POLITICS
How The Refugee Caravan Became A Scapegoat For the rich asshole’s Border Crackdown
“There’s no hoard of invading people using fraud to game the asylum system.”
President some rich asshole spent his first year in office calling for a border crackdown. But there was a problem with his narrative of an urgent crisis: Illegal crossings had dwindled to their lowest number in more than four decades, and many of those coming were families and children.
This spring, he seized on the opportunity to illustrate the border “crisis” he’d been warning of all along: A caravan of Central American asylum-seekers headed for the southern border, at the same time as border agents reported an uptick in border apprehensions.
The caravan has traveled to the border each year for a decade, and apprehension numbers, while higher than last year, were well in line with standard trends. But that didn’t seem to matter. Fox News covered the caravan constantly. The president tweeted about it. The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice made statements targeted at the caravan. The message was that the caravan was a symbol that the border wasn’t secure, thanks in part to “loopholes” for asylum-seekers that the administration wants to eliminate.
Citing the caravan and the apprehension numbers, the administration has justified a major policy change and demanded legal reforms that could make it harder for people in danger in their home countries to legally seek asylum in the U.S.
On Monday, the administration publicly announced a long-in-the-works policy to prosecute illegal border crossing that is already separating parents from their children and putting asylum-seekers in jail.
This comes soon after the president called for the National Guard to be sent to the border, and the DOJ announced it was sending more prosecutors and immigration judges to handle border cases.
“This image and the scapegoat that’s being used to galvanize anti-immigrant supporters is something that doesn’t even exist,” said Alex Mensing, an organizer with Pueblos Sin Fronteras, the group that coordinated the caravan. “There’s no hoard of invading people using fraud to game the asylum system. That’s not there, and it’s definitely not what the caravan is.”
What the caravan really is
The immigrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras started organizing caravans in 2008 to help people in Central America who wanted to flee danger and to call attention to the plight of migrants. It offers migrants safety in numbers — the journey from Central America to Mexico and then the U.S. can be dangerous. Once at the border it can be helpful to have other witnesses around should U.S. officers break protocol and turn away someone they shouldn’t. Organizers advise caravan participants to go to ports of entry to seek asylum, which is perfectly legal, and many have done so.
The rich asshole administration hasn’t framed it that way. In an April 23, statement DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the department was monitoring the caravan and that its participants had ”the apparent intention of entering the United States illegally.” A week later, the rich asshole tweeted that the caravan was “openly defying our border shows how weak & ineffective U.S. immigration laws are.”
On April 30, the DOJ announced the first prosecution associated with the caravan. They alleged 11 people were caravan members, although their arrest reports don’t explain how they arrived at that conclusion. Several of the 11 defendants are challenging their arrests on the basis of discrimination, noting that the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy didn’t lead to the prosecution of Indian nationals traveling in the same group, only to Central Americans.
Conflating legal asylum-seeking with illegal border-crossing
Overall, the rich asshole administration has mashed together two issues: illegal entry into the U.S. and asylum-seekers who arrive at points of entry because they fear returning to their home countries. Top officials know that the latter is legal — Nielsen repeatedly said it was the proper channel during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
But the administration wants to deter people from using it anyway. Nielsen has said in public statements that asylum-seekers should stay in Mexico rather than coming to the U.S. for safety. She and Attorney General Jeff Sessions implied repeatedly that many asylum claims are fraudulent.
The claim is that these protections — based on U.S. and international law — are loopholes that are preventing the U.S. from keeping out Central Americans, whom the rich asshole sarcastically referred to last week as “some real beauties.”
“There seems to be a working assumption that anyone who expresses a fear of returning to their home country is somehow gaming the system,” Royce Bernstein Murray, policy director at American Immigration Council, said.
Meanwhile, the administration has decried the “crisis” of border crossings, which are tracked by counting apprehensions both at ports of entry and along other places on the border. Numbers increased in March 2018, but then remained about the same in April. They’re considerably higher than the same months in 2017, but those were particularly low ― this year’s crossing numbers are roughly in line with prior years, including a trend of increases in the spring. Last year, illegal crossings were at their lowest point since 1971, with asylum-seeking children and families making up a large number of the arrests.
“They are trying to justify the policies that they’ve already come to the conclusion are good for the country. And so they’re using any statistics that they can put together in order to justify greatly expanding enforcement operations, expending more time and resources on this issue,” David Bier, immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
Using a media campaign to justify a crackdown
On Monday, Sessions used both the caravan and border apprehension numbers to justify a new DHS policy that will refer all illegal entry arrests to the DOJ for potential prosecution. This was notable because it has already included people that have historically not been prosecuted, such as asylum-seekers and parents traveling with their kids. Locking up parents for prosecution, rather than holding them in immigrant detention, necessitates splitting them up from their children.
The policy was a long time coming — the administration has floated splitting up families for a while. It separated at least 700 children from their parents at the border since October 2017. From July to November, it piloted the same “zero tolerance” policy of prosecutions in one sector of the U.S.-Mexico border. During that period, border apprehensions of families who weren’t at ports of entry increased, although DHS claimed the opposite in an internal memo, Vox reported.
Sessions implied the policy change was meant, at least in part, as a deterrent to both border crossings and group efforts like the caravan.
“Today we are here to send a message to the world: We are not going to let this country be overwhelmed,” Sessions said in San Diego on Monday. “People are not going to caravan or otherwise stampede our border. ”
These prosecutions won’t apply to people who show up at ports of entry, which means it has little to do with the caravan’s participants who did so. At the same time, it will affect other asylum-seekers, some of whom cross the border illegally but then present themselves willingly to Border Patrol. Those aren’t the frightening criminals trying to evade the law that the administration makes them out to be, Murray said.
“Whether it’s an effort to get funding for a border wall, or whether it’s an effort to get tough at the border, or to fear-monger and paint asylum-seekers as part of some dangerous invasion, it all fits into a convenient narrative that immigrants are scary and here to hurt us when they are oftentimes moms and kids looking for help,” Murray said.
All of this could cause a new crisis
If families keep coming to the U.S. in spite of the threat of prosecution, more children could wind up going into Office of Refugee Resettlement custody, which has limited capacity to house unaccompanied minors before they are released to sponsors.
These prosecutions will also allow the rich asshole administration to point to a statistic to show how hard they’re cracking down on illegal crossings. Sessions said Monday he wants to double the number of immigration prosecutions this year. Funneling people into magistrate court to convict them of illegal entry typically results in light sentences of a few days, before they are whisked into deportation proceedings ― which could easily rack up successful prosecutions. But immigration prosecutions already take up half the federal criminal docket, sapping the time that federal judges have to hear more serious crimes.
What the United States administration is doing is criminalizing people, putting people in one basket and saying everybody is criminal.Marselha Gonçalves Margerin, Amnesty International USA
All of this almost certainly will be used for more calls urging Congress to change the law to limit the “loopholes” that prevent the administration from keeping migrants out of the country. Many of those so-called loopholes were created to protect both asylum-seekers and children. They include allowing people who express a credible fear of returning to their native countries to make a case for asylum ― not that all of them get it ― rather than being turned away or swiftly deported. They also include releasing families and unaccompanied minors from detention while they undergo their cases, thanks to a decades-old court settlement and law enacted by Congress.
During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Nielsen attributed the increase in asylum claims, family unit apprehensions and unaccompanied minors to people “gaming the system” — rather than problems in Central America.
The administration’s framing deceives Americans into thinking asylum-seekers who do the right thing are actually breaking the law, said Marselha Gonçalves Margerin, advocacy director for the Americas at Amnesty International USA.
“What the United States administration is doing is criminalizing people, putting people in one basket and saying everybody is criminal,” she said.
“People here in the United States,” she added, “are being told lies.”
POLITICS
Law Firm That Partnered With Michael Cohen Says Shell Company Work Was A Side Hustle
The legal giant Squire Patton Boggs, which had a strategic partnership with Cohen, says it had nothing to do with his shell company.
WASHINGTON ― A major law firm that formed a strategic partnership with some rich asshole’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen last year said the work that Cohen did on behalf of companies that paid him through a shell company was separate from his business with the firm.
Squire Patton Boggs, a global law firm with 47 offices in 20 countries, announced an arrangement with Cohen in April 2017 to “advance the interests” of its clients. The partnership, which lasted roughly a year, ended not long after Cohen was raided by the FBI last month.
AT&T, the investment firm Columbus Nova, the pharmaceutical company Novartis and Korea Aerospace Industries all paid Cohen’s Essential Consultants LLC, the same shell company that Cohen used to pay off Stormy Daniels, a porn star who claims she had an affair with the rich asshole years ago. Although most of the payments came when Cohen had a partnership with Squire Patton Boggs, the firm said that was separate from the work he did with it.
“We have we never paid any money to Essential Consultants LLC and we’ve never performed work for any of the identified entities as a result of our past arrangement with Cohen,” Squire Patton Boggs spokesman Angelo Kakolyris told HuffPost in an email.
After the FBI raid on Cohen ― which included an office he had at Squire Patton Boggs’ office at Rockefeller Center in New York ― the firm said that it was fully cooperating with the federal investigation and that the activities under scrutiny did “not relate” to the firm.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The big tell in the rich asshole’s latest attack on ‘The Fake News’
the rich asshole subtly gives the game away.
The morning after news broke that President the rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, received $500,000 in payments from a Russian oligarch following the 2016 presidential election, the rich asshole lashed out at “The Fake News.”
“The Fake News is working overtime,” the president wrote in the first tweet he posted on Wednesday. “Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?”
The tweet was standard fare for the rich asshole in some respects. The president has repeatedly decried that much of his media coverage is negative, and he’s repeatedly threatened to curtail the free press — in this case, by taking away outlets’ credentials to cover him, but in the past by publicly flirting with the idea of restricting the First Amendment. He’s also banned outlets from his rallies and press briefings.
But there was also a major tell in the rich asshole’s tweet. Perhaps more explicitly than he ever has before, by writing “negative (Fake),” the president made explicitly that he considers all negative coverage of him to be fake.
It’s possible that the rich asshole is conditioning his supporters to dismiss future revelations about Cohen and his connections with Russia. During an interview with Anderson Cooper, the attorney who broke the news on Tuesday evening about the $500,000 payments to the rich asshole’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, raised the possibility that some of the Russian money may ultimately have been funneled through Cohen to the rich asshole Organization.
Meanwhile, over on the rich asshole’s favorite network — Fox News — the Cohen revelations were completely blacked out throughout primetime.
It remains unclear exactly what evidence is in the FBI’s possession following the raid on Cohen’s office last month. the rich asshole, who talked with Cohen after the raid, presumably has a better idea.
the rich asshole causes international incident trying to protect carpets at one of his golf courses
some rich asshole plays golf at the rich asshole National Doral (screen grab)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
President some rich asshole created a transatlantic diplomatic row over an attempt to protect the carpets at the commander-in-chief’s luxury golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland, The Scotsman reported Wednesday.
The brouhaha started when the rich asshole Organization banned a locally beloved, non-alcoholic soft drink from the resort. The decision was reportedly made to protect the carpets from stains.
"President some rich asshole hasn’t done much to endear himself to people in Scotland, with his history of outspoken comments and his lack of concern for environmental issues – but many think he’s gone too far this time,” The Scotsman noted. “The former businessman has been slammed in Scotland for the decision of management at his Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire to ban Scotland’s ‘other’ national drink – Irn-Bru.”
The article noted a Scot saying the rich asshole had effectively, “declared war on Scotland.”
President the rich asshole’s plans to build a second, 18-hole golf course near Aberdeen has infuriated many locals.
the rich asshole’s latest decision may even increase the crowds protesting him if he were to visit Scotland again.
“The piecemeal ban on Scotland’s other national drink, long avowed as the ultimate hangover cure, has caused inevitable outrage on social media, and will likely swell the protests already planned should the rich asshole visit Scotland as part of his trip to the UK in July,” The Guardian explained.
The newspaper noted Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard and Scottish Greens leader Patrick Harvie have both independently pledged to organize protests.
“Someone who holds such misogynist, racist and anti-trade union views not to mention his whole approach to foreign policy, someone who rejects the Paris climate change agreement, should simply not be given the red-carpet treatment,” Leonard charged.
This is the website the Russian-linked company that paid Michael Cohen $500K didn’t want you to see
The internet never forgets.
A company that paid Michael Cohen $500,000 says it is not controlled by a Russian oligarch. An archived version of its website proves otherwise.
On Tuesday, Michael Avenatti, attorney for Stormy Daniels, revealed that a company called Columbus Nova LLC had paid about $500,000 to Michael Cohen, some rich asshole’s longtime attorney and “fixer.” According to Avenatti, this is notable because Columbus Nova is “controlled by” Viktor Vekselberg “a Russian oligarch with an estimated net worth of nearly $13 billion.” Like all Russian oligarchs, Vekselberg has close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
This payment was one among many that passed through Cohen. Since late 2016, more than $4 million has flowed through Essential Consultants, a shell company that Cohen created to funnel $130,000 to Avenatti’s client, Stormy Daniels.
But since the story broke on Tuesday evening, Columbus Nova has been aggressively pushing back on the Vekselberg connection. In a statement issued through their law firm, the company claimed that it is “solely owned and controlled by Americans.” The company denied Vekselberg or any foreign entity controls its activities, including the decision to pay Cohen.
In a statement on its website, Columbus Nova claims that while Renova Group — the Russian holding company controlled by Vekselberg — is its biggest client, it is nevertheless a completely separate entity.
Renova’s website is currently “under construction.”
But an archived version of the site from January 2017, the time the payments began, shows that Columbus Nova was listed as part of the “Renova group structure” alongside other subsidiary companies of Renova Group.
The website clearly indicates that, at the time the payments were made to Cohen, Columbus Nova was considered a subsidiary of Renova Group, the Vekselberg company.
Columbus Nova is correct that as a formal legal matter, the company is “owned by Americans.” The current CEO is Andrew Intrater, an American citizen who, according to SEC filings, is Vekselberg’s cousin.
It’s not surprising that today, Columbus Nova is claiming independence from Vekeselberg. On April 6, the United States government imposed sanctions on Vekeselberg and Renova Group. “As a result of the sanctions, all U.S. dollar bank accounts of companies controlled by Renova have been blocked,” Reuters reported. The sanctions were “aimed at penalizing those seen as enriching themselves from Mr. Putin’s government.”
Vekselberg was reportedly questioned by federal agents working for special counsel Robert Mueller when his plane landed in New York earlier this year. Vekselberg also attended the rich asshole’s inauguration. He was provided a ticket by his cousin, Columbus Nova CEO Andrew Intrater.
CNN’s Jim Acosta: the rich asshole is violating his oath of office by attacking the free press
Jim Acosta (CNN/screen grab)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta suggested on Wednesday that President some rich asshole has violated his oath of office by threatening to revoke the credentials of news outlets that report negative information about his administration.
In a tweet Wednesday morning, the rich asshole complained that “91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake).” He also suggested that he could punish the networks by “[taking] away credentials.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Acosta confirmed to CNN host Wolf Blitzer that the White House had not yet revoked his press credentials.
Acosta also noted that the White House Correspondents Association has condemned the rich asshole’s proposal as “an unconscionable assault on the First Amendment.”
“When the president takes the oath of office on Inauguration Day, he is taking an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States,” Acosta explained. “The First Amendment is in the Constitution of the United States of America.”
The CNN correspondent added: “So when the president threatens to go after the news media and [threatens to] revoke their credentials and calling us all sorts of names, he really is sort of undermining an oath he took in front of the American people.”
Watch the video below from CNN.
A rich asshole accuser triumphs in Ohio — and 6 other primary night stories you might have missed
Rachel Crooks is running for the state House in Ohio, a the rich asshole-voting Democrat won the nomination in West Virginia, and McConnell's social team channeled Pablo Escobar.
Tuesday night’s primaries were the first big elections of the 2018 midterms, settling nasty Senate primary races in Indiana and West Virginia and setting up Democrats to make a run for the Ohio statehouse.
But the night also featured a number of interesting state-level and House races — plus a wild night online for the Senate majority leader — that you might’ve missed.
Here are seven primary night stories you should know.
Rachel Crooks secures a nomination
Rachel Crooks, one of the 19 women who have accused President the rich asshole of sexual misconduct, officially won her uncontested primary in Ohio. Crooks, 35, will face Republican state Rep. Bill Reineke. The district, located outside of Toledo, voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but flipped for the rich asshole in 2016.
“Democrats are here. But it almost felt like we didn’t know that we were out there,” Crooks said earlier this year when she announced her campaign. “I think there’s this momentum now that the rich asshole has been elected, that we know there are more of us out there, and we’re more active in politics.”
Democrats get a chance to turn coal country blue
Richard Ojeda won the Democratic nomination in West Virginia’s third district Tuesday. The district voted for the rich asshole at a higher margin than anywhere else in the state (which the president won by 40 points) — about three out of every four people went for the rich asshole in 2016.
Ojeda, a pro-gun rights Army veteran and current state senator, has received national attention for his support for teachers, who recently went on strike in the state. His pro-labor stances have been central to his campaign, and he’s promised to overturn right-to-work, which allows workers to opt-out of their local union, should he be elected.
The coal miners union, which helped lead Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA) to victory in a recent special election there, has also put its weight behind Ojeda.
Ojeda previously voted for the rich asshole but says he regrets his decision. “It’s been a friggin’ circus for a solid year,” Ojeda said in an interview with Politico. “All he’s done… is shown that he’s taking care of the daggone people he’s supposed to be getting rid of.”
Ojeda will face Republican Carol Miller in the general election this fall.
Pittenger becomes the first incumbent to lose a primary
Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC) on Tuesday night became the first incumbent to lose a primary in 2018. The race was a rematch with Mark Harris, a reverend who lost to Pittenger two years ago by just 134 votes.
Although Pittenger outspent Harris by a two-to-one margin, Harris’s work to portray Pittenger as a “swamp” creature appears to have done the trick. Harris specifically honed in on Pittenger’s vote for a $1.3 trillion spending bill that ended a government shutdown earlier this year, while simultaneously touting his own evangelical credentials.
Harris will now face veteran Dan McCready in the general election this November. McCready has quite the war chest compared to Harris: according to recent FEC filings, McCready has $1.2 million for the general election, and Harris has a little over $70,000.
A Tea Party referendum in Ohio
Former NFL player Anthony Gonzalez won the GOP nomination in Ohio’s 16th District on Tuesday. The race drew some national attention for its localized version of fights happening in the national Republican party.
Gonzalez is a business-friendly conservative more in the mold of Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) while his rival, Christina Hagan, was staunchly pro-the rich asshole and emulated the hard right Freedom Caucus members.
Gonzalez will face Susan Moran Palmer, a health care professional, in November’s general election as they vie to replace Rep. Jim Renacci, who is running for Senate.
A good night for women
Women won nominations in nearly every Democratic race they contested Tuesday. In Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana, 18 women won the nomination out of the 23 Democratic primaries in which at least one woman ran.
As Newsweek noted, West Virginia had the highest number of women running, with five women running for three open House districts, making up 27.8 percent of House candidates in the state. Women made up about 20 percent of House candidates in Ohio, 18 percent in North Carolina, and 17 percent in Indiana.
Sheriffs who work with ICE lose their jobs
Two sheriffs who have worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain undocumented immigrants in North Carolina were voted out of office Tuesday night.
In Durham, Sheriff Mike Andrews was beat by Clarence Birkhead. Andrews was known for having brought serious charges against 12 people involved in toppling a confederate statue last year.
In Charlotte, Sheriff Irwin Carmichael, who has also worked with ICE to detain undocumented immigrants, lost by a wide margin to Gerry McFadden, who has said he will not work with the enforcement agency.
Cocaine Mitch comes to life
Coal baron Don Blankenship, who recently finished a prison sentence after conspiring to violate federal safety and health laws at a West Virginia mine where an explosion killed 29 people in 2010, lost his Republican primary bid Tuesday night. Blankenship had repeatedly attacked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling him “Cocaine Mitch,” an apparent reference to a 2014 report about drugs found on a ship owned by McConnell’s father-in-law.
McConnell’s allies have poured money into the race in an effort to take down Blankenship, and when their plan worked Tuesday night, McConnell tried to gloat about the victory using a questionable pop culture reference, raising eyebrows.
“Thanks for playing @DonBlankenship,” the official Team Mitch account tweeted, along with a picture of McConnell surrounded by what appeared to be clouds of white dust.
As some on Twitter noted, the picture was a recreation of a Narcos promotional image, in which one of the lead characters is seen surrounded by clouds of cocaine.
Low blow, Mitch. twitter.com/Team_Mitch/sta…
The Netflix show, which tells the story of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and other cocaine kingpins, eventually weighed in on Twitter, sharing the tweet and writing, “Low blow, Mitch.”
REVEALED: Michael Cohen promised pharma giant Novartis direct access to the rich asshole in exchange for cash
Longtime the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen (Shutterstock).
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
A new report from Stat News reveals that longtime the rich asshole “fixer” Michael Cohen promised pharmaceutical giant Novartis direct access to President some rich asshole in exchange for cash.
According to a source within the company, Cohen approached them last year and let them know he could set up meetings between the company and the rich asshole administration officials, including the president himself.
"He reached out to us,” the source claimed. “With a new administration coming in, basically, all the traditional contacts disappeared and they were all new players. We were trying to find an inroad into the administration. Cohen promised access to not just the rich asshole, but also the circle around him. It was almost as if we were hiring him as a lobbyist.”
Of course, Cohen is not a registered lobbyist, which could put the company’s payment to him in murky legal territory.
Additionally, Stat News’ source would not explain why it agreed to pay Cohen a full $1.2 million without proof that he could really deliver access to the rich asshole, since he did not have a background in health care or deep contacts in Washington DC.
As it turned out, Cohen could not secure Novartis the access it desired, meaning it spent over a million dollars for nothing.
“This episode was clearly a mistake,” Stat News’ source says.
the rich asshole CIA pick: The real ‘tragedy’of torture was people criticizing it
By
-
Gina Haspel has a twisted set of priorities.
Gina Haspel, the rich asshole’s pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), may have shown her true colors Wednesday morning, when she lashed out during her confirmation hearing after being faced with concerns about the Bush-era torture program.
Haspel opened the hearing with the hollow promise not to reinstate the Bush-era torture program that she helped oversee and cover up, but repeatedly refused to say she believed it was wrong.
When Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) pressed her on reports that she supported expanding the torture program when it was being wound down, Haspel lashed out.
Wyden said he was “troubled” by Haspel’s apparent confirmation that she supported expanding the program, and Haspel responded by boasting that she wasn’t “on the sidelines” after 9/11.
“I think we did extraordinary work,” Haspel said. “To me, the tragedy is that the controversy surrounding the interrogation program — as I’ve already indicated to Senator Warner, I fully understand that — but it has cast a shadow over what has been a major contribution to protecting this country.”
Haspel is saying that the “tragedy” of the torture program she supported — and wanted to expand — is that it became a “controversy,” not that the world watched as America did this: “round-the-clock torture of two detainees who were kept naked, placed in painful positions, deprived of sleep and subjected to waterboarding and other horrific acts.”
That’s a description by former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, based on a congressional report on the program.
Despite her meager and lawyerly attempts to convince Americans that she’s had some change of heart about following morally repugnant orders of dubious legality, Haspel demonstrates that the only thing she’s taken to heart from the torture program is not to get caught.
AT&T payments to the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen more than reported: source
Michael Cohen (CNN)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
AT&T Inc paid Essential Consultants, a company set up by U.S. President some rich asshole’s lawyer Michael Cohen, more than the $200,000 that came to light late on Tuesday, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
Payments by AT&T were described on Tuesday by Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels, who also said a company owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and other corporations had paid Essential Consultants for certain services.
Avenatti’s document said that AT&T paid Essential Consultants $50,000 in October, November and December of 2017, and another $50,000 in January of 2018, making a total of $200,000.
AT&T confirmed those payments as described by Avenatti, saying they were aimed at gaining “insights” into the new administration.
However, the contract was for a year, the source told Reuters, meaning AT&T paid more than $200,000 to Cohen’s company.
A full year contract for $50,000 per month would total $600,000 for the year. The source declined to give a total for the payments made by AT&T to Cohen’s company.
Shares of AT&T were down 1 percent at $31.37.
Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Bill Rigby
the rich asshole: Kim summit will not take place at Demilitarized Zone
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 05/09/18 12:02 PM EDT
President the rich asshole on Wednesday ruled out the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas as the site for his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
the rich asshole told reporters at the White House that the date and place of the meeting would be announced "within three days."
"It will not be there," the president said when asked if the talks will take place at the DMZ.
the rich asshole had previously said he would like to stage the high-stakes meeting inside the heavily fortified zone dividing North and South Korea.
The president tweeted last month that the site may “be a more Representative, Important and Lasting site than a third party country.”
During a trip to Asia in the fall, the rich asshole tried to make a surprise visit to the DMZ but was foiled due to bad weather.
the rich asshole on Wednesday continued to express high hopes for the historic summit, which is aimed at denuclearizing North Korea, but also warned it could be called off at a moment’s notice.
"Everything can be scuttled. Lot of good things can happen. Lot of bad things can happen," he said, adding, "I think we have a really good shot at making it successful, but lots of things can happen."
Selecting the site of the meeting with Kim has been a painstaking process for the U.S. and North Korea.
Several other countries have been considered, including Singapore and Mongolia. But Kim is known to have traveled outside North Korea just once since becoming the rogue nation’s leader in 2011, traveling to China in March.
the rich asshole is expected to meet with Kim sometime later this month or in June.
The president spoke Wednesday hours after announcing that North Korea released three Americans who have been detained there, a move the U.S. said was a sign of goodwill heading into the talks.
The release of the Americans came as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Pyongyang to prepare for the high-stakes summit between the rich asshole and Kim.
Fox News legal analyst warns the rich asshole of imminent Michael Cohen indictment: It ‘can’t be good’ for you
Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Former New Jersey Superior Court judge and Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano publicly warned President some rich asshole of an impending federal indictment of Michael Cohen.
“The problems for the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, just continue to mount,” Napolitano observed. “And these problems, depending upon where they lead to, may draw the president in.”
"Why was a Russian billionaire giving a half a million dollars to the president’s lawyer — at the time the lawyer was paying, not only Stormy Daniels, but according to Rudy Giuliani, other women, to remain silent about their relationships to the president?” he asked. “Nobody knows the answer to this, yet.”
“But all of it is enough to provoke a federal judge in Los Angeles … to say, ‘I think we should put the case on hold, because Mr. Cohen is about to be indicted,'” he noted.
“The president’s lawyer getting indicted can’t be good for the president,” Napolitano explained.
“Mr. President, please be wary of all of this,” he cautioned.
Watch:
Fox News blacks out bombshell Michael Cohen revelations during 3 hours of primetime coverage
The name of the rich asshole's longtime attorney wasn't mentioned a single time.
Shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Michael Avenatti tweeted out a bombshell — he claimed that following an investigation, his team determined that President the rich asshole’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, “received approximately $500,000 in the mos. after the election from a company controlled by a Russian [oligarch] with close ties to Mr. Putin.”
Avenatti added that “[t]hese monies may have reimbursed the $130k payment” Cohen made to Avenatti’s client, Stormy Daniels, a woman who claims to have had an affair with the rich asshole and was paid just before the election for her silence about it.
Avenatti’s bombshell claim was quickly corroborated by The Daily Beast, New York Times, CNN, and other outlets. Before the night was through, AT&T acknowledged it was implicated in the scandal as well — the company made $200,000 in payment Essential Consultants, a shell company set up by Cohen that also received payments from a company linked to a Russian oligarch.
But if you spent Monday evening watching the rich asshole’s favorite network, you might still be in the dark about all of that. According to SnapStream transcripts, the name “Michael Cohen” was not uttered a single time during Fox News’ top-rated shows hosted by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, or Laura Ingraham.
Avenatti’s tweet was mentioned shortly before 7 p.m. on Bret Baier’s show, but it was quickly dismissed by Republican lobbyist Matt Schlapp, who was on Baier’s panel.
“I don’t know if Mr. Avenatti is Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, or if he’s the lawyer for ‘hashtag resistance’ to try to do everything he can to weaken the president,” Schlapp said. “I think this is like several bank shots, I guess, to show that there is some kind of collusion with Russia, and I think the American people are fair, and if there is no proven collusion with Russia that impacted the election, I think they are tired of all the theatrics with this investigation.”
Baier then steered the conversation to other topics. Watch:
Cohen’s name wasn’t mentioned again on Fox News programming until Shannon Bream’s show, which airs between 11 p.m. and midnight. The trend continued into Wednesday morning. The Cohen story came up a single time during the show the rich asshole regularly live-tweets, Fox & Friends, during one of the show’s brief news updates.
According to a Media Matters analysis, Fox News has spent a total of just over five minutes on the Cohen revelations since they broke last night.
Fox & Friends covered the Cohen developments for just 38 seconds this morning.
None of Fox's prime-time shows last night even mentioned Michael Cohen's name.
In total, Fox has spent just over 5 minutes discussing the Cohen news since it broke. twitter.com/mmfa/status/99…
Fox News’ suppression of the Cohen story reflects how the network regularly protects the president.
One particularly notable example of this happened late last month, when the rich asshole called in to Fox & Friends for an interview. While you’d think hosts of the rich asshole’s favorite show would be overjoyed to interview the president, they abruptly brought the interview to a close after the rich asshole started yelling about how he planned to meddle more aggressively in the Department of Justice moving forward.
the rich asshole says will go forward with border wall plans in California
Prototypes for U.S. President some rich asshole's border wall with Mexico are seen behind the current border fence in this picture taken from the Mexican side of the border in Tijuana, Mexico, January 27, 2018. Picture taken January 27, 2018. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
President some rich asshole said on Wednesday his administration will begin work on a section of his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall in San Diego, at the request of the major California county.
“San Diego has asked us to go forward with their section of the wall in California and rather than not doing that and letting them lobby for us with Governor Brown we decided to do it,” the rich asshole told reporters as his cabinet met at the White House.
State legislators and California’s Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, have been hostile toward the rich asshole’s plan to make the border nearly impervious for immigrants coming to the United States illegally, but some enclaves have disagreed.
The Board of Supervisors for San Diego, which is California’s second-most populous county and sits on the border with Mexico, in April voted to support the rich asshole’s legal challenge to the state designating itself a “sanctuary state” hospitable to immigrants.
Schumer to the rich asshole: Hostages aren't 'bargaining chips'
BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 05/09/18 11:27 AM EDT
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Wednesday that he was "delighted" that three Americans are being released by North Korea but warned the rich asshole administration against linking the individuals to broader negotiations.
"We cannot forget: No regime has the right to hold American citizens in captivity without cause, and under no circumstances should American citizens be viewed as bargaining chips," Schumer said on the Senate floor.
the rich asshole announced on Twitter on Wednesday morning that Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song, three American citizens who were imprisoned on charges of espionage or other anti-state activities against North Korea, were traveling back to the U.S. with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said separately in a statement that the rich asshole views the detainee release “as a positive gesture of goodwill” ahead of the planned summit with North Korea, which is expected to take place this month or next.
But Schumer warned from the Senate floor that linking the release of the hostages to negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program would send the wrong signal to other countries who are detaining Americans.
"If countries in the world think they can detain Americans and get something in return we'll see many more hostages," he said.
He added that while he was "rooting for" talks with North Korea to succeed, "the hostages shouldn't be part of it. We are happy they have returned but North Korea shouldn't gain by taking Americans and then releasing them."
‘No follow up’ from the rich asshole over staying in climate pact: UN
The Eiffel tower is illuminated in green with the words "Paris Agreement is Done", to celebrate the Paris U.N. COP21 Climate Change agreement in Paris, France, November 4, 2016. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen/File Photo
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
U.S. President some rich asshole has yet to outline what changes he wants in a 2015 global climate agreement as the price for dropping his plan to quit, the United Nations’ climate chief said on Wednesday.
Patricia Espinosa said she had asked Washington for its demands after the rich asshole announced last June that he planned to quit the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to end the fossil fuel era this century with a shift to cleaner energies.
"There has not been a follow-up” from Washington, she told Reuters during negotiations in Bonn among almost 200 nations on a “rule book” for the 2015 agreement.
Espinosa, a former Mexican foreign minister who leads the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said she had stressed that the pact was flexible, allowing all countries to set their own targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“I would not like to see the U.S. leaving. I certainly hope there is a reconsideration of this decision,” she said of the rich asshole’s plan to pull out.
the rich asshole doubts the view of mainstream science that man-made greenhouse gases are raising global temperatures.
The rules of the Paris Agreement mean that the rich asshole cannot formally pull out before November 2020, around the time of the next U.S. presidential election.
The rules of the Paris Agreement mean that the rich asshole cannot formally pull out before November 2020, around the time of the next U.S. presidential election.
In announcing the U.S. withdrawal, the rich asshole said Paris was a bad deal that would harm the U.S. economy, but added: “We will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.”
IRAN DEAL WITHDRAWAL “COMPLETELY SEPARATE”
Espinosa said that the rich asshole’s plan to quit the Iran nuclear deal, announced on Tuesday and again demonstrating that he is willing to defy pleas from U.S. allies, did not dim her hopes that Washington might stay in the Paris accord.
Espinosa said that the rich asshole’s plan to quit the Iran nuclear deal, announced on Tuesday and again demonstrating that he is willing to defy pleas from U.S. allies, did not dim her hopes that Washington might stay in the Paris accord.
“I think these are completely separate … spheres of foreign policy and decision making,” she said.
On climate change, she said the rich asshole might be swayed by an accelerating shift among many U.S. states, cities and companies to cleaner energies from fossil fuels.
Asked if the United States would outline its demands at the Bonn talks, a U.S. State Department official said: “We do not have any new information to share at this time on decisions concerning the Paris Agreement.”
The Bonn meeting, which ends on Thursday, is working on rules for the Paris Agreement due to be in place by the end of the year, such as how to measure and account for greenhouse gas emissions and climate finance for developing nations that is meant to reach $100 billion a year by 2020.
“A good set of rules … should be a way to give comfort and confidence to the concerns they (the United States) could have,” said Espinosa.
“A good set of rules … should be a way to give comfort and confidence to the concerns they (the United States) could have,” said Espinosa.
Asked if she would be happy for the United States to stay, while watering down deep cuts in emissions promised by former President Barack Obama, Espinosa said: “I think we should not choose between those two scenarios.”
the rich asshole has ignored Parkland families — except the one who supports him
By
-
'When it comes to consoling or helping, or even reaching out to victims, or people who are assisting victims, he has nothing to say.'
Three months after 17 people were killed at the Parkland, Florida, school gun massacre, the rich asshole is still ignoring most of the surviving families.
Refusing to the decent thing by offering up condolences to all the victims, the rich asshole to date has only reached out to a single Parkland family, and that was a family that publicly supported the rich asshole’s plan to arm school teachers.
As for the other Parkland families, many of whom have been vocal in their support of gun safety and their condemnations of the NRA and its radical gun agenda, the rich asshole has stiff-armed them.
The petty move represents a stunning dereliction of duty. But the rich asshole has made a habit out of refusing to do the right thing, like honoring fallen U.S. soldiers, or acknowledging an American hero who helped stop a recent Waffle House gun massacre.
As for the historic Parkland massacre, “He just completely ignored us and it’s really shitty,” Debra Hixon told BuzzFeed. Her husband, Chris Hixon, died trying to disarm the Parkland gunman and protect his students. “A human thing to do is to reach out to everyone. If you reach out to one family you should reach out to all of us.”
The parents of slain Parkland geography teacher Scott Beigel have noticed that the rich asshole seems to have a lot of free times on his hands but can’t find any time for them.
“It’s almost amazing that he would take the time to call Roseanne Barr and congratulate her on such a great show, because it implied how wonderful he was,” Scott’s father, Michael Schulman, said. “But when it comes to consoling or helping, or even reaching out to victims, or people who are assisting victims, he has nothing to say. It’s really mind-boggling.”
Several Parkland families were angered and stunned when the rich asshole, while addressing the NRA’s annual convention last week, pretended to care about the victims. “We mourn for the victims and their families,” he announced.
But they say there’s zero proof the rich asshole has mourned the victims.
To date, it appears the only Parkland family that the rich asshole has reached out to is one that supports him politically: “Andrew Pollack, who has been a vocal supporter of adding more armed personnel at schools, told BuzzFeed News said that he met with the president twice within a month of the massacre.”
The truth is the rich asshole signaled his callous indifference to the families from the very beginning. Just after the massacre, he went golfing in Florida the same day that a funeral for a Parkland victim was being held just down the coast.
But this is how the rich asshole operates, often without basic human decency.
Last October, when ISIS gunmen in Niger killed four Army Special Forces troops in an ambush, the rich asshole refused to publicly acknowledge Americans’ sacrifice, let alone honor them or offer condolences.
More recently, the rich asshole has refused to publicly acknowledge and praise the heroic actions of James Shaw Jr.
Police say the unarmed Shaw risked his life when he leapt to action during a shooting at a restaurant in Tennessee. Shaw knocked the gun out of the murderer’s hand, preventing further bloodshed.
But Shaw’s heroism doesn’t fit the NRA’s “good guy with a gun” narrative, so the rich asshole has snubbed him.
In the wake of the Parkland tragedy, the rich asshole has turned mourning into a partisan pursuit.
the rich asshole claims everybody wants him to have Nobel Prize: ‘Everyone thinks so but I would never say it’
some rich asshole (CNN/ screen grab)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
President some rich asshole on Wednesday asserted that “everyone” thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize over his negotiations with North Korea, but he added that “I would never say it.”
After North Korea released three American prisoners on Wednesday, the rich asshole was asked by reporters if he was deserving of the Nobel prize.
“Everyone thinks so but I would never say it,” the president chuckled in response.
Watch the video below.
Does Pres. Trump deserve the Nobel Prize? "Everyone thinks so, but I would never say it," Pres. Trump says.
"The prize I want is victory for the world." abcn.ws/2hFejwL
the rich asshole says US detainees in North Korea have been freed
BY JORDAN FABIAN AND MALLORY SHELBOURNE - 05/09/18 08:51 AM EDT
President the rich asshole said on Wednesday three Americans imprisoned in North Korea have been freed and are on their way home with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a major diplomatic breakthrough with a longtime U.S. adversary.
the rich asshole took to Twitter to make the announcement, which has been expected for the last week.
“I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting,” the president wrote.
I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also, good meeting with Kim Jong Un. Date & Place set.
the rich asshole said he would greet Pompeo and the three Americans at Joint Base Andrews at 2 a.m. Thursday morning.
Secretary Pompeo and his “guests” will be landing at Andrews Air Force Base at 2:00 A.M. in the morning. I will be there to greet them. Very exciting!
The release of the Americans came while Pompeo was visiting North Korea to prepare for a high-stakes summit between the rich asshole and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un aimed at denuclearizing the rogue nation.
the rich asshole said Pompeo had a “good meeting" adding, “Date & Place set,” appearing to refer to a day and venue for the summit.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that the rich asshole views the detainee release “as a positive gesture of goodwill” ahead of the talks.
She said the Americans “appear to be in good condition and were all able to walk on the plane without assistance.”
The U.S. has long demanded the release of Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song, the three American citizens who were imprisoned on charges of espionage or other anti-state activities against North Korea.
Their imprisonment, which was widely seen as unjust, further heightened tensions with Pyongyang at a time when the rich asshole and Kim threatened each other with nuclear strikes.
Otto Warmbier, the last American to be released from North Korean custody, died shortly after returning for the U.S. the rich asshole blamed North Korea for the brain damage and other injuries Warmbier suffered.
With the latest release, no other Americans are believed to be detained in North Korea, clearing the way for talks.
“We have been asking for the release of these detainees for … 17 months,” Pompeo told reporters in Japan on Tuesday before continuing onto Pyongyang. “I think it’d be a great gesture if they would choose to do so.”
The new secretary of State was on his second trip to North Korea this year to meet with Kim in preparation for the summit with the rich asshole.
The meeting is expected to take place in May or early June.
Kim late last month met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and crossed into South Korea for the first time.
-- Updated at 10:18 a.m.
the rich asshole says Iran will negotiate or ‘something will happen’
Despite French president Emmanuel Macron’s best efforts on his April state visit, the rich asshole has decided to withdraw the US from the Iran nuclear deal. The decision upends current US foreign policy. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
U.S. President some rich asshole said on Wednesday that, after he announced the United States would be withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and imposing new sanctions, Iran would either negotiate or “something will happen.”
It was not immediately clear what actions he was suggesting would take place.
Reporting by James Oliphant; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama
Health insurers say higher Obamacare premiums are coming, and it’s Republicans’ fault
People who don't have insurance through work stand to lose.
Early signs show health insurance companies are trying to exponentially raise prices for plans sold on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace — and for people who don’t qualify for federal assistance, there’s no relief in sight.
Insurers in Maryland and Virginia are asking for double-digit premium increases to 2019 monthly plans. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield CEO Chet Burrell said that Maryland’s exchange is in the “advanced stages of a death spiral.”
Health experts warned this would happen. In fact, insurers who set the premium rates cautioned that costs would rise if lawmakers continued to undermine the Obamacare exchanges and not shore up the market. A letter issued to lawmakers in November from major health industry players said “[e]liminating the individual mandate by itself likely will result in a significant increase in premiums, which would in turn substantially increase the number of uninsured Americans.”
Now the public at large is learning what it meant for Congress to repeal the individual mandate, the tax penalty for not having insurance, and then not doing anything to improve a fragile market.
Instability — largely driven by Republican policy like the repeal of the mandate and the president’s decision to stop paying insurers for cost sharing subsidies — has irked insurance companies, but they’re mostly able to avoid serious harm. In 2017, for example, insurers still made money — Blue Cross Blue Shield had a $1.3 billion windfall — by raising premiums and enjoying the delay of an Obamacare tax, according to Axios.
People who need and buy health care on the exchanges — particularly those who don’t qualify for premium tax credits — are the ones actually hurt by these decisions. To qualify, they need to make between 100 and 400 percent of the poverty level.
Already, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield is asking Maryland to approve a 19 percent increase on HMO plans, which are used by a majority of ACA enrollees statewide, and a whopping 91 percent increase on its PPO plans, which roughly 13,000 people use. The only other option is to purchase Kaiser Permanente plans, which requested a 37 percent increase on its HMO plans.
In Virginia, consumers have more options.
CareFirst asked for a 64 percent and 27 percent increase for its PPO and HMO plans, respectively. Kaiser requested a 32 percent bump; Virginia-based insurer Piedmont asked for an 18 percent increase; Cigna wants a 15 percent bump; and Anthem would like to increase plans by 6 percent. The only insurer to request a lower rate was Optima, who wants to lower prices by 2 percent.
These rates still need to be approved by state regulators.
A relatively small number of people purchase plans. In Maryland about 154,000people buy health care on the market and in Virginia, roughly 400,00 people do. Even fewer people experience the full hike because subsidies protect them.
But there will be those who buy unsubsidized insurance. And they’ll likely have to either buy the ridiculously expensive plan, go without insurance, or purchase junk insurance.
The rich asshole administration said its “affordable alternative” to ACA health plans are cheaper but less comprehensive as a result. For example, they’ve endorsed permitting people to purchase short-term plans for 364 days, rather than the current three-month limit. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study found none of these plans cover maternity health and barely cover addiction treatment.
On Tuesday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), one of the lawmakers who tried to mitigate the blow, officially declared the one Obamacare fix bill that both parties could agree on as dead.
This isn’t all without consequence. After years of decline, the uninsured rate is ticking back up. According to new data published by Gallup and Sharecare Wednesday, the uninsured rate increased to 12.2 percent in 2017, compared to 10.9 percent at the end of 2016. The increase was especially significant in West Virginia, New Mexico, Iowa, and Hawaii, where the uninsured rate rose by at least 3 percentage points.
The uninsured rate is higher among Republicans than Democrats, noted Vox’s Sarah Kliff, meaning the people who elected the rich asshole to office are faring worse.
This post has been updated with recent Gallup/Sharecare data on uninsured rates.
Novartis says it paid Michael Cohen $1.2 million for one meeting — then concluded he was useless
the rich asshole Special Counsel Michael Cohen (CNN screen grab)
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
Pharmaceutical company Novartis has now shed more information about what it got in exchange for paying $1.2 million to Essential Consulting, the LLC operated by President some rich asshole’s “fixer” Michael Cohen.
In a statement given to NBC News’ Tom Winter, Novartis said that it agreed to pay Cohen $1.2 million and had a total of one meeting with him before it then concluded that he would be “unable to provide the services that Novartis had anticipated related to U.S. healthcare policy matters.”
As to why it agreed to pay out that much money for only one meeting, the company said that “as the contract unfortunately could only be terminated for cause, payments continued to be made until the contract expired by its own terms in February 2018.”
Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan met with the rich asshole back in January while the president was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. During that time, his company was still making payments to Cohen related to their meeting.
Novartis also confirmed that special counsel Robert Mueller had questioned it about its payments to Cohen’s LLC late last year, before any such payments were publicly disclosed.
the rich asshole threatens to remove news networks' press credentials over negative coverage
BY BROOKE SEIPEL - 05/09/18 07:54 AM EDT
President the rich asshole early Wednesday suggested taking away news networks' press credentials over "negative" coverage.
"The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake)," the rich asshole wrote on Twitter.
"Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?"
The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?
the rich asshole frequently criticizes major news outlets for so-called fake news and has threatened in the past to remove press credentials for a number of outlets.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, the rich asshole took away some news outlets' press credentials. Such outlets were able to cover his rallies but were cut off from his press conferences and any special access reporters with credentials normally receive.
Cutting off press credentials would not mean reporters can no longer cover the president.
the rich asshole's latest threat to take away press credentials comes after The Washington Post and other outlets confirmed some of the claims made by adult-film star Stormy Daniels's attorney Michael Avenatti on Tuesday about the rich asshole's personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
According to Avenatti, Cohen received $500,000 in the months after the 2016 election from a company run by a Russian oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Avenatti said the funding may have been used to reimburse the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Daniels to stay quiet about her alleged affair with the rich asshole.
GOP chair gavels Tom Cotton into silence as he throws tantrum during Democrat’s closing remarks at Haspel hearing
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). Image via screengrab.
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was forced to silence Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) after he interrupted the panel’s ranking Democrat at the end of the CIA director nominee’s confirmation hearing.
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) brought up former CIA director John Brennan’s comments “repudiating” controversial interrogation techniques used by nominee Gina Haspel during the second Bush administration when Cotton interjected that the former intelligence chief “supports her nomination.”
Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) banged the gavel and declared “senator will suspend” as a warning to Cotton, but the Arkansas Republican countered him and repeated his statement about Brennan.
“No,” Burr said, “senator will suspend.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman,” Warner said, thanking his Republican colleague for shutting Cotton down.
Watch the tense moment below, via CSPAN3.
the rich asshole threatens to revoke media credentials until they’re nicer to him
By
-
the rich asshole really thinks he can threaten reporters into pretending he isn't a disastrous failed president. He can't.
the rich asshole was too busy Tuesday disgracing the country and insulting our closest allies by violating the Iran deal, but on Wednesday he resumed one of his favorite hobbies: attacking the media.
And this time, he threatened to “take away credentials” from reporters who dare to accurately cover his train wreck presidency.
“Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake),” he tweeted. “Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?”
As with just about everything out of the rich asshole’s mouth — he’s already told more than 3,000 lies since taking office, and counting — this too is baseless nonsense. the rich asshole’s administration doesn’t work with the media at all.
Instead, the rich asshole and the people who speak for him constantly lie to, insult, and otherwise avoid the media. the rich asshole has given exactly one solo press conference since taking office, and that was more than a year ago.
He has avoided sitting down with any non-Fox News television media for almost a year as well, since his disastrous interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, when he admitted he fired FBI Director James Comey to try to shut down the Russia investigation.
His press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has so badly damaged her credibility by endlessly lying to reporters on a near-daily basis that even she recently admitted she can only give the information she has at the time, which is regularly proven to be patently false.
Meanwhile, the administration’s assault on reporters is a global embarrassment. In January, the rich asshole was named the world’s number one media oppressor by the Committee to Protect Journalists, beating out dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Reporters, including White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks April Ryan, have received death threats for daring to ask questions of this administration.
CNN’s Jim Acosta, whom the rich asshole kicked out of the Oval Office for doing his job — which Acosta called “a badge of honor” — spoke recently about the kinds of threats he and his colleagues receive because of the White House’s open hostility to the media.
“My concern is is that a journalist is going to be hurt one of these days, somebody’s going to get hurt,” Acosta said. “And at that point, the White House, the president of the United States, they’re going to have to take a hard look in the mirror and ask themselves whether or not they played a role in this, whether they created this toxic environment that resulted in a journalist getting hurt.”
For that very serious concern, the rich asshole’s loyal defenders at Fox News attacked Acosta.
But for the rich asshole, the media that covers his egregious behavior is so unworthy, it should not even be able to do its job at all. His insistence that negative coverage is “fake” is another lie, and it’s not likely to discourage the media from continuing to cover his disastrous term.
Threats from a president who largely hides from the media anyway won’t do it either. If the deeply unpopular and unsuccessful the rich asshole wants better coverage, he should be a better president.
Until then, the media is going to keep telling the truth about him, even if he doesn’t like it.
the rich asshole: Why wouldn't we win midterms?
BY MALLORY SHELBOURNE - 05/09/18 07:50 AM EDT
President the rich asshole on Wednesday touted Republican wins in primary elections across the country and predicted victory for the GOP in November's midterm elections.
“The Republican Party had a great night. Tremendous voter energy and excitement, and all candidates are those who have a great chance of winning in November,” the president wrote on Twitter.
“The Economy is sooo strong, and with Nancy Pelosi wanting to end the big Tax Cuts and Raise Taxes, why wouldn’t we win?”
The Republican Party had a great night. Tremendous voter energy and excitement, and all candidates are those who have a great chance of winning in November. The Economy is sooo strong, and with Nancy Pelosi wanting to end the big Tax Cuts and Raise Taxes, why wouldn’t we win?
The president earlier this week weighed in on the West Virginia Senate primary, urging voters to cast a ballot for one of the Republicans running against former coal CEO Don Blankenship.
“To the great people of West Virginia we have, together, a really great chance to keep making a big difference,” the rich asshole said on Monday.
“Problem is, Don Blankenship, currently running for Senate, can’t win the General Election in your State...No way! Remember Alabama. Vote Rep. Jenkins or A.G. Morrisey!” the president added, referring to Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.) and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
Morrisey on Tuesday defeated Blankenship, who sparked concern among the GOP with his controversial attacks on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
the rich asshole's latest shot at the press corps: 'Take away credentials?'
May 9, 2018: 2:52 PM ET
President the rich asshole has mused privately during his nearly 16 months in office about revoking reporters' press credentials, according to multiple people familiar with his comments.
On Wednesday, he brought it up publicly, tweeting "take away credentials?" as a question.
If he intended to provoke a reaction, he succeeded. Some journalists expressed outrage at the idea. Others dismissed it as typical the rich asshole bloviating.
The White House Correspondents Association, which represents the press corps, expressed concern about the tweet.
"Some may excuse the president's inflammatory rhetoric about the media, but just because the president does not like news coverage does not make it fake," the association's president, Margaret Talev, said. "A free press must be able to report on the good, the bad, the momentous and the mundane, without fear or favor. And a president preventing a free and independent press from covering the workings of our republic would be an unconscionable assault on the First Amendment."
Key words: "Would be."
The White House has historically been permissive about press passes, erring on the side of greater access, even for obscure, partisan or fringe outlets. There are no indications that the rich asshole is actually taking steps to change that.
But Wednesday's comment showed his continued hostility toward the journalists who cover him.
"These authoritarian impulses of yours are anti-American," former Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub, now a CNN contributor, tweeted in response.
the rich asshole, apparently in venting mode, linked the "credentials" question to a complaint that network news coverage of his presidency is "negative (Fake)."
"He has a lack of understanding of how news coverage actually works, and unfortunately so do a lot of his supporters," Maggie Haberman of The New York Times tweeted.
the rich asshole's question faced some criticism from one of his most powerful allies in conservative media. Matt Drudge, the founder of The Drudge Report, tweeted Wednesday morning, "I fear the future result of the rich asshole's crusade on 'fake news' will be licensing of all reporters."
"The mop up on this issue is going to be excruciating," added Drudge, who stays in regular contact with the White House, but who has fired a number of warning shots at the administration.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders may be asked about the credentials comment at Wednesday afternoon's briefing.
In private, the rich asshole sometimes grumbles about the press and grasps for possible penalties, like revoking credentials, according to the people familiar with his comments.
At times, the people said, the rich asshole names individual reporters whose coverage he doesn't like and feels is unfair to him, but more often he talks about blocking specific television networks or other outlets.
He has a history of doing this. During the presidential race, the rich asshole's campaign denied credentials to several news outlets, including The Washington Post, Univision, and Politico.
But he told CNN in a June 2016 interview that if elected, he would not kick reporters out of the White House. "When I'm representing the United States, I wouldn't do that," he said.
After the election, the rich asshole aides like Steve Bannon continued to push proposals that would have inhibited the work of the White House press corps. But none of those ideas -- like moving press briefings out of the West Wing -- came to pass. A ban on television coverage of the briefings only lasted a few weeks.
Despite the president's constant complaints about the media, journalists have given the administration generally high marks for access around the White House.
During the rich asshole's cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning, when the press pool was brought in for a photo op and a few questions, Yahoo's Hunter Walker asked, "Will you ban press from the White House?" the rich asshole did not answer.
But at the same cabinet meeting, he talked about the press covering the Americans who were released from North Korea on Wednesday. The three men are expected to arrive back in the United States early Thursday morning.
POLITICS
What Did AT&T And Novartis Get For The Money They Paid the rich asshole’s Lawyer?
The most innocent explanation of the payments to Michael Cohen’s LLC is still pretty sketchy.
‘Numbskull’ some rich asshole Jr brutally mocked for thinking conservative fan’s deleted tweet is censorship
some rich asshole Jr. gets interviewed by WTAE in Pennsylvania (Screen cap).
DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!
some rich asshole Jr. on Wednesday accused Twitter of censoring a popular supporter of his father — however, he quickly got buried in ridicule after people realized that the tweet in question had actually been deleted by the user.
The trouble for the rich asshole Jr. began when he noticed that a tweet by the rich asshole supporter Candace Owens praising the president no longer appeared in his timeline — and he immediately assumed that Twitter was at fault.
“So now [Owens] is being censored by Twitter?” the rich asshole Jr. wrote angrily. “She simply said ‘He likes the way I think’ referring to the duly elected President of The United States. I guess if you’re effective you get censored now!?!? Got it.”
However, it seems that Owens had simply deleted her original tweet and then replaced it with a lengthier response in which she said she was “truly honored and humbled” by the rich asshole’s tweet, which she also said was “an affirmation I will never forget.”
I am truly honored and humbled by this. I was just a girl on YouTube who had an idea that black people could rise above the victim narrative and embrace the opportunities of our future.
This tweet is an affirmation I will never forget.
Thank you, Mr. President. twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
Given that the rich asshole Jr. had obviously jumped the gun on accusing Twitter of censorship, his followers pounced and mocked him for making such a bone-headed mistake.
Check out the responses below.
That or the tweet was deleted you muppet.
My dude she deleted the tweet.
You’re an idiot. There’s 2 tweets. #Slow
turns out she deleted and reposted rofl....
Dude, you’re not too old to not understand how Twitter works. Have you tried tapping on the tweet?
She deleted it from her timeline, you mental midget.
she deleted the tweet you dumbass.
You still hold the title as the dumb one
the tweet was deleted you numbskull
some rich asshole just accidentally revealed something very important about his 'fake news' attacks
(CNN)On Wednesday morning, President some rich asshole sent out a tweet bashing the media. Nothing new there.
But, this tweet was different: the rich asshole unintentionally revealed the false premise on which his relentless calls of "fake news" is based.
"The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?"
Put aside the authoritarian -- but ultimately empty -- threat about taking away the media's "credentials," and focus instead on this sentence: "91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake)."
the rich asshole, I think, is referring to a 2017 study by the conservative Media Research Centerwhich claimed that 91% of the nightly news coverage on the president was negative.
But, that's not (really) the point here. The point can be summed up in these two words from the rich asshole: "negative (Fake)."
To the rich asshole, those words mean the same thing. Negative news coverage is fake news. Fake news is negative news coverage.
This is, of course, not true. Negative news coverage -- or, seen more accurately through the rich asshole lens, media coverage that he feels is not sufficiently favorable to him -- is not, by definition, fake. Fake news is made-up news. It's not based in traditional reporting values like facts and sourcing. It's not "news" at all.
(Sidebar: The media -- me included -- does make mistakes. We're human. When it happens, we publicly correct the record. the rich asshole seizes on those mistakes as incontrovertible evidence that the media is hopelessly fake. That would be like saying a person who got into one accident in 25 years of driving was a terrible and dangerous driver -- a drastic overstatement designed to score points with people already primed to believe the exaggeration.)
the rich asshole either doesn't understand or ignores the difference between a story he doesn't like and one that is not true. He conflates the two for his own political purposes -- knowing his base hates the media and is more than ready to believe that journalists are willing to make up stories just to make the rich asshole look bad.
Time and time again, the rich asshole's claims about "fake news" have been debunked. What he calls fake news isn't fake at all. It's true -- he just doesn't like to read about it because it paints him as fallible, and he hates that.
Here's how Factcheck.org, a nonpartisan fact-checking operation at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, described the rich asshole's approach to "fake news" in a detailed debunking of the idea headlined "the rich asshole's Phony 'Fake News' Claims":
President some rich asshole often dismisses news stories or media outlets that he doesn't like as "fake news." How often? A database of his public remarks contains 320 references last year to "fake news."
Usually, it's a general complaint about news coverage — such as his Christmas Eve tweet: "The Fake News refuses to talk about how Big and how Strong our BASE is."
But there are times, too, when he has labeled accurate news reporting as "fake news" or spread false information himself, while at the same time accusing the media of being "fake" or "dishonest."
Here's the problem: the rich asshole's attacks on the media -- as flawed and dishonest as they are -- are working. More than 4 in 10 people in a Gallup poll earlier this year could not name a single objective news source. Almost eight in 10 (77%) in a Monmouth University poll released last month said TV and print media report "fake news." That's a 14-point bump from the number of people who said the same last year.
The media is not blameless in all of this. As I noted above, we do make mistakes. We have made major strides in transparency but need to do even more to show our work to people. The more open we are about how we do our jobs, the better chance we have of convincing people that our most basic commitment is to getting stories right, not pushing some sort of imagined ideological agenda.
But, it's also important for people to understand what's behind the rich asshole's aggressive anti-media campaign. the rich asshole is about the rich asshole. He calls media "fake news" because the coverage of him isn't as positive as he would like.
Try this experiment going forward. Every time the rich asshole says or tweets the words "fake news," sub in the words "bad for me." It's revealing. Enlightening. And true.
WORLD NEWS
North Korea Releases 3 American Political Prisoners In Advance Of Historic Summit
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo departed North Korea with the three Americans.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo departed North Korea on Wednesday with three Americans the country had been holding in captivity, another sign that relations between the U.S. and North Korea are warming in advance of a first-of-its-kind nuclear summit.
President some rich asshole announced the prisoners’ release on Twitter, noting that they appeared to be in good health and applauding Pompeo’s “good meeting” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Pompeo tweeted an hour later that he was “delighted to bring home” the three liberated Americans.
Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang was timed with the rich asshole’s declaration that the U.S. would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. His meeting with Kim follows the North Korean leader’s second secret trip to China.
Kim Hak-song, Kim Dong-chul, and Kim Sang-duk, who is more commonly referred to as Tony Kim, were due to arrive at Andrews Air Force Base at 2 a.m Thursday, according to the rich asshole’s tweets.
“I will be there to greet them,” the rich asshole tweeted. “Very exciting!”
In a statement following the announcement, Tony Kim’s family thanked the rich asshole for “engaging directly with North Korea.”
“We are very grateful for the release of our husband and father, Tony Kim, and the other two American detainees,” the family wrote. “We ask that you continue to pray for the people of North Korea and for the release of all who are still being held.”
Hak-song, who had been doing research at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, was detained in May 2017 and accused of “hostile acts.” Dong-chul, accused of spying, was arrested in 2015 but sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in April 2016. Tony Kim, who had been living in North Korea with his wife, taught for a time at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. He, too, was accused of “hostile criminal acts” against the regime and was detained in April 2017.
the rich asshole hinted last week that the release could be imminent, tweeting that people should “Stay tuned!” There was no elaboration until Pompeo’s departure from Pyongyang on Wednesday.
the rich asshole’s unconventional approach to launching a dialogue with the reclusive North Korean regime consisted of wrangling with both the South Koreans and the Chinese to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table. Pompeo also made a secret trip to North Korea prior to his confirmation, while he was still CIA director.
the rich asshole and Kim plan to meet either this month or next in a location that has yet to be determined. Despite the fanfare surrounding the significance of such a meeting, experts have expressed caution that Kim will commit to meaningful steps toward denuclearization.
“The fact that we have the opportunity to change direction here and go in a more peaceful one and having it occur so quickly is good news,” said John McHugh, an Atlantic Council board director and former secretary of the U.S. Army. “But the lesson there is that we could very rapidly, if the upcoming summit is a failure, return to that [earlier] posture, which was an extraordinarily dangerous one.”
Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met last week in another historic gathering, jointly committing to ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. The two leaders also agreed to officially end the Korean War after 65 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment