qaeda operative. The CIA notably waterboarded Zubaydah 83 times at the black site prison.
Those interrogation sessions took place before Haspel’s tenure there; however, Haspel oversaw the interrogation of at least one other prisoner — Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
Among the CIA inventory were two tapes labeled “Detainee #2.” It’s not clear whether al-Nashiri was the second prisoner identified on the tapes, although the inventory does list its purpose as a catalog of “all videotapes and other related materials created at [redacted] during the interrogations of Al-Qa’ida detainees…Abu ((Zubaydah)) and ‘Ahd Al-Rahim Al- ((Nashiri))….”
A 2014 Senate document on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program also refers to videotaped interrogations of both Zubaydah and al-Nashiri.
In July 2016, a Military Commissions document filed by lawyers for al-Nashiri also states that two of the CIA interrogation tapes include footage of the suspected operative. The document, part of a pending case against al-Nashiri, who is being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for his alleged role in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, argues that the destruction of those two tapes, as well as the 90 tapes of Zubaydah’s testimony, impacted al-Nashiri’s right to a fair trial.
“Critically, there is no dispute that he and Abu Zubaydah were subjected to EITs, and there is ample other evidence available to him to [supplement] this fact,” his lawyers argue. “The tapes would simply have been additional proof of an undisputed fact.”
Haspel’s claim this week that the two tapes suspected to have held footage of al-Nashiri, who was tortured during her tenure at the black site, may be supported by an October 2002 CIA policy known as “record and rewind” or “use and rewind.” That policy required officials documenting torture sessions to only keep one day’s worth of interrogations on a videotape at one time, forcing them to rewind the tape and record over it for the next session.
As previously noted, a 2004 CIA Inspector General report identified 11 of the 92 destroyed interrogation tapes blank, “except for one or two minutes of recording.” Two other tapes were identified as broken. The report does not specify which of the 92 tapes were affected.
The CIA did not respond to ThinkProgress’ previous requests for on-the-record comment.
GOP lawmakers attending the rich asshole lunch cower instead of confronting attack on McCain: ‘I’ve said all I’m going to say’
Lindsey Graham speaks to MSNBC (screen grab)
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Republican lawmakers suggested on Tuesday that none of the members attending a GOP lunch with President some rich asshole would confront him about White House staffer Kelly Sadler, who mocked Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) brain cancer.
The president on Tuesday is scheduled to travel to Capitol Hill just days after Sadler said McCain’s opposition to the rich asshole’s nominee for CIA director “doesn’t matter” because he is dying.
Two senators who are close to McCain were asked on Tuesday morning if they planned to address the comments during the meeting with the rich asshole.
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake argued that it was pointless to try to get an apology out of the White House.
“The notion that he’s going to change anything or say anything different, I just don’t see it. I mean, they’re not apologizing,” Flake said, according to NBC reporter Frank Thorp. “I suppose somebody could raise it, but I doubt they will.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime McCain friend, echoed Flake’s remarks.
“I’ve said all I’m going to say about that,” Graham reportedly told CNN’s Lauren Fox.
Sen @JeffFlake says he doubts he'll bring up the Kelly Sadler comment about McCain during the Senate GOP lunch with Trump, says, "I suppose somebody could raise it, but I doubt they will."
Why not bring up Kelly Sadler comment about McCain to Trump at the lunch with GOP senators?
FLAKE: "The notion that he’s going to change anything or say anything different, I just don’t see it. I mean, they’re not apologizing."
By
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May 15, 2018
Once again, the rich asshole is on his way to deep red country to bail out a struggling Republican.
Republicans have realized that Tennessee’s Senate race is a threat. And the rich asshole is preparing to jump in to save their struggling candidate.
According to a report from NBC, the rich asshole is headed to Nashville on May 29 to front a fundraiser for the Senate candidacy of Rep. Marsha Blackburn, with tickets starting at $2,700 apiece.
Blackburn, a far-right lawmaker who has promoted Birtherism, led a sham investigation against Planned Parenthood, and blocked regulations protecting internet privacy, ought to be a lock to succeed retiring Sen. Bob Corker. the rich asshole won the state by 26 points.
But she is struggling against former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, a moderate and well-liked politician. The last six polls of the race all show Bredesen leading Blackburn. Corker himself has refused to campaign against Bredesen, and later could not give a strong answer when asked by reporters why he was endorsing Blackburn.
Even one Fox News analyst now rates the race a toss-up.
Three months ago, Republicans were so panicked at the direction of the race that they begged Corker to cancel his retirement and run for another term — which he refused to do, and which resulted in Blackburn’s campaign furiously proclaiming anyone who thinks she is unviable is a “plain sexist pig.”
So far, the rich asshole has had to come to the aid of multiple Republican campaigns in conservative parts of the country, with mixed results.
Some candidates the rich asshole fundraised for did go on to win their elections, like Rep. Karen Handel (R-GA). On the other hand, the rich asshole’s intervention failed to prevent Republicans losing in Pennsylvania’s 18th District.
Moreover, Democrats have also pulled out the big guns in Tennessee, with Joe Biden headlining a Bredesen fundraiser in April.
The Senate elections in 2018 have long been considered tilted toward the GOP due to the overwhelming number of red-state Democrats defending their seats. But Republicans, in addition to Tennessee, are increasingly on the defensive in Nevada and Arizona, and even have to worry about Texas.
There is now a real possibility the GOP could lose both chambers of Congress. And the rich asshole, with his upcoming fundraiser for Blackburn, is off to the races to fight the rising tide.
the rich asshole proposal to weaken project reviews threatens the ‘Magna Carta of environmental law’
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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Building the U.S. Interstate highway system in the 1950s and 60s is often cited as one of government’s great achievements. But it had harmful impacts too. Many city communities were bulldozed to make space for freeways. Across the nation, people vigorously objected to having no say in these decisions, leading to “freeway revolts.”
This outcry, coupled with the growing environmental movement, gave rise to the idea – which were revolutionary at the time – that agencies should take a hard look at the environmental impacts of their actions, consider reasonable alternatives and allow community input. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), enacted in 1970, codified these principles and allowed citizens to sue if they believed government had not complied. Because it represents a turning point in thinking about environmental protection, NEPA has been called the “Magna Carta of environmental law.”
Despite NEPA’s demonstrated successes, critics have attacked it for years, usually based on anecdotes claiming that lengthy environmental reviews caused project delays. President some rich asshole’s infrastructure initiative is the latest example. And on May 3, 2018, the rich asshole administration announced that it will soon propose changes to the rules that guide federal agencies carrying out NEPA reviews.
As attorneys who held senior positions at the Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration, including managing the agency’s NEPA office, we have extensive experience with NEPA reviews. Expert studies reveal a vast disconnect between the evidence, which shows that NEPA is not the cause of project delays, and the sweeping changes that NEPA critics are proposing. This disconnect reveals that current proposals aren’t really about speeding up projects, but are instead part of a broad deregulatory agenda that prioritizes business interests over public benefits from environmental protection.
Greater Greater Washington, CC BY
NEPA reviews aren’t the cause of project delays
Over more than four decades, NEPA has helped government agencies make smarter choices about public infrastructure, reducing damage to both natural environments and communities and avoiding the costs of correcting ill-considered projects.
For example, in the 1990s Michigan’s state transportation agency wanted to build a four-lane highway across a huge swath of important wetlands. Using NEPA, citizens forced the state to consider alternatives. Ultimately the state decided to expand an existing highway instead, dramatically reducing environmental harm and saving US$1.5 billion. Similar stories have occurred across the country.
Critics have long used “NEPA is slowing projects down!” as their rallying cry. Independent experts have looked at the evidence and reached a different conclusion.
The most authoritative independent studies were done by the Government Accounting Office in 2014 and the Congressional Research Service in 2011 and 2012. They found that the vast majority of projects have very streamlined reviews.
About 95 percent of all projects subject to NEPA go through a very short process called a “categorical exclusion” that usually takes from a few days to a few months. Another 4 percent have a short and straightforward review, called an “environmental assessment,” that usually takes between four and 18 months. Less than 1 percent of projects are subject to a full review, which is called an “environmental impact statement.”
Typically, these are large-scale initiatives such as a new highway, a major dredging project or a multistate pipeline. You wouldn’t know it from rhetoric in Washington, but the sweeping changes being proposed to NEPA are focused on less than 1 percent of projects.
These independent investigations also found that NEPA reviews are not the reason that the biggest projects take time. State and local issues, such as funding shortfalls, changing priorities and local controversy, are the most significant influence on whether a project moves forward quickly or takes longer than anticipated. Of course, there are examples where environmental reviews took too long, but in many cases these reviews started and stopped for reasons unrelated to environmental issues.
USDA
In fact, by requiring agencies to consider alternatives to their envisioned projects, environmental reviews can speed things up by identifying better options and solving problems that could be costly or cause delays in the long run – a common issue in highway construction, for example. As our shop teachers advised, “Measure twice, cut once.” This is one reason why federal agencies that use NEPA most, including the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Energy, have long voiced support for it.
Not about efficiency
Enshrining unsupported policy in statutes passed by Congress makes those choices much harder to fix. Here’s what the president wants to do that would require changing the law:
– Take environmental agencies out of NEPA reviews. Congress recognized that some federal agencies are focused on building things, like highways or energy projects, and that protecting the environment is not their mission or area of expertise. That’s why it gave EPA a central role in NEPA studies by other agencies.
EPA involvement has helped reduce adverse environmental impacts through early up front coordination, without adding time. The agency routinely produces its comments within 30 days. The rich asshole infrastructure plan proposes to eliminate EPA’s review role.
– Cut a huge hole in consideration of alternatives. The rich asshole proposal would insert waffle words, like provisions limiting alternatives to those that the applicant finds “economically feasible” or are within the applicant’s “capability,” into NEPA’s requirement for agencies to consider reasonable alternatives. This approach allows applicants to avoid considering options they don’t like.
Consideration of alternatives is the heart of NEPA. Thinking hard about how projects can be done with less environmental damage – for example, by reusing an already developed site instead of paving over open space – improves designs, saves money and builds public support.
– Set the stage for getting rid of NEPA completely. In case anyone misses the point, the rich asshole plan allows some projects to bypass all environmental reviews on a “pilot” basis. A recent report by the conservative Heritage Foundation follows the same playbook by calling for repeal of NEPA.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File
Change NEPA practice, not the lawOver the last 45 years federal agencies have improved their processes for carrying out NEPA reviews, through steps such as providing more up front consultation. The Obama administration was continuing that effort with a number of consensus efficiency improvements that show promise for speeding things up without undercutting NEPA’s important goals.
By requiring government agencies to think before they act, NEPA has avoided countless harmful and ill-considered ideas. As the secretary of energy said in 1992, after halting a project that would have cost billions, “[T]hank God for NEPA because there were so many pressures to make a selection for a technology that might have been forced upon us and that would have been wrong for the country.”
Federal agencies should keep finding ways to implement NEPA more efficiently. What the federal government shouldn’t do is make enormous statutory changes based on incorrect claims about a fraction of 1 percent of projects – or disregard the lesson of the last 45 years that the most efficient choice is to build things right the first time.
Janet McCabe, Professor of Practice of Law, Indiana University and Cynthia Giles, Executive Fellow And Director Of Strategic Initiatives, Energy & Environment Lab, University of Chicago
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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