May the 4th be with you.
Usually, Fridays are a slow day for news and such. Not with this administration.
Bill Maher hilariously mocks ‘senile’ Giuliani: ‘You’ve hit rock bottom when the rich asshole is cleaning up your quotes’
Bill Maher (Photo: RealTime Twitter)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Cable news talk shows spent nearly 48 hours watching President some rich asshole’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani hang his own client out to dry. It was as if the former New York mayor had several different ways to try and fit his foot in his mouth. It was so absurd that HBO host Bill Maher said it made him wonder if Giuliani was suffering from senility.
“Welcome to this week’s episode of ‘I Don’t Even Know Where to Start,'” The “Real Time” host told his Friday audience. Maher noted that it seems the rich asshole has moved from having his lawyer Michael Cohen to hiring Giuliani. “He’s gone from someone carrying a bat to someone who turns into one.”
After the catastrophe on Fox this week, Maher suggested that the person “who really needs money to hush is Rudy.”
“Here’s what we’re supposed to believe,” the host broke down. “That the rich asshole has a default arrangement with his lawyer that if any porn star, anywhere in America, ‘that I banged at a golf club says she did, you don’t have to check with me, just pay her.'”
Because the rich asshole sits and watches Fox all day, Maher said that he saw his lawyer on television and tweeted out that it came from his own personal porn star payout slush fund and he didn’t understand the fuss.
“It’s simply a donation to Stormy for some charity work she did on my penis,” Maher joked. He then explained that today the two men reversed course on everything that was said the 48 hours previously.
“You know you’ve hit rock bottom when the rich asshole is cleaning up your quotes,” the host said. “‘Oh that’s not what Rudy meant to say. Here to explain is the monkey from ‘Rampage.'”
He went on to say that the two men don’t even seem to be able to understand who sent who out to what show to talk about what.
“First of all, they’re both senile,” Maher quipped. “They’re both f*ckin senile. Guys! You’ve got to write your lies down!”
Watch the full opener below:
CNN’s Anderson Cooper slams yet another the rich asshole supporter who claims he never heard the president lie
CNN's Anderson Cooper (left) and the rich asshole supporter Paris Dennard (right). Image via screengrab.
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
For the second time this week, CNN’s Anderson Cooper took some rich asshole supporter to task for claiming they’d never heard the president lie amid news that the president personally repaid his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 “hush agreement” payout to Stormy Daniels in 2016.
When news of the payout first broke, USA Today’s Kirsten Powers told the panel, “I don’t know which the rich asshole supporter I was sitting with, and we were all told that we were insane that we thought Michael Cohen was lying.”
“We were all told we were completely crazy,” she continued, facing the rich asshole supporters Jason Miller and Paris Dennard. “And honestly, I think you’re doing it again.”
“First of all,” Dennard said, “the president didn’t lie.”
Incredulous, Cooper asked the rich asshole supporter if he’d ever heard the president lie.
“Off the top of my head,” Dennard responded, “I can't recall.”
“No?” the host asked him. “So you believe millions of illegal immigrants voted in California and that’s why Hillary Clinton won the popular vote?”
Dennard did not respond directly, instead saying Clinton lost the election to the rich asshole “because she did a horrible job.”
Watch below, via CNN:
the rich asshole knew about Stormy Daniels payment months before denial: report
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 05/04/18 09:55 PM EDT
President the rich asshole was aware of a six-figure hush-money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels months before he denied knowing about the transaction, The New York Times reported Friday, citing people familiar with the arrangement.
When exactly the rich asshole learned of the payment is unclear. But according to the Times, the rich asshole knew when he denied knowledge of the payment to reporters in April that his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, had succeeded in silencing Daniels' allegations that she had an affair with the president.
Questions surfaced once again this week about when the rich asshole became aware of the payment to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, after the rich asshole lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that the rich asshole had reimbursed Cohen for the payment.
That directly contradicted the rich asshole's own claims about the transaction, which he previously denied knowing anything about while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on April 5.
Giuliani also said that the rich asshole reimbursed Cohen $460,000 or $470,000 – much higher than the $130,000 Cohen has acknowledged he paid to Daniels. One person familiar with the agreement told the Times that the payment amounted to $420,000 over 12 months.
The hush-money payment was part of a 2016 nondisclosure agreement intended to keep Daniels from going public with allegations that she had an affair with the rich asshole in 2006, just months after his wife Melania gave birth to their son.
Daniels is currently suing to void that nondisclosure agreement.
the rich asshole has denied having an affair with Daniels. He acknowledged in a tweet on Thursday that he reimbursed Cohen, but insisted that the arrangement was only made to protect his family and that none of the money was tied to his presidential campaign.
the rich asshole Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg knew since last year that Cohen was being reimbursed for the hush-money payment in the form of a $35,000-per-month retainer, the Times reported.
‘the rich asshole knew’ about Stormy Daniels hush money ‘months before he denied any knowledge of it’: NYT
President some rich asshole
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
What some rich asshole knew about hush money payments to former adult movie performer Stormy Daniels — and when he knew it — are in further question after a Friday evening report in The New York Times.
Citing two sources, The Times reports, “President the rich asshole knew about a six-figure payment that Michael D. Cohen, his personal lawyer, made to a pornographic film actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard Air Force One in April.”
The report noted that “three people close to the matter said that some rich asshole knew that Mr. Cohen had succeeded in keeping the allegations from becoming public at the time the president denied it.”
the rich asshole Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg also reportedly knew about the Cohen reimbursement situation, which could lead to further investigations into the rich asshole family business.
“There’s no question it opens up another avenue of inquiry into the depths of the involvement of the rich asshole Organization,” Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, told The Times.
Michael Cohen is paid to settle ‘nefarious acts’ the rich asshole doesn’t want to get out: Watergate veteran Carl Bernstein
some rich asshole's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen (left, via Bryan R. Smith/AFP) and Watergate veteran journalist Carl Bernstein (right, via screengrab).
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Immediately after the Wall Street Journal broke news that the president’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen made nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in 2016 from his work for some rich asshole, veteran Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein offered his take on the revelation.
The payment — which likely accounted for Rudy Giuliani’s bombastic claim that the rich asshole personally repaid Cohen for the $130,000 “hush money” agreement with Stormy Daniels — has “all the appearances of a campaign slush fund to pay for nefarious acts that the candidate did not want known.”
“The key to Watergate that really broke everything open was the discovery of a slush fund that was used for nefarious purposes that was meant to be hidden,” the journalist who broke the story of President Nixon’s wiretap and subsequent cover-up told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“I don’t wanna speculate on where this is gonna go or what it means,” Bernstein continued, “but it is all part of a pattern that we are seeing in this investigation and why from the beginning Michael Cohen has been key to everything having to do with nefarious activities in the rich asshole campaign and also figures in the Russia investigation.”
Watch below, via CNN:
Michael Cohen pocketed $774,000 for transactions during the rich asshole campaign
the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen (CNN screen grab)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
President some rich asshole’s longtime attorney and fixer gained access to as much as $774,000 from two financial transactions conducted during the 2016 president campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
During the winter of 2015/2016, Cohen gained potential access to $529,000 via a new mortgage for a rich asshole World Tower condominium owned by Cohen’s in-laws. Months later, Cohen increased his ability to borrow on a bank credit line by $245,000.
Cohen has said he used his home-equity line of credit to pay $130,000 to adult video star Stormy Daniels.
‘Send in the G Men’: Devin Nunes calls for John Kerry to be arrested by the FBI
Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA), photo by Gage Skidmore and John Kerry, official portrait. Composite image.
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is calling for former Secretary of State John Kerry to be the very first person every arrested under a constitutionally dubious 1799 law.
Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA) made his demand to imprison the former Massachusetts Democrat under the Logan Act, which could theoretically result in three year in federal prison.
The allegations followed a new Boston Globe report on former Secretary of State Kerry working to save the Iran nuclear deal.
SCOOP: John Kerry is very, very quietly playing quasi-diplomat, meeting with foreign leaders of France and Iran to save the Iran nuclear deal via @mviser bostonglobe.com/news/nation/20…
Rep. Nunes retweeted the story, saying it was time to “Send in the G Men.”
“G Men” is short for “government men” and since 1935 has been used exclusively to refer to FBI special agents, the Bureau claims.
Only two indictments have ever been made under the Logan Act, with neither going to to trial.
CNN panel mocks the rich asshole team’s ‘grotesque and disgraceful’ Stormy Daniels story: These are ‘The Days of our Lives’
Stormy Danilels, some rich asshole -- (NBC screencapture/SOTU screencapture)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
A CNN panel on Friday tore into the shifting explanations from some rich asshole’s team about the $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels and subsequent efforts to cover that payment up.
“More sands through the hourglass of the days of our lives,” CNN’s Jim Acosta began Friday “Rudy Giuliani trying to clean up these comments today, and the president saying that he didn’t have his facts first or didn’t have his facts straight.”
Acosta explains the rich asshole this morning “tweeted about fake news and then said [lawyer] Rudy Giuliani didn’t have his facts straight.” The guest host asked CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, “what is happening here? “
“What is happening here is this is a perfect metaphor for the whole story,” Toobin replied. “The one thing that Rudy Giuliani said to [Fox News host] Sean Hannity that was unambiguously true was that the payment to Stormy Daniels was right before the election—to stop the bad news from coming out. They had sex supposedly in 2006. but ten years later on the eve of the election.”
“It was a campaign cover-up,” Acosta offered.
“Tt was of course related the campaign cover-up,” Toobin explained. “So the correction today was to turn truth into a lie. So he was actually true to Sean Hannity, but the situation is so absurd that his correction today made the statement false where he said, ‘Oh, it is like a coincidence it was October of 2016.’”
“This is so grotesque and so disgraceful the way they are lying about this,” Toobin said.
Watch below, via CNN:
‘I don’t think his meds have kicked in’: Michael Cohen friend says Rudy Giuliani ‘is not there’
Advertising executive, television personality and author Donny Deutsch.
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Television personality and longtime Michael Cohen friend Donny Deutsch suggested at pharmaceutical deficiencies could explain former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s defenses of President some rich asshole, during a Friday appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House.”
“It is abundantly clear — and more clear by the hour — that the president is far more worried about what his friend, your friend, Michael Cohen, has on him,” host Nicolle Wallace observed.
“Yeah, I spoke to Michael Cohen yesterday,” Deutsch noted. “I said to Michael, ‘what do you make of it?’ He goes, ‘he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ And trump basically came out today and said the same thing and Giuliani came out today and said the same thing.”
“I predict Giuliani will be out in two weeks,” he argued. “This is the beginning of what will be a continued circus of stupidity, and we’ll watch it unfold.
Former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Frank Figliuzzi, agreed about Giuliani’s job security.
“I’m with the rest of the panel, I think Giuliani, his days are numbered,” Figliuzzi predicted. “He’s not going to hang around very long.”
“We forget what Giuliani was like during the campaign,” Deutsch said. “He was unhinged.”
“I don’t think his meds have kicked in,” he continued. “I think maybe he’s changed the cocktail but it doesn’t seem to be working.”
“You can visually watch this guy, he’s not there,” Deutsch concluded.
Giuliani’s cleanup attempt leaves the rich asshole’s defense in tatters
By
-
Rudy Giuliani's written statement, an attempt to clean up his previous remarks about the rich asshole's personal involvement in the Stormy Daniels scandal, does nothing for the rich asshole's cause.
Rudy Giuliani, who has had a disastrous week as the rich asshole’s mouthpiece, tried to clean up some of his recent comments that tied the rich asshole directly to payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels. And it was another disaster.
Earlier in the week, Giuliani revealed, while in a cozy conversation with pro-the rich asshole Fox News host Sean Hannity, that the rich asshole knew the $130,000 he handed off to attorney-fixer Michael Cohen was being used to keep his affair quiet.
Immediately, the rich asshole team was forced to try to spin their way out of that situation, an effort capped off by none other than the rich asshole himself, who insisted to reporters this morning that Giuliani’s facts were wrong.
the rich asshole’s remarks were followed by a formal statement from Giuliani, who is apparently trying to stay in the rich asshole’s orbit longer than some of his other promoters.
But Giuliani’s statement was a mess. He says the cleanup document’s intent is to “clarify the views I expressed over the past few days.” Then document immediately gets deceptive.
Giuliani refers to Daniels’ story about the affair as “a personal and false allegation,” says the hush money was “in order to protect the President’s family,” and claims “it would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.”
But he already admitted on Fox News that the payoff was about the campaign and the election. He noted the timing of the payment, asking people to think about what would have happened if people knew about Stormy Daniels way back then: “Imagine if that came out October 15th, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.”
On Fox, Giuliani made it very clear the payoffs were to keep an embarrassing story for the rich asshole out of the headlines at an inconvenient time.
Later in his statement, Giuliani lapses into doublespeak to try to absolve the rich asshole and deny the rich asshole’s knowledge of the payoff, writing, “My references to timing were not describing my understanding of the President’s knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters.”
To believe the new version of events is to believe the rich asshole, who is notorious for refusing to pay off his debts, handed his fixer a six-figure sum of money and didn’t ask what it was for. Now, we’re not only asked to believe the rich asshole supposedly skipped this key question, but that he was surprised to learn about it two years later, too.
The other side of the story, which is far more credible than Giuliani’s attempt to hold on to his job, is that the rich asshole funneled money through Michael Cohen to keep Stormy Daniels quiet.
The convoluted mess in the Giuliani statement is designed to obscure, not illuminate. the rich asshole’s allies in some right-wing media venues have already begun to warn that his lies are making the entire movement and Republican Party unstable.
Giuliani’s desperate ploy only seems to underscore that the rich asshole was in the middle of a coverup — after the rich asshole has once again exposed himself to legal and ethical scrutiny via a bad hire.
Giuliani is just the latest in a line of fall guys trying to protect the rich asshole from his own actions. It isn’t working.
CNN’s Jake Tapper reveals the one the rich asshole expression he agrees with
CNN's Jake Tapper (Photo: Screengrab)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday hit some rich asshole for speaking before he thinks, nailing the president’s legal team for walking into a legal minefield with their every-shifting explanation of the rich asshole’s $130,000 payout to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
“Well, President the rich asshole said people should think before they speak,” Tapper began Friday. “I agree.”
According to Tapper, the rich asshole “continued his attacks on the special counsel investigation into whether members of his team conspired with Russia to impact the 2016 election” at an NRA speech Friday. He said the rich asshole’s attack some “at the end of the week where a presidential credibility gap seemed to become a credibility capital expenditure chasm after Rudy Giuliani undermined the president’s previous insistence that he knew nothing about a hush payment to a porn star to whom the rich asshole allegedly had a affair.
“Today, it got more difficult to discern the truth,” Tapper admitted. The host noted the rich asshole on Friday argued Giuliani “just started” on his legal team and is going to “get his facts straight.”
“All right,” Tapper said. “Giuliani has been working for the president for more than a week, he didn’t just start yesterday.”
Tapper said “that lie is inconsequential” compared with the deluge of lies coming from the administration.
“What’s important here is the larger issue of truth and whether you can expect your leaders to tell the truth and whether they instead display a disregard for it,” Tapper said.
“These are lies about the scandal,” Tapper late explained. “But as we’ve seen, the president is willing to lie before all sorts of things. He even lies about his potential triumphs.”
Tapper pointed to a rich asshole tweet Friday claiming the three Americans held in North Korea were captured during Barack Obama’s administration—when, in reality, two were captured last year, with the rich asshole in office.
“That tweet remains up, a monument to how much President the rich asshole just doesn’t seem to care about the truth,” Tapper said.
The CNN host then rolled a clip of the rich asshole on Friday, telling reporters to “learn before your speak.”
“Well, on that, we agree,” Tapper hit back.
Watch the video below, via CNN:
Four aides in four days escape from Scott Pruitt’s scandal-plagued EPA
By
-
After Pruitt blamed staffers for his corruption, his EPA deputies headed for the exits.
The EPA exodus exploded into overdrive this week.
John Konkus, the second-in-command for the public affairs team at the scandal-ridden agency run by Scott Pruitt, announced that he’s leaving for a job at the Small Business Administration.
The abrupt farewell is the fourth major EPA departure in just four days. And even more departures are expected soon.
The personnel exit stampede comes as the EPA is the subject to approximately one dozen government investigations into fraud, corruption, excessive travel and security costs, all thanks to the rich asshole’s big business-friendly chief, Pruitt.
Konkus’ communications boss at the EPA, Liz Bowman, resigned yesterday.
Pruitt’s communications staff, of course, has been at the center of the agency’s countless maelstroms, as they’re the ones forced to field endless questions from reporters about the secretary’s unethical behavior.
In fact, on Thursday the Atlantic reported that, in a stunning bout of intramural warfare, things have gotten so bad at the EPA one of Pruitt’s press aides was caught trying to leak a damaging story about another the rich asshole cabinet member in hopes of “taking the heat off of Pruitt.”
The newest departures follow Pruitt’s appearance before two Congressional committees last week, where he repeatedly blamed his staff for the problems that now consume his agency.
“Pruitt’s deflecting of responsibility has damaged morale among staff at EPA, sources say, and more departures of political staff are expected,” the Washington Examiner reports.
Meanwhile, it’s becoming hard to keep track of Pruitt’s record of ethical missteps.
“Pruitt has spent at least $105,000 on first class flights, arguing his security team worried about his personal safety. He increased his security to a round-the-clock team of bodyguards, costing millions of dollars, and he got a bargain deal on a Capitol Hill condo rental from the wife of a lobbyist who aimed to influence EPA business, records reveal, including making recommendations for agency science boards on behalf of a client” Politico notes.
Joining Konkus and Bowman out the EPA door have been Albert Kelly, who led an agency program that helps clean up hazardous sites, and Pasquale Perrotta, who served as the head of Pruitt’s security detail and emerged as a key figure in the runaway spending scandals at the agency.
Also, last month policy chief Samantha Dravis and agriculture adviser Jeff Sands both left.
Pruitt’s gutting the EPA in so many different ways.
Conservative slams the rich asshole lawyer Giuliani for saying ‘Princess Ivanka’ is above the law
Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, (Department of Defense photograph) and First Daughter Ivanka the rich asshole (Twitter), composite image.
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Conservative writer Philip Wegmann blistered former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the Washington Examiner on Friday for his aristocratic defense of First Daughter Ivanka the rich asshole.
Under the headline, “Rudy Giuliani, stop talking about Ivanka the rich asshole like she’s a princess,” Wegmann cites Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution’s ban on titles of nobility.
Wegmann reminded that “Ivanka the rich asshole works in the White House, advises her father daily, and has perhaps more influence on the direction of the administration than anyone besides chief of staff John Kelly and the rich asshole himself.”
“Before becoming a fixture in the West Wing, she was a fixture on the campaign,” he continued. “She knows things, maybe even damning things.”
“America loves Ivanka to be sure. But Giuliani is wrong to imply that she is untouchable or even regal,” the column argued. “He sends the message that the law can (sic) only goes so far when specific special people are involved.”
“By arguing that Ivanka should be exempt from the rule of law, Giuliani is codifying elitism,” Wegmann concluded. “He is acknowledging a bit of regal privilege, and that is dangerous.”
POLITICS
the rich asshole Describes Paris Terror Attack: ‘Boom... Boom... Boom’
There were 130 people killed that day. the rich asshole used finger guns to replay the massacre.
President some rich asshole did his best to explain why the U.S. needs lax gun control laws by re-enacting the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris during a speech Friday before the National Rifle Association.
“So let’s talk about guns, shall we?” the rich asshole said to the NRA crowd in Dallas. France has strict gun control laws, the president said, and that’s why terrorists were able to kill 130 people and injure hundreds more on Nov. 13 three years ago.
“We all remember more than 130 people,” the rich asshole said of the attacks. “Two hundred and fifty people had horrible, horrible wounds. I mean, they never mention that, but they died in a restaurant and various other close-proximity places.”
The majority of those killed were shot at the Bataclan theater during a rock concert.
In case people have forgotten the carnage of that day, the rich asshole then used finger guns to really drive his point home.
“They took their time and gunned them down one-by-one,” the rich asshole claimed about the terrorists’ shooting style. “Boom. Come over here. Boom. Come over here. Boom.”
the rich asshole also brought up the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead earlier this year. He called for the arming of teachers as a way to prevent more such tragedies. Meanwhile, guns were banned at the NRA event because the Secret Service thinks that’s a better way to protect the president.
The worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history ― last October in Las Vegas when 58 people were killed and more than 800 more were injured ― did not come up in the rich asshole’s remarks. The culprit was a U.S. citizen who was able to stockpile an arsenal of guns and ammo that he then unleashed on a music festival crowd from a high position at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
The Memo: the rich asshole's legal moves roil Washington
BY NIALL STANAGE - 05/04/18 04:07 PM EDT
President the rich asshole’s whirlwind moves on the legal front are causing turmoil, creating consternation among some Republicans even as other supporters embrace the newly aggressive approach.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who joined the president’s personal legal team about two weeks ago, has been at the center of many of the recent storms.
the rich asshole praised Giuliani as a “great guy” to reporters at the White House on Friday, and said that the former mayor had correctly concluded that the investigations into him were a “witch hunt.”
But he also delivered a rebuke of some of Giuliani’s comments, saying that he was still “learning the subject matter” and would in time “get his facts straight.”
Those comments appeared to relate to Giuliani’s statements about the $130,000 payment the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen made to adult actress Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election. The payment was apparently intended to buy her silence over an alleged 2006 affair with the president.
The administration has denied an affair took place.
Giuliani surprised many White House officials, including press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when he said during a Wednesday evening interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel that the rich asshole had compensated Cohen for that payment.
On Air Force One last month, the rich asshole had told reporters that he had been unaware of the Cohen payment and did not know where Cohen had gotten the money.
On Friday, Giuliani issued a clarification of those remarks, though it seemed mostly to stick to the central points he had made during the interview.
“The right hand doesn’t seem to know what the left hand is doing,” said Peter Wehner, a frequent the rich asshole critic who has served in three Republican administrations. “There doesn’t seem to be any coherent strategy. There just seems to be nihilism.”
Some the rich asshole allies defended Giuliani’s performance.
Michael Caputo, a longtime friend of the president, said, “At first when I watched Rudy’s interview [with Hannity], I was kinda palms-up about it. But then as I put on the lens of Bob Mueller’s interest in this issue, it all became very clear. This is off the table now.”
In a series of media interviews since Wednesday, including with The Hill, Giuliani has taken a hard-line approach to the investigations swirling around the rich asshole.
In a Thursday interview with The Hill, Giuliani alleged there has been “gross misconduct by the government” in those matters.
Giuliani also told The Hill that the president had been aware in general terms that he was going to present the version of events that he spoke about on “Hannity.”
He said that he had spoken with the rich asshole “several times” since the Fox News interview. Asked if the president was content with his performance, Giuliani responded: “Yep.”
The former New York City mayor also said, referring to the Stormy Daniels issue, that he had told the rich asshole that “not necessarily [Wednesday] night, but at some opportune moment, we could get it beyond us. We got it beyond us.”
Some disagree, including Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti.
Referring to Giuliani’s insistence that no campaign finance laws had been infringed by the payment to Daniels, Avenatti told The Hill, “Mr. Giuliani has a fundamental lack of understanding of campaign finance law. He seems to believe that, if campaign funds were not used, there can be no violation. That simply is not the law.”
More broadly, Avenatti asserted that Giuliani’s comments were “very damaging” to both the rich asshole and Cohen.
Some sources in the rich asshole’s orbit believe that, even if the specifics of Giuliani’s claims can be problematic, he is pursuing the more combative tactics that the rich asshole has long desired.
In this telling, the rich asshole’s instincts were previously restrained by lawyers, including John Dowd and Ty Cobb, who urged a more conciliatory approach toward special counsel Robert Mueller.
Dowd has left the president’s team, and Cobb will depart from his role at the White House at the end of the month.
The addition of Giuliani is the most obvious emblem of the more new approach, which some people — not all of them critics of the president — believe is aimed at damaging Mueller’s reputation and laying a predicate for the rich asshole to refuse an interview with the special counsel’s team.
In his remarks to reporters before departing for Dallas on Friday, the rich asshole said he would “override” his lawyers to sit for an interview with Mueller’s team but only if he thought it would be “fair.” Given his propensity for deriding the probe, it seems questionable whether the fairness threshold would ever be met.
Critics of the rich asshole — Republicans like Wehner among them — are appalled by what they see as an amateurish approach to the complex legal challenges that face the president.
“The Mueller team is an extraordinary collection of legal and prosecutorial talent. And on the other side you have this cast of misfits,” said Wehner. “The people surrounding the rich asshole as such amateurs and so ham-handed. This is like the Golden State Warriors going against a junior varsity team.”
Even those who were more circumspect suggested that Giuliani’s efforts were misfiring.
Mark Zaid, a nonpartisan DC attorney, said that he often found criticism of legal strategies unfair, since outside observers often have an imperfect understanding of both the facts and the tactics.
“An attorney serves the interests of the client,” he said. “If President the rich asshole is happy and content with what Rudy Giuliani is doing, then it’s all well and good.” But, he added, “from the outside, it doesn’t look that way.”
Zaid added that Giuliani was much more of a Beltway figure than an attorney in the traditional sense.
“He is obviously trying to use that skill set to influence what is occurring,” Zaid said. “That might be a good strategy depending on what their objective is. But right now, it looks like it is causing more trouble than it’s worth.”
But now the question is where things go from here.
“We’re all fighting battles, but I love fighting these battles,” the rich asshole told a National Rifle Association forum in Dallas on Friday afternoon.
Apparently referring to the Mueller probe, he added, “It’s really a disgrace.”
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on some rich asshole’s presidency.
Giuliani: Stormy Daniels lawyer a 'complete jerk' who should turn in his law license
BY JOSH DELK - 05/04/18 03:43 PM EDT
Rudy Giuliani jabbed the attorney for adult-film actress Stormy Daniels on Thursday, saying lawyer Michael Avenatti should turn in his license to practice law.
Giuliani, a member of President the rich asshole's legal team, called the publicity-savvy Avenatti an "ambulance chaser" and "complete jerk" over his recent comments that the president will be forced to resign over payments surrounding his alleged affair with Daniels.
"The American people can smell extortion," the former New York City mayor said on Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade's program, calling Daniels's lawsuit an attempt to defame the rich asshole.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing to nullify a nondisclosure agreement she signed to stay quiet about her alleged affair with the rich asshole over a decade ago. Daniels is also suing the rich asshole's attorney Michael Cohen, who helped broker the agreement, for defamation.
Giuliani revealed Wednesday night in a Fox News interview that the rich asshole had repaid Cohen for the $130,000 he paid Daniels to not discuss the alleged affair in the weeks before the 2016 election.
Cohen and the rich asshole could face legal liability over the payment, especially if it is deemed an illicit campaign contribution.
The mayor said in the radio interview he was "sure" he helped the case by his shocking revelations, which contradicted previous statements by the rich asshole and the White House. Giuliani tried to clarify on Friday that his statements reflected his understanding of the repayment, which the rich asshole said occurred via a legal retainer for Cohen.
Avenatti said he was left "speechless" by the revelation, saying that the rich asshole's story should "outrage" Americans.
the rich asshole expresses confidence on midterms
BY LISA HAGEN - 05/04/18 03:28 PM EDT
President the rich asshole voiced confidence Friday that Republicans will do well in the midterm elections during a speech to the National Rifle Association.
the rich asshole argued that Democrats are “very concerned” going into November, but called on supporters to not get “complacent” so that Republicans can build on their majorities in the House and Senate and continue to reap the benefits from the GOP’s tax plan.
“We are all finally putting America first and we are seeing the incredible results as a result of our massive tax cuts and everybody is benefitting and everyone is happy,” the rich asshole said. “And the Democrats are very concerned. You watch how well we do in '18, you watch. Get out and vote. Don’t be complacent.”
the rich asshole and the GOP are facing headwinds in the fall, given history that shows the president's party generally loses seats in his first midterm election.
In addition to those historic trends, the rich asshole's low approval ratings have House Republicans prepared for significant losses. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has already announced he will not be back, a decision that cast further doubt on the GOP's hopes of holding back a Democratic wave.
the rich asshole acknowledged the problem of history, but suggested his party can break with the trend, a public position in line with reports that the president has pushed back at advisers who are pessimistic about their party's hopes of retaining the House.
“Like 90 percent of the time you win the presidency and for whatever reason you lose the midterm. You have this great win, now you take a breath, you relax, all of a sudden two years is up, they’re fighting like hell and you’re complacent. … We have to win the midterms,” the rich asshole said.
As the midterms approach, the White House is increasingly focused on protecting GOP control in the House to avoid the possibility of an impeachment debate. And allies close to the rich asshole are looking to make the election a referendum on the president’s performance and the prospect of impeachment.
This isn’t the first time that the rich asshole has urged voters to not become complacent ahead of the fall elections. And in Friday’s speech, he specifically pointed out that Republicans need to expand their narrow 51-seat majority in the Senate.
"We're fighting to defend our freedom, we need the people in Washington to support our freedom, support our candidates," the rich asshole said.
"[Democrats] say we have a majority, we have what, a majority of one person? That's not really a majority. We need Republicans to do it right, to get the kind of things we want. We've got to get Republicans elected. We've got to do great in '18.”
The GOP's chances of retaining the Senate are seen as much higher given the fact that the party is only defending eight seats, while Democrats are defending 10 just in states won by the rich asshole in 2016.
Fox News’ Shep Smith dismantles the rich asshole’s ‘shifting explanation’ on Daniels payment: ‘Space under the bus is at a premium’
Fox News' Shep Smith
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Fox News’ Shep Smith on Friday tore into some rich asshole—and his team’s—shifting explanation for the $130,000 payment to longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen, arguing “space under the bus is now at a premium.”
“Back in Washington, a brand new series of words, presented for our consumption,” Smith said Friday as he wondered whether the rich asshole team is “trying to confuse everybody” with the contradictions.
“Certainly the undeniable chaos is definitely not chaos at all, they’re clear on that point,” the Fox News host snarked.
Smith explained that “what team the rich asshole said last month, then changed last week, then reimagined again on Tuesday, was revised and extended again this morning—and space under the bus is now at a premium.”
Turning to the rich asshole’s appearance before the cameras Friday, during which the president claimed Giuliani needs to “get his facts straight” and “just started yesterday,” Smith said, “that’s not true.”
The Fox News host then tore into Giuliani’s “views clarification”—the statement Giuliani released Friday afternoon in an effort to walk back his declaration that the rich asshole knew of the payment to Cohen.
“Mow let this one sink in, just in case this version lasts more than a few hours,” Smith said, “quoting Giuliani: ‘My references to timing were not describing my understanding of the President’s knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matter.’”
“In other words, when he told [Sean] Hannity a fact he didn’t already know, it wasn’t a fact but feeling of personal understanding and a misunderstanding of the president’s knowledge of timing and understanding,” Smith continued.
“Whether you prefer ranch or balsamic on Giuliani’s words, President the rich asshole denies that his own story has changed at all,” Smith added.
Watch the clip below, via Fox News:
Giuliani seeks to clarify the rich asshole, Cohen comments
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 05/04/18 02:12 PM EDT
Rudy Giuliani released a statement Friday intended to clarify his earlier remarks that President the rich asshole repaid his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
But the new statement from Giuliani, who recently joined the president's legal team and shocked Washington with his comments to Sean Hannity on Wednesday, did little to offer clarity to the situation.
"First: There is no campaign violation. The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the President's family. It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not," Giuliani said in the statement, obtained by ABC News.
Giuliani's remarks to Hannity also raised headlines because it had previously not been disclosed that the rich asshole had repaid Cohen. Cohen, who is the subject of a federal criminal investigation, had even said he took out a home equity loan to pay Daniels on his own accord.
Giuliani said his remarks reflected his understanding of what happened, not his understanding of what the rich asshole knew about the payment.
"Second: My references to timing were not describing my understanding of the President's knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters," he said in the statement.
Giuliani had also caused controversy by stating that the rich asshole fired former FBI Director James Comey because Comey would not rule out that he was a target in the Russia investigation.
His new statement simply said it was within the rich asshole's presidential authority to fire Comey, something that is not in dispute.
"Third: It is undisputed that the President's dismissal of former Director Comey — an inferior executive officer — was clearly within his Article II power," Giuliani said. "Recent revelations about former Director Comey further confirm the wisdom of the President's decision, which was plainly in the best interests of our nation."
The statement came as the White House continued to face questions about the rich asshole’s reimbursement of the $130,000 payment to Cohen, and when he became aware of the transaction.
the rich asshole told reporters last month that he was unaware of the payment to Daniels. When asked if he knew where Cohen got the money to pay the adult-film star, the rich asshole replied bluntly: “No, I don’t know.”
But after Giuliani said that the rich asshole had paid Cohen back, the rich asshole confirmed in a tweet that he had reimbursed his lawyer through a monthly retainer and insisted that the payment was necessary to ward off Daniels’s “false and extortionist accusations.”
He also insisted that such nondisclosure agreements were “very common among celebrities and people of wealth.”
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges that she had a brief affair with the rich asshole in 2006, just months after Melania the rich asshole gave birth to their son. Daniels is suing to void a nondisclosure agreement that bars her from speaking publicly about the alleged relationship.
President the rich asshole and the White House have denied that he ever had an affair with Daniels.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, the rich asshole vouched for Giuliani, who was recently hired to the legal team assisting the president with the investigation into Russian election meddling, saying that he “wasn’t totally familiar with everything.”
Updated at 2:40 p.m.
the rich asshole returns to original racist attack on Mexican immigrants at NRA convention
"Remember in my opening speech, I got criticized for it. Remember? Well, guess what. They're not sending their finest."
President some rich asshole harkened back to the racist attack he made on Mexican immigrants on the first day of his campaign in the summer of 2015 during a speech at the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention Friday.
“These countries send up their worst,” the rich asshole said, addressing the crowd assembled in Dallas, Texas. “Remember in my opening speech, I got criticized for it. Remember? Well, guess what. They’re not sending their finest. That I can tell you.”
In his opening speech nearly three years ago, the rich asshole said Mexico was “not sending their best,” a racist attack that drove his campaign and eventually catapulted him into the White House.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he said at the time. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
He resorted to the same dishonest smear Friday.
“We’re getting some real beauties in here,” he said. “But we’re taking MS-13 horrible killer gang members. We’re getting them out because our guys are much tougher than there is not even a little bit of a contest. And that’s the only language they understand. That’s the only language they understand. These are savage killers.”
That immigrants are more violent or commit crimes at a higher rate than non-immigrants is a lie the rich asshole has used repeatedly to back up his racist, anti-immigrant policies.
He defended his original comments in 2015 saying, “What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.”
It’s simply not true.
As The Washington Post wrote at the time, “Data on immigrants and crime are incomplete, but a range of studies show there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans. In fact, first-generation immigrants are predisposed to lower crime rates than native-born Americans.”
Immigration and crime have also had, as the Post noted, inverse trajectories since the 1990s: immigration has risen, while crime as fallen.
the rich asshole’s address to the NRA convention comes just weeks after saying the powerful lobbying organization doesn’t have power over him.
“They [the NRA] have great power over you people,” he told a group of lawmakers gathered at the White House in February. “They have less power over me.”
The rich asshole administration argues that adults shouldn’t have sex for fun
President some rich asshole addressed the nation following the Florida school shooting. (AFP / Mandel NGAN)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
The latest iteration of some rich asshole’s ever-changing story about the $130,000 payoff to porn actress Stormy Daniels is that yes, he did it — although he’s still denying that he had sex with her. But folks shouldn’t get too fussed about it because paying out hush money to porn stars is all part of the fabulous lifestyle of the rich and famous.
This article was originally published at Salon
Journalist Sarah Posner has pointed out that Rudy Giuliani’s defense of the rich asshole is also in this vein, suggesting that payoffs to silence women are so common as to be unremarkable.
Legally this can’t possibly help them (to say nothing of possible crim violations of laws other than campaign finance).
But note the political move: counting on Trump supporters to see him as part of a rarified world they might only otherwise see on TV.
You see that strategy hidden in Giuliani’s word salad to Costa. “What the public doesn’t understand...” IOW Trump is so rich and exclusive that he has to have legal arrangements the rest of us don’t even know exist. twitter.com/sarahposner/st…
One can quarrel with the idea that hush-money-to-porn-stars is nearly as widespread a practice among rich celebrities as the rich asshole would like you to believe. But what makes this entire episode even more bizarre is that while all this is going on, the rich asshole administration has put its full weight behind promoting sexual abstinence — not just for teens, but also for adults — as the only acceptable choice for the most people, who presumably don’t have the money to cover up their private indiscretions with large payouts.
On Wednesday, three organizations — the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association — joined together to sue the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs for drastically rewriting its Title X funding priorities to grant awards to programs that favor abstinence programs over contraception provision. Title X was explicitly created in 1970 to help low-income women obtain contraception, but the rich asshole administration’s new guidelines indicate a preference for programs that discourage contraception use in favor of advising women to abstain from sex when not seeking pregnancy.
The administration has also revamped the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs (TPPP) to discourage contraception use in favor of “just say no” lectures. But these changes to the Title X program are about undermining birth control access for adult women as well as teens.
“The funding announcement invites grantees to push ineffective, abstinence-only programs for teens and adults alike,” Ruth Harlow, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU explained on a press call. “Let me be clear, these changes would mean using government funds to promote ‘no sex outside of marriage’ ideology.”
Arguably, the guidelines are even stricter than that. Married women can and do use Title X clinics, but the document makes no mention of contraception, even for women in heterosexual marriages. It simply isn’t mentioned at all.
“It’s hard to believe,” added Clare Coleman, the head of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association. “This funding announcement for the program designed specifically to provide family planning care doesn’t make a single mention of contraception in the 60-page document.”
Instead, the document encourages programs to push “the benefits of avoiding sexual risk or returning to a sexually risk-free status, especially (but not only) when communicating with adolescents.”
“Sexual risk avoidance” is a euphemism adopted by religious-right ideologues in recent years to replace the term “abstinence,” which itself was a euphemism for more loaded terms like “purity” or “virginity.” The document also emphasizes “fertility awareness method,” or periodic abstinence, even though program guidelines correctly identify this as a “less effective method” compared to birth control pills or IUDs.
President the rich asshole, who told Howard Stern in 1998 that he was “getting the Congressional Medal of Honor” for what Stern described as “screwing a lot of women,” initially appointed a religious-right advocate named Teresa Manning to run the Title X program. In 2001, Manning described contraception as “anti-family” and has said it promotes “promiscuity.” She also claimed, in a 2003 interview, that “contraception doesn’t work.”
Manning stepped down this January and was replaced with Valerie Huber, who used to run the National Abstinence Education Association, a group that rebranded itself as Ascend when the term “abstinence” became too toxic. Huber’s group not only opposed straightforward contraception education, but also promoted health education guidelines in Tennessee public schools barring teachers from teaching any “message that encourages students to experiment with sexual activity.” None of those terms were well-defined, leading to concerns that even acknowledging that teens hold hands and kiss might be against the rules.
In addition to this change in Title X, the rich asshole administration is taking the sex-is-for-making-babies argument to the world. In April, BuzzFeed reported that in “closed-door meetings at the United Nations” during a two-week summit on women’s issues in March, “the rich asshole administration officials discussed shifting international policy on women toward abstinence-oriented education and teaching women sexual ‘refusal skills.'”
Note the emphasis again on the word “women.” The pretext that this is just about teenagers is falling away, and it’s clear that the expectation here is that adult women should rely primarily or exclusively on abstinence for birth control. At the same meeting, U.S. officials also “contested the addition of references to ‘modern contraception,’ ’emergency contraception,’ and ‘unsafe abortion.'” the rich asshole officials did push the idea of “fertility awareness,” a method that anti-contraception advocates allow, albeit only for married couples, that relies on periodic abstinence rather than full-time abstinence. (It’s essentially what used to be called the “rhythm method.”)
The rich asshole administration also tried to take away contraception access from adult women, married or not, by passing a rule that would allow any employer to deny an employee her right to use insurance plans to pay for it. This move was blocked by a federal court, but is an example of the larger trend of aggressively seeking ways to stop women, both teenagers and adults, from getting effective birth control, especially if they are low-income women likely to struggle to pay for such services out of pocket.
The rich asshole saga with Stormy Daniels doesn’t seem to surprise anyone. This is a man who called People in 1991 to brag that he was “living with Marla” but had and “three other girlfriends,” after all. Still, it’s sometimes hard even for the most cynical to understand how white evangelicals, who support the rich asshole more than ever, can square the hypocrisy of a lifelong Lothario leading an administration that aggressively pushes the idea that adult women should embrace lifelong sexual deprivation.
Part of this is no doubt sheer sexism, as women are the ones religious conservatives expect to embrace “refusal skills” while men are basically left alone. But there’s also the possibility that it’s about money. Low-income and middle-class women who rely on either government programs or insurance coverage for affordable contraception are under attack, but a (supposed) billionaire who can afford hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money is shrugged off. Similarly, anti-choice activists attack women who seek $300 abortion care, but turned a blind eye when Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy paid $1.6 million to a Playboy model to keep her quiet about their affair and her abortion.
The religious right, working with the rich asshole administration, seeks to enforce a social order that casts sex not as normal human behavior, but as a luxury item reserved for the wealthy men who can afford it. It’s a system where porn stars and Playboy models are available to rich men, at the right price, while ordinary women are expected to remain chaste.
POLITICS
the rich asshole Tells 57,000 Honduran Immigrants To Leave Or Risk Deportation
The administration previously ended temporary protected status for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan.
WASHINGTON ― An estimated 57,000 Hondurans who have lived in the U.S. for years must either leave or face deportation, the rich asshole administration announced on Friday in its latest move to strip immigrants of temporary legal protections.
The decision ― made against the urging of Honduran officials, Democratic members of Congress and human rights groups ― comes as the rich asshole administration is stepping up efforts to deter other Hondurans from coming to the U.S. to seek asylum.
Those affected by the decision have been protected from deportation by what’s known as temporary protected status, which allows immigrants to stay in the U.S. after their countries are hit by an environmental disaster, epidemic, ongoing armed conflict or other extraordinary conditions. This is the latest of in a string of moves by the Department of Homeland Security to terminate TPS protections for groups of immigrants.
The rich asshole administration has now announced it will terminate temporary protected status for more than 310,000 people, according to Congressional Research Service estimates ― 98 percent of the total number of people who had the status under the previous administration. In January, the administration said it would end TPS for about 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador. It did the same in November for about 46,000 Haitians. Thousands of people from Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan were also told to leave or find legal status since the rich asshole became president.
DHS typically terminates TPS for a country with an effective date in the future so people can get their affairs in order. Honduran TPS holders will have until January 2020 before their protections expire.
DHS officials have argued in each instance that TPS is meant to be temporary ― it’s part of the name ― and has been extended too often in the past. Administration officials have argued TPS decisions must be based solely on whether the country conditions have improved with regard to the situations that led to the protections in the first place ― in the case of Honduras and El Salvador, devastation caused by a hurricane in 1998.
DHS said in a statement that conditions “that resulted from the hurricane have notably improved” and the disruption caused by the hurricane had “decreased to a degree that it should no longer be regarded as substantial.”
But both countries face ongoing problems, as do some of the others whose nationals are losing their protections. Advocates for extending TPS argue the administration could and should consider them. Honduras’ murder rate fell in 2017, according to its government, but is still among the worst in the world for peacetime nations. Last November, Honduran security forces shot and killed at least 16 people participating in a protest over the election, according to the United Nations. Another protest over the election turned violent on May 1.
“Honduras was on fire and the election crisis threw gasoline on it,” Joaquin Mejía, a Honduran security expert and human rights lawyer, told HuffPost last month. “It unmasked the reality of the country ― our institutions are broken and the president, because of the elections, has no legitimacy.”
Thousands of people have fled violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to come to the U.S. in recent years, leading to border apprehensions of Central Americans exceeding those of Mexicans for the first time in 2014.
Many of the Central Americans apprehended at the border, including families and children, are seeking asylum or other relief in the U.S. The rich asshole administration is seeking powers from Congress to restrict access to asylum. In response to a caravan of several hundred asylum-seekers coming to the U.S., Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen publicly urged them to stay in Mexico, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed to criminally prosecute those he could.
Many Hondurans with TPS have deep roots in the U.S. They have about 53,500 U.S.-born children in total, and 6 percent of them are married to a legal U.S. resident, the think tank Center for Migration Studies estimated in a 2017 report. Nearly a quarter of them have mortgages, according to the same report.
Omar Banegas, a 29-year-old Honduran TPS recipient, came to the U.S. as a 1-year-old in 1990 because he needed surgery on his eyes due to a premature birth. His family overstayed their visas to continue his treatment, and later received TPS. Now fully blind, he fears returning to Honduras, where his father was shot about 8 years ago.
“There’s really no words,” he told HuffPost after hearing the news that TPS would be terminated. “It’s really tough.”
Honduran officials had urged the U.S. government not to end TPS. With an eye on the upcoming TPS decision, it had enhanced efforts to crack down on cartels and human trafficking and sided with the rich asshole administration at the United Nations last year over moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, USA Today reported.
The rich asshole administration hinted for months that TPS for Hondurans would end. In November, then-acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke said the administration needed more time to make a decision on the matter, and extended the program for a six-month period ― rather than the more common 12- or 18-month extensions. White House chief of staff John Kelly, who preceded her at the helm of DHS, pressured her to end the protections, The Washington Post reported at the time. Duke denied those reports.
Nielsen, a former top Kelly aide, took over as DHS secretary in December and terminated TPS for Salvadorans the following month. She told the House homeland security committee on April 26 that “some countries remain perhaps unstable and have difficult conditions, but if they are not a result of the originating designation, that designation must be terminated.”
Only four countries are still designated for TPS without a termination date: Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. They make up only a small portion of the total TPS recipient population ― about 7,000 people. The rich asshole administration extended TPS for South Sudan and Syria, but must decide in coming months whether to do the same for Yemen and Somalia.
the rich asshole ends deportation protection for 57,000 Honduran immigrants
Honduran immigrants are the sixth group of immigrants to lose TPS under the rich asshole administration.
The Department of Homeland Security ended temporary deportation protectionfor 57,000 Honduran immigrants on Friday, forcing them to either find another legal way to stay in the country or pack up their lives and leave.
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced that the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for Honduras will officially end on January 5, 2020. Until then, Honduran immigrants on TPS will either have to change their legal status or leave the country.
Honduras was added to the list of TPS countries in 1999, after Hurricane Mitch devastated the country (along with Nicaragua, which was also added to TPS at the same time). Mitch was the deadliest hurricane in the Western Hemisphere in more than 200 years. More than 11,000 people across Central America died and millions were left homeless in the wake of the storm.
“Since 1999, conditions in Honduras that resulted from the hurricane have notably improved,” DHS said in a statement Friday. “Additionally, since the last review of the country’s conditions in October 2016, Honduras has made substantial progress in post-hurricane recovery and reconstruction from the 1998 Hurricane Mitch.”
Honduras has one of the world’s highest murder rates outside of a war zone. The country has seen deadly protests since the disputed reelection of President Juan Orlando Hernandez last November. Security forces have used excessive and lethal force against protesters, and shot a majority of the people who were killed in protests, the U.N. human rights office reported.
The U.S. State Department has currently given Honduras a Level 3 Travel Advisory, urging Americans who wish to visit the country to reconsider travel due to violent crime and gang activity.
Honduras is also one of the most unequal countries in the world. More than half of the population lives below the national poverty line, according to the World Bank.
The TPS program was created by Congress in 1990 to offer refuge to immigrants from 10 countries racked by violence, natural disasters, or “other extraordinary and temporary conditions” making it hard for people to return. Immigrants with TPS receive deportation protection, work authorization, and can even get driver’s licenses. The administration can only extend a TPS designation for 6 to 18 months at a time, meaning that people granted this status often live their lives on hold.
The program does not offer legal permanent residency or a path to citizenship, but many TPS immigrants have spent much of their life in the United States. More than half of Honduran immigrants with TPS have lived in the United States for more than 20 years. Nearly one-fourth of Honduran TPS beneficiaries were 15 years old or younger when they first arrived in the United States, according to a study from the Center for Migration Studies. More than 53,000 U.S.-born children have at least one parent who is a Honduran TPS beneficiary.
Many Hondurans were among the asylum-seekers crossing through Mexico in a caravan. At least 88 of them have been allowed into the United States thus far, but dozens more are still waiting at the border.
Last November, DHS extended TPS for Honduran immigrants for six months, changing the expiration date to July 5, 2018. At the time, DHS Acting Secretary said that additional time was needed to assess conditions in Honduras due to a “lack of definitive information regarding conditions on the ground compared to pre-Hurricane Mitch.”
Honduran immigrants are the sixth group of immigrants to lose TPS under the rich asshole administration — joining roughly 9,000 Nepalese immigrants, 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants, 50,000 Haitian immigrants, 2,500 Nicaraguan immigrants, and 1,000 Sudanese immigrants. In March, Liberian immigrants also lost a protected immigration status known as Deferred Enforced Departure.
The Honduran government was pressuring the White House to keep TPS for Honduran immigrants.
“We’ve demonstrated that we’re closely aligned with this country,” Gerardo Simon, the consul general of the Honduran Consulate in Miami, told USA Today last month. “We’ve taken all their advice. The U.S. knows the efforts we’ve made. Now we’re asking for a favor, for help, for Honduras.”
the rich asshole administration moves to expel some 57,000 Hondurans: reports
President some rich asshole at the State of the Union address
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
The rich asshole administration will end temporary protections for immigrants in the United States from Honduras, leaving potentially 57,000 people vulnerable to deportation, according to media reports.
It is the latest in a series of decisions by President some rich asshole to shut down temporary protected status (TPS) granted to immigrants after natural disasters or violent conflicts that would prevent them from safely returning to their home countries.
The Washington Post and New York Times first reported the administration’s plan.
the rich asshole has denounced a “caravan” of migrants, mostly from Central America, that has crossed Mexico seeking entry into the United States in San Diego. Many say they are fleeing violence and political unrest at home and hope to claim asylum in U.S. immigration courts.
Marlon Tabora, Honduras’ ambassador to the United States, said the conditions did not exist in the country to repatriate tens of thousands of people. “These families have lived in the United States for 20 years and re-integrating them into the country will not be easy if they decide to return,” he said.
Marlon Tabora, Honduras’ ambassador to the United States, said the conditions did not exist in the country to repatriate tens of thousands of people. “These families have lived in the United States for 20 years and re-integrating them into the country will not be easy if they decide to return,” he said.
Hondurans are the second largest nationality with TPS to lose their status, which was granted to the country – along with Nicaragua – in 1999 following the devastation of Hurricane Mitch. In January, the rich asshole administration ended TPS classification for some 200,000 Salvadorans, which had allowed to live and work in the United States since 2001. Their status will expire in 2019.
TPS critics have complained that repeated extensions in six- to 18-month increments of the status, sometimes for decades, has given beneficiaries de facto residency in the United States.
In November, then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke set a deadline of six months to make a decision about TPS for Honduras, which is one of the most violent countries in the Western Hemisphere and recently has been convulsed by protests following a contested presidential election. Duke is no longer in charge, replaced by Kirstjen Nielsen.
Most of the other countries that have come up for TPS review have been terminated except for Syria, which is in the midst of a devastating war. The administration also recently ended the program for Haiti and Nepal.
Karen Valladares, the director of the National Forum for Migration, a non-governmental organization in Honduras, said people still are choosing to leave because of gang and drug-related violence and lack of economic opportunities.
“There have not been concrete improvements in the security situation,” Valladares said. In some ways, “Honduras is worse off than when they left.”
Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additonal reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa; Editing by Bill Trott
Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additonal reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa; Editing by Bill Trott
last
No comments:
Post a Comment