People who are truely pro-life should work backwards. Get saftey nets in place for unwanted or needy children FIRST. Make sure they are taken care of, and have reasonable opportunities for education and employment. When that is solved, then we can work towards convincing people that our unborn children have the same right to life as everyone else.
Good god, the criminality of this family is bottomless. I'd especially like to call this to the attention of @semiticgod, who did such a good job of explaining the last NY Times piece on Trump's taxes. This was just outright theft and fraud against normal, everyday people trying to get by:
There's not much to explain. The scheme was fairly simple: the Trump family used the same schemes they used to avoid taxes (padding the costs of improvements to their buildings, which evaded taxes on the transfer of wealth to Trump from his father) to justify increases in rents paid by their tenants, many of whom never saw the "improvements" to the buildings.
Without full access to all the records, we don't know how much money was taken from tenants, but if the Trump family raised rent by just $10 across all of their buildings when this first started happening in 1995, they could have defrauded tenants out of over $33 million. If the number was higher, the cost could have been far more; rent increases that far back have exponential effects when it comes to costs in the present day (each rent increase is based on the one before it). Tenants can challenge rent hikes, but there are limits on the amount of money they can get back. It seems that the law gives preferential treatment to landlords in these disputes.
Except the majority is with the libersl position when it comes to immigration and global warming...
Also global warming isn't a policy preference. It's a scientific fact. conservatives in the pockets of Big Oil are not trying to promote a different policy preference; they are trying to dupe the public into not believing the science, because if the public understood the facts, they would have policy preferences that would not be great for Big Oil.
Btw your fantastical description of representative government only works if there is real political accountability for the representatives. So it's telling that the GOP is working hard to undermine political accountability...
The so-called solutions to global warming are what I'm talking about, not the fact of global warming.
Dude, I don't know what planet you're living on, but there is no kind of debate going on between Republicans and Democrats over how to address global warming. The nutjob conspiracy theorists with their heads in the sand denying that climate change is even happening, and generally attacking science to provide intellectual cover for it, have completely taken over the GOP.
I would LOVE to have an adult conversation about the pros and cons of this or that policy to address climate change. Is a carbon tax a bad idea? Great, let's hear some other ideas from conservatives! I honestly think they would have good ideas. I mean, there used to be conservatives who cared about the environment. But now, conservatives are not producing any ideas. Conservatives are ostracized if they don't hew to the party line that "climate change is a hoax" or "the science isn't clear" orwork.uch BS. (Cripes, they shut down the goddam Weekly Standard!!)
Whenever conservatives decide to pull their heads out of the butt-cheeks of oil-company executives sand and have a real conversation about solutions, the rest of the world is long since ready...
Well you can debate me I guess if that's a way to vent your frustrations. Personally I think that we need to find ways to deal with it myself. Even if Europe and the US are able to somehow curb carbon emissions (doubtful) there is no way short of war we're going to force the developing countries to tow the line. Am I wrong?
Well you may not be entirely wrong, but close to it . The COP24 talks in Poland about implementing the Paris Agreement have just concluded. I wouldn't say they've been a failure, but they've achieved much less than they could have done. It is true that the desire of certain smaller countries for 'flexibility' was one of the issues to deal with and that's partly about wanting the ability to emit carbon if they deem it necessary (though mainly it's about the amount of money made available by the richer nations). However, a far, far bigger problem was the desire of the richer oil producing countries (the US working with Russia and Saudi Arabia like one big happy family - who would have thought it ...) to keep the world hooked on oil in order to help themselves.
I won't say a lot about the blind greed associated with this type of thinking, but can't resist a small dig. Even within the lifetime of many of the current leaders, let alone their children, the costs of climate change will outweigh the benefits of continuing to use carbon-based fuels - and those costs will continue for a very long time thereafter.
Getting back to the issue though, you seem to be under the impression that developing countries want to adopt the US model and I don't think that's the case at all. Not only can they see the environmental costs associated with that, but installing a new fossil-fuel based economy makes no economic sense anyway. There's an argument that, where you already have facilities, you should continue to use them during a transitional period - but building new such facilities (like the coal-fired electricity plants the US is championing abroad) is the equivalent of burning money.
I agree there are definitely legitimate debates between left and right about the extent to which you make social provision. At the extreme some people do believe that things like armies, roads and sewers should be left up to cooperating individuals to provide and the State should not exist at all. That's not a widespread view even in the US, but there is a genuine discussion about how far the State should go in providing things (and taxing people to do that).
However, where political dogma ignores science and results in outcomes which are both demonstrably poor quality and expensive I think the answer is clear - change the dogma. That's certainly the case in health care and certainly the case in dealing with climate change. The reasons that the US currently has the policies on these issues it does is that: - elected representatives are paid to vote in a particular way and insulated from the impact on them personally of failed policies. - campaigns by vested interests are run to try and convince the public to ignore clear evidence on these issues.
Democracy is a terrible forum to take up these issues, however. France is a perfect example of what happens when it's 'you' that has to make the sacrifice instead of 'them'. That same result will be seen in every 'democracy' when the real price to be paid is revealed. The only solution IMHO is a cost-effective alternative. That is where our resources should be allocated.
That's not my interpretation of what's happening in France. I haven't seen any specific numbers, but I get the impression that the big problem is people feeling ignored - the protesters certainly come from across the political spectrum.
While one of the original triggers for the French protests was fuel tax rises, it's not clear what the problem there is. Is it actually that people don't want environmental taxes, or is it that they see this not as a tax to benefit the environment, but a way to transfer money from poor to rich (nearly all the benefit of recent tax changes was to give more to the richest 1%)? I suspect that in a democratic debate you would find support for a carbon tax as part of a balanced overall package of taxation.
As long as the rich paid for it you mean. I don't think the average rich person drives more than I do. He/she might pay more to heat his larger house though I guess. Would a rich person pay more for a plane ticket than a poor person? I find it more likely that plane tickets would be more expensive across the board, meaning poorer people wouldn't be able to fly at all. That sounds fair...
Edit: As a matter of fact, I'm sure a rich person would be fully capable of converting their mansion to solar or geothermal so they'd pay diddly squat in taxes to heat their house either. In fact, they'd very likely get tax credits to pay for at least part of the conversion!
I already linked to how 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions. Joe Sixpack's plane rides, cars, and house heating aren't the most pressing source of polluters to get under control.
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, perhaps giving far more credit to Brian Kemp than he possibly deserves, is now willing as a paper to come out and say that Kemp's claims of Democrats hacking the database were a complete fabrication. In the six weeks since, not a single shred of evidence has emerged to support this claim that he plastered on the front of the official website of the Secretary of State 48 hours before an election:
This election was a farce based on this incident alone. Kemp is nothing more than low-life scum. They KNEW it was a lie, and used his inherent power as Secretary of State to manufacture bogus hacking charges out of thin air to possibly swing the election. The worst part?? It worked. There will be no consequences. What exactly are you supposed to do when the sitting Secretary of State is willing to just fabricate phantom criminal charges against your campaign hours before an election?? There is no way to combat this kind of thing.
For those who might not be aware, @ThacoBell is a pro-life conservative who has on multiple occasions advocated for more support for adoption programs.
For those who might not be aware, @ThacoBell is a pro-life conservative who has on multiple occasions advocated for more support for adoption programs.
Might be more fair to say he is conservative on this particular issue. I find him very liberal on economics, healthcare and gay rights.
I honestly think that criminalize abortion is a waste of time. For example, on Argentina they voted to remain illegal but anyone can travel to Uruguay and have an abortion there. If USA criminalize, anyone can move to Canada.
But one thing that i really think that is worse than abortion restriction is restrictions on vasectomy. Mainly because "pro life" tends to believe that the fetus is a life. At least they wanna criminalize an "crime with victim", not a "crime without victim"...
People who are truely pro-life should work backwards. Get saftey nets in place for unwanted or needy children FIRST. Make sure they are taken care of, and have reasonable opportunities for education and employment. When that is solved, then we can work towards convincing people that our unborn children have the same right to life as everyone else.
The problem with that is that "Pro-life" for a lot of conservatives isn't about the baby. It's about punishing the woman for having sex. That's why they don't want to support the children that are born due to their policies, they want to punish the women for being dirty, dirty hooers. Notice, the men never get bothered. They can have sex all they want, all day long, and they are rarely, if ever punished for having sex. It's only the woman who get the punishment of being made to bear the child. If conservatives were serious about doing away with abortion, they'd fund contraception for 100% of women. But no, look at the way conservatives slammed Sandra Flake, who wanted affordable contraception for women... (Yet, all health plans cover Viagra for men).
There was a female commedian whp said that if men could have kids, abortion would be a sacrament. And don't much diagree with her.
Oh, yeah, and rich politicians whose mistresses get pregnant? They have no problem with forcing the woman to get an abortion there!
I don't believe almost any conservative is actually "pro-life." It would be trivially easy to reduce the number of abortions. Just support women who carry pregnancies, even unwanted pregnancies, to term. Help them offset the harm it causes to their educations, their careers, their life in general. Help support the adoption market (where demand is plenty strong). Generally make giving birth less of a burden - like, I don't know, about the same burden it is for a man who does not want to raise the child. Boom. There would be no abortions. Fetuses everywhere would be saved!
And yet, I see exactly zero movement in this regard from those on the pro-life right. It's almost as if they value not supporting women more than they value saving the lives of unborn children... weird...
That's the point. Forcing the dirty hoo-er to be punished by raising the kid(s). i only wonder why they haven't made giving up your child a crime yet.
I honestly think that criminalize abortion is a waste of time. For example, on Argentina they voted to remain illegal but anyone can travel to Uruguay and have an abortion there. If USA criminalize, anyone can move to Canada.
But one thing that i really think that is worse than abortion restriction is restrictions on vasectomy. Mainly because "pro life" tends to believe that the fetus is a life. At least they wanna criminalize an "crime with victim", not a "crime without victim"...
Abotion laws around the world.
I highly doubt people would plan a trip short notice just to get an abortion in another country. They’d just go to a black market doctor to provide the service.
I honestly think that criminalize abortion is a waste of time. For example, on Argentina they voted to remain illegal but anyone can travel to Uruguay and have an abortion there. If USA criminalize, anyone can move to Canada.
But one thing that i really think that is worse than abortion restriction is restrictions on vasectomy. Mainly because "pro life" tends to believe that the fetus is a life. At least they wanna criminalize an "crime with victim", not a "crime without victim"...
Abotion laws around the world.
I highly doubt people would plan a trip short notice just to get an abortion in another country. They’d just go to a black market doctor to provide the service.
Or use a clothes hanger like the good ol' days. Yuck!
Scope of investigations into Trump has shaped his presidency
https://www.apnews.com/6d6361fdf19846cb9eb020d9c6fbfa5a?fbclid=IwAR1ukVxkICwKvgW8-r25nn7JoL3OMzxmva5kdiu37IeLKuOd3v_HubcXDmA All of this with the first special counsel investigation against a president in 20 years hanging over Trump’s head, spinning out charges and strong-arming guilty pleas from underlings while keeping in suspense whether the president — “Individual 1” in prosecutor Robert Mueller’s coded legalese — will end up accused of criminal behavior himself. The scope of the scrutiny has shaped Trump’s presidency, proving a steady distraction from his governing agenda. So far, much of it has been launched by federal prosecutors and government watchdogs that eschew partisanship. The intensity is certain to increase next year when Democrats assume control of the House and the subpoena power that comes with it.
His worst nightmare: Trump's life under a legal microscope
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/15/politics/donald-trump-robert-mueller-investigations-russia/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0fBTqsKctRO4lGdBcQU7f7Sml30-mGOoGwnf93wV-PVapzLtDT2OlD54M Weeks of devastating legal revelations have left Donald Trump's political career clouded by criminality and his life, presidency and business empire under assault by relentless prosecutors on multiple fronts. Days of court filings, flipped witnesses, damaging disclosures and sentencing hearings over the last month have delivered blows that appear to expose Trump and key associates to deep legal and political jeopardy. But the head-spinning volume of material being churned out by special counsel Robert Mueller and other jurisdictions often also blurs the bigger picture of a presidency beset by a span of scandal that is staggering in its breadth.
Mueller Is Fighting a Witness in Court. Who Is It?
Trump increasingly isolated as aides leave, friends flip and investigations advance
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-increasingly-isolated-as-aides-leave-friends-flip-and-investigations-advance/ar-BBQVRWZ?ocid=ob-fb-enus-280&fbclid=IwAR2Xt-Ka-659XvFGOQde0iXeOsdWffNXxUY3QS4BhD55NgpUptdJlxNCMvM It was almost noon Thursday when a Marine suddenly appeared outside the West Wing doors, a sign that President Donald Trump had belatedly reported to the Oval Office. For the second day in a row, the president had been in the White House residence all morning, fuming about federal investigations that have moved closer to him — and are likely to get worse. His former confidant, attorney Michael Cohen, and other once-stalwart supporters have flipped, becoming witnesses for a Justice Department he has struggled to bend to his will. Prosecutors also secured the cooperation of American Media Inc., the tabloid publisher that routinely helped Trump muzzle bad stories and target his enemies.
REPUBLICAN SENATORS WHO TRIED TO KILL YEMEN WAR RESOLUTION WERE PAID BY SAUDI LOBBYISTS
House Democrats’ big democracy reform package is good policy, and smart politics
https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2018/12/10/18134994/house-democrats-democracy-reform-package?fbclid=IwAR225WLWezK33-hVqWGjASTodfmueFLAFS4x8kUuoMQzjIeVShc7mfcbi7g House Democrats have decided on their priority legislation for the next Congress, and it’s all about improving the quality of American democracy. HR 1, the bill number typically reserved for the House majority party’s most important policy, marks the first time that political reform has been given this kind of top billing. There’s a lot in the bill, including a number of ethics and disclosure and election security proposals that should be commonsense. But at heart, there are four big-ticket items that would be standalone news on their own: a small-donor matching system for campaign finance, mandatory independent redistricting commissions, automatic voter registration, and felon reenfranchisement. Collectively, this is the most transformative pro-democracy package in decades. This sounds really good. Doing away with gerrymandering, opt-out voter registration (You are resigstered, unless you opt-out) sound really good to me.
A bill that would have given benefits to thousands of Navy veterans who might have been exposed to Agent Orange just failed to pass the Senate
Bishop Blames The Victim, Claims ‘Immodest Dress’ Of Women Causes Sexual Assault
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2018/12/bishop-blames-the-victim-claims-immodest-dress-of-women-causes-sexual-assault/?fbclid=IwAR1PlSham9bYYXtriu2ZxXc7S5AzgM9ejzT8hoSxQBFQQmlwF81UaNXsx9Y Talk about living in the 1500's! Blaming the victim: Bishop Donald Sanborn claims that the immodest dress of modern women causes sexual assault. In a recent blog post for In Veritate, Bishop Sanborn offers a critique of the “MeToo” movement by suggesting that women cause their own sexual assault by tempting men with their “immodest dress.” In his blog post Sanborn makes it clear that victims are at least partially responsible for their own sexual assault, writing: It is true that the conduct of some men is deplorable in this regard, but it is also true that the conduct of some women is deplorable as well. No, what's more deplorable is blaming women!
NY Priest Embezzled $1 Million For ‘Drug Fueled Sex Romps’ With Male Escort
I don't believe almost any conservative is actually "pro-life." It would be trivially easy to reduce the number of abortions. Just support women who carry pregnancies, even unwanted pregnancies, to term. Help them offset the harm it causes to their educations, their careers, their life in general. Help support the adoption market (where demand is plenty strong). Generally make giving birth less of a burden - like, I don't know, about the same burden it is for a man who does not want to raise the child. Boom. There would be no abortions. Fetuses everywhere would be saved!
And yet, I see exactly zero movement in this regard from those on the pro-life right. It's almost as if they value not supporting women more than they value saving the lives of unborn children... weird...
I highly doubt people would plan a trip short notice just to get an abortion in another country. They’d just go to a black market doctor to provide the service.
Ireland recently moved to legalize abortion but before that an estimated 7000 women a year travelled to the UK from Ireland to terminate a pregnancy. So widespread was the practice that a countrywide euphemism for abortion was “getting the boat” (to England).
I highly doubt people would plan a trip short notice just to get an abortion in another country. They’d just go to a black market doctor to provide the service.
I think that depends. I can pick an car and in the same day visit another country, pay someone to do the procedure and move back with my girlfriend for example. IMO is more safe than a black market. If you live on Southern part of California, go to Canada for example will take much more time and resources.
The same applies to gun. This children from a very strict gun control country decided to visit an USA territory to have an experience with guns who even officers can't own on his country... If he wanna, he probably can disassembly the gun, and move from a boat or something similar. No anti gun law can prevent anyone from owning a gun. "In Japan, the gun is prohibited by a law. I came for trip to Guam and shot it and was fun."
Race, not abortion, was the founding issue of the religious right
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/02/05/race-not-abortion-was-founding-issue-religious-right/A5rnmClvuAU7EaThaNLAnK/story.html?event=event25&fbclid=IwAR2tc6dtXfk71so0PrB7HvudVHjvldhVI9vmdx6R9QlyKi793skG8TkO564 Though opposition to abortion is what many think fueled the powerful conservative white evangelical right, 81 percent of whom voted for Donald Trump, it was really school integration, according to Randall Balmer, chairman of the religion department at Dartmouth. The US Supreme Court ruled public school segregation unconstitutional in 1954. In 1976 it ruled against segregated private schools. Then courts went after the tax exemptions of these private all-white Southern schools, or so-called segregation academies, like Falwell’s Liberty Christian Academy. The late Paul Weyrich, whom Balmer called the organizational genius behind the religious right, had long tried to mobilize evangelical voters around some hot-button issue: feminism, school prayer, pornography, abortion. But nothing lit a fire like the federal government’s threat to all-white schools. Only in 1979, a full six years after Roe, did Weyrich urge evangelical leaders to also crusade against abortion, Balmer said in an interview. That was, after all, a far more palatable, acceptable crusade, one with a seeming high moral purpose, unlike a race-based crusade against black children.
Pacific Life pulls ads from Tucker Carlson's show after 'poorer and dirtier' immigration comment
'Not all men': An astonishingly selfish reaction to women's pain
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/not-all-men-an-astonishingly-selfish-reaction-to-womens-pain/ar-BBQUoeZ?fbclid=IwAR3hIyAFvnRvQCNlTEecj-8SfrOrV122ImusQOc9xntSLYcMD3np2puosSs And if you say something critical of male behaviour online, 8000 men will squirm out of the woodwork to bleat a single phrase: "Not all men." There's a simple reason why women fear men. The average man could easily overpower most women if he wanted to. Up to one in five New Zealand women experience sexual assault, and because so few cases are reported the real number is likely higher. NZ Police receive a domestic violence callout every four minutes. Women have reason to fear men. Men have no rational need for an equivalent fear of women because we pose no systemic threat to them. Incidents of female-on-male violence are no less serious than the other way around, but they're so rare that they become news events like Lorena Bobbitt or Sharon Edwards. When a man yells something about a woman's body as he drives past her, which happened to me last Friday, or a man makes his female colleague feel unsafe when they're alone together, which happened to my friend a few weeks ago, or a man uses the excuse of a crowded dancefloor to rub his erect penis against a woman he doesn't know, which has happened to me and probably every other woman every time we go out, it doesn't feel like most men are good. When we turn down a dark street and see a lone male figure, or have to walk past a group of drunk guys, or our Uber driver makes a weird comment as he locks the car doors, it really doesn't matter that most men don't do bad things to women. In these situations, assuming all men are good until proven otherwise is a strategy that can get you killed. When our lives are on the line, you all look the same. And quite frankly, I don't care if that hurts your feelings.
House Democrats’ big democracy reform package is good policy, and smart politics
https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2018/12/10/18134994/house-democrats-democracy-reform-package?fbclid=IwAR225WLWezK33-hVqWGjASTodfmueFLAFS4x8kUuoMQzjIeVShc7mfcbi7g House Democrats have decided on their priority legislation for the next Congress, and it’s all about improving the quality of American democracy. HR 1, the bill number typically reserved for the House majority party’s most important policy, marks the first time that political reform has been given this kind of top billing. There’s a lot in the bill, including a number of ethics and disclosure and election security proposals that should be commonsense. But at heart, there are four big-ticket items that would be standalone news on their own: a small-donor matching system for campaign finance, mandatory independent redistricting commissions, automatic voter registration, and felon reenfranchisement. Collectively, this is the most transformative pro-democracy package in decades. This sounds really good. Doing away with gerrymandering, opt-out voter registration (You are resigstered, unless you opt-out) sound really good to me.
This is very good news indeed. We've been in dire need of reforms to our political system, and we're seeing more politicians who are willing to make these changes. Corruption is an eminently solvable problem; all we need is votes in Congress to ban the behaviors that encourage politicians to pay more attention to narrow interests over the public good.
We might have lost John McCain, but it seems that we have Democrats who are willing to take up the issue. I hope they succeed.
I hope this won't be the end, either. Even if all of those reforms go through, that won't solve all of our corruption problems. We still need a total ban on campaign contributions--that's the most important change that we need to our system.
@subtledoctor I've advocated for that very same cause not just here, but elsewhere as well.
@jjstraka34 I don't actually know how I skew overall politically. I've had people describe me as central-leaning right, and central-leaning left. Both are probably just as reasonable. I don't care about political parties, only issues.
@LadyRhian I don't think I agree with that. People are diverse enough that its inevitable that some people see it that way, but as somebody who used to be your stereotypical pro-lifer, and who lived in those circles for a long time, most of us ARE in it for the sake of the child. The problem with it, is that its a purely EMOTIONAL reaction for most people. Too many don't think about what that looks like long term for the child and mother, or even that the abortion may be necessary to save the life of the mother. I've had these conversations with enough people to feel that most have good intentions.
I'd be interested to know what the free speech absolutist crowd thinks about the President of the United States thinking a sketch comedy show that makes fun of him should be ILLEGAL:
It's almost as if the constant bitching about Youtube, Twitter and college campuses is completey disingenuous and cynical. Because when the leader of the United States government calls for criminalizing unflattering remarks about him on broadcast TV, there is nothing but the sound of crickets. As if every President and Presidential candidate hasn't been roasted alive by SNL since Gerald Ford.
I'd be interested to know what the free speech absolutist crowd thinks about the President of the United States thinking a sketch comedy show that makes fun of him should be ILLEGAL:
It's almost as if the constant bitching about Youtube, Twitter and college campuses is completey disingenuous and cynical. Because when the leader of the United States government calls for criminalizing unflattering remarks about him on broadcast TV, there is nothing but the sound of crickets. As if every President and Presidential candidate hasn't been roasted alive by SNL since Gerald Ford.
I don't hear any people other than Trump calling for this, though. What do you want, people to tell Trump to shut up? Like he's going to listen...
I'd be interested to know what the free speech absolutist crowd thinks about the President of the United States thinking a sketch comedy show that makes fun of him should be ILLEGAL:
It's almost as if the constant bitching about Youtube, Twitter and college campuses is completey disingenuous and cynical. Because when the leader of the United States government calls for criminalizing unflattering remarks about him on broadcast TV, there is nothing but the sound of crickets. As if every President and Presidential candidate hasn't been roasted alive by SNL since Gerald Ford.
I don't hear any people other than Trump calling for this, though. What do you want, people to tell Trump to shut up? Like he's going to listen...
I'm not saying he can necessarily DO anything about it. I'm saying the mentality that leads one to announce to the world he thinks criticism or satire of him shouldn't be allowed is a practically disqualifying trait.
On another note, the market is now consistently on a downward trend. At this hour, another 500 points down. Trump's own #1 metric for his success is the market. If it continues this way, I don't know what the hell he points to as a positive anymore.
If he feels he's been defamed, then sue. I'm sure he'll be laughed out of court. For defamation, you have to show that you have really been harmed by what was said.
"Defamation of character" is a catch-all term for any statement that hurts someone's reputation. Written defamation is called "libel," while spoken defamation is called "slander." Defamation is not a crime, but it is a "tort" (a civil wrong, rather than a criminal wrong). A person who has been defamed can sue the person who did the defaming for damages.
Defamation law tries to balance competing interests: On the one hand, people should not ruin others' lives by telling lies about them; but on the other hand, people should be able to speak freely without fear of litigation over every insult, disagreement, or mistake. Political and social disagreement is important in a free society, and we obviously don't all share the same opinions or beliefs. For instance, political opponents often reach opposite conclusions from the same facts, and editorial cartoonists often exaggerate facts to make their point.
The law of defamation varies from state to state, but there are some generally accepted rules. If you believe you are have been "defamed," to prove it you usually have to show there's been a statement that is all of the following:
published false injurious unprivileged Let's look at each of these defamation claim elements in detail.
1. First, the "statement" can be spoken, written, pictured, or even gestured. Because written statements last longer than spoken statements, most courts, juries, and insurance companies consider libel more harmful than slander.
2. "Published" means that a third party heard or saw the statement -- that is, someone other than the person who made the statement or the person the statement was about. "Published" doesn't necessarily mean that the statement was printed in a book -- it just needs to have been made public through social media, television, radio, speeches, gossip, or even loud conversation. Of course, it could also have been written in magazines, books, newspapers, leaflets, or on picket signs.
3. A defamatory statement must be false -- otherwise it's not considered damaging. Even terribly mean or disparaging things are not defamatory if the shoe fits. Most opinions don't count as defamation because they can't be proved to be objectively false. For instance, when a reviewer says, "That was the worst book I've read all year," she's not defaming the author, because the statement can't be proven to be false.
4. The statement must be "injurious." Since the whole point of defamation law is to take care of injuries to reputation, those suing for defamation must show how their reputations were hurt by the false statement -- for example, the person lost work; was shunned by neighbors, friends, or family members; or was harassed by the press. Someone who already had a terrible reputation most likely won't collect much in a defamation suit.
5. Finally, to qualify as a defamatory statement, the offending statement must be "unprivileged." Under some circumstances, you cannot sue someone for defamation even if they make a statement that can be proved false. For example, witnesses who testify falsely in court or at a deposition can't be sued. (Although witnesses who testify to something they know is false could theoretically be prosecuted for perjury.) Lawmakers have decided that in these and other situations, which are considered "privileged," free speech is so important that the speakers should not be constrained by worries that they will be sued for defamation. Lawmakers themselves also enjoy this privilege: They aren't liable for statements made in the legislative chamber or in official materials, even if they say or write things that would otherwise be defamatory.
The public has a right to criticize the people who govern them, so the least protection from defamation is given to public officials. When officials are accused of something that involves their behavior in office, they have to prove all of the above elements of defamation and they must also prove that the defendant acted with "actual malice." (For a definition of actual malice, see the "History of Defamation and the First Amendment, below.")
People who aren't elected but who are still public figures because they are influential or famous -- like movie stars -- also have to prove that defamatory statements were made with actual malice, in most cases.
In the landmark 1964 case of New York Times v. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain defamatory statements were protected by the First Amendment. The case involved a newspaper article that said unflattering things about a public figure, a politician. The Court pointed to "a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open." The Court acknowledged that in public discussions -- especially about public figures like politicians -- mistakes can be made. If those mistakes are "honestly made," the Court said, they should be protected from defamation actions. The court made a rule that public officials could sue for statements made about their public conduct only if the statements were made with "actual malice."
"Actual malice" means that the person who made the statement knew it wasn't true, or didn't care whether it was true or not and was reckless with the truth -- for example, when someone has doubts about the truth of a statement but does not bother to check further before publishing it.
Later cases have built upon the New York Times rule, so that now the law balances the rules of defamation law with the interests of the First Amendment. The result is that whether defamation is actionable depends on what was said, who it was about, and whether it was a subject of public interest and thus protected by the First Amendment.
There is practically no way for a public figure with as large a profile as Trump to win a libel or defamation lawsuit. The President especially should NEVER have the ability to sue citizens in this manner. Ever.
I find it significant that Trump wants to be able to crack down on what he himself, personally, views as "unfair news coverage" and "Dem commercials." He's the most powerful person in the world, so it does worry me that he would punish freedom of speech if he got the chance. I don't think the President should have that kind of power, and I find it very alarming that Trump wants that kind of power, and that he feels comfortable publicly announcing his desire to stop the media from saying things he doesn't like.
This isn't some random yahoo on the Internet saying he doesn't like what other people are saying. This is the President of the United States saying he thinks "unfair news coverage" should be illegal. If Trump got his way, who exactly would get to decide what kind of coverage is "unfair?"
And are we comfortable resting on the assumption that Trump's not going to get what he wants? Is that our only reassurance that freedom of speech will remain free?
I think a lot of Trump's statements get dismissed because "that could never happen in America." But that's only true as long as we remain opposed to it, and when we've got the leader of the dominant political party supporting media crackdowns, we can no longer assume that "hey, the rest of the country would never go along with it." We've already seen multiple attempts to rig elections, both via gerrymandering and even absentee ballot manipulation, and multiple attempts to suppress the vote.
Tyranny (yes, tyranny; I'll say it) isn't a one-step process. It takes time to break down democratic norms and encourage people to turn against each other. Think about it--if American democracy ever did break down, what would be the first signs?
If you have a wood house, you start worrying about termites when you first see them. You don't wait until the house is already collapsing.
I find it significant that Trump wants to be able to crack down on what he himself, personally, views as "unfair news coverage" and "Dem commercials." He's the most powerful person in the world, so it does worry me that he would punish freedom of speech if he got the chance. I don't think the President should have that kind of power, and I find it very alarming that Trump wants that kind of power, and that he feels comfortable publicly announcing his desire to stop the media from saying things he doesn't like.
This isn't some random yahoo on the Internet saying he doesn't like what other people are saying. This is the President of the United States saying he thinks "unfair news coverage" should be illegal. If Trump got his way, who exactly would get to decide what kind of coverage is "unfair?"
And are we comfortable resting on the assumption that Trump's not going to get what he wants? Is that our only reassurance that freedom of speech will remain free?
What other option do we have? Write him a letter? Grab the pitchforks?
His 'friends' are ditching him like a hot potato, he can hardly find people to work for him, he's hearing crickets from Congress about his wall, he, his family and his compatriots can't walk anywhere without tripping over a federal investigator, I don't think we're going to have to wait long for some kind of nervous breakdown on his part soon...
https://www.newsandguts.com/russias-massive-misinformation-campaign-continues/?fbclid=IwAR1UsM2TWaUrfQpNIZeLTpNg6SQ8kZy6GEEfUDweSc4DTfXmcrY8cxie2sY t didn’t end with the 2016 election, and it didn’t end after the 2018 midterms. The Russian misinformation campaign continues. The Senate Intelligence Committee released draft reports from two research groups that show a sophisticated intelligence operation. From The Washington Post 202 column: Their goal was to understand the inner workings of the Internet Research Agency, which the U.S. government has charged with criminal offenses for interfering in the 2016 election. It turns out that African Americans were targeted with more Facebook ads than any other group, including conservatives. Three of the four most-liked Facebook posts put up by the Russian influence effort came from an account called Blacktivist that urged the community to be more cynical about politics. African Americans were urged to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein throughout the month before the 2016 election. A post on Oct. 29 that year declared: “NO LIVES MATTER TO HILLARY CLINTON. ONLY VOTES MATTER TO HILLARY CLINTON.” A message on Nov. 3 added: “NOT VOTING is a way to exercise our rights.”
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO ALL 17 (KNOWN) TRUMP AND RUSSIA INVESTIGATIONS
https://www.wired.com/story/mueller-investigation-trump-russia-complete-guide/?fbclid=IwAR1WtjphaPXQ4kp_Wm5ZD9KEvxg2bvuVpwemXwSR-uzUGFacatHiEkoWCmA WHILE POPULAR MEMORY today remembers Watergate as five DNC burglars leading inexorably to Richard Nixon’s resignation two years later, history recalls that the case and special prosecutor’s investigation at the time were much broader; ultimately 69 people were charged as part of the investigation, 48 of whom pleaded guilty or were found guilty at trial. After three weeks of back-to-back-to-back-to-back bombshells by federal prosecutors and special counsel Robert Mueller, it’s increasingly clear that, as 2018 winds down, Donald Trump faces a legal assault unlike anything previously seen by any president—at least 17 distinct court cases stemming from at least seven different sets of prosecutors and investigators. (That total does not count any congressional inquiries, nor does it include any other inquiries into other administration officials unrelated to Russia.)
Democrats take cautious view of subpoena powers as they ready investigations
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna948531?fbclid=IwAR07QyNCsBLFOJODTkyVTDqfLM0jEd8i1dILkN2GIm7pkW0L2ZZezGGX0B8 As they prepare to take over the House majority, top Democrats warn that the powerful tool is not a magic wand. Democrats poised to take control of the House in January are building a strategy for investigating the Trump administration on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues and how they may intersect with the president’s business empire. Yet the most powerful tool at their disposal — a congressional subpoena — is being held in reserve for the short term, multiple Democratic congressional officials involved in the decision-making tell NBC News. Top lawmakers, aides and former congressional officials warn that subpoena power, while potentially a valuable tool for extracting information, is hardly a magic wand. That’s likely to be especially true now, if the Trump administration challenges Democratic-led inquiries as is widely expected.
Senate reports find millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump, GOP
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/17/russia-social-media-senate-report/2334382002/?fbclid=IwAR3CqvNqAjfqKapO5pZM9BG2xpqJbvXkMhFWBrUOJoNzbZ64HlqUtrX1geo he Senate released a pair of reports Monday that say Russia engaged in an all-out social media campaign on Donald Trump's behalf during the 2016 election and continued to support him after he took office. One report, compiled by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and a social media analysis firm called Graphika, looked at millions of posts on every popular social media platform from Facebook to Pinterest that were provided to the Senate and House Intelligence committees. The second report – written by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm specializing in protection from "social media disinformation attacks" – found that in addition to a "sweeping and sustained social influence operation," the Russians tried to hack online voting systems and stole Clinton campaign emails, "which led to a controlled leak via WikiLeaks." According to the Oxford report, Russia's Internet Research Agency "launched an extended attack on the United States by using computational propaganda." More than 30 million people shared content from the Internet Research Agency on Facebook and Instagram from 2015 to 2017.
DONALD TRUMP’S LAWYER IS HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/rudy-giuliani-is-his-own-worst-enemy?fbclid=IwAR1hR5HbvnaRiqbeZboXA_A4t2OXD8rtGwAFH2Rn4Qs5bv7ZFgPbza-fRm4 Rudy Giuliani’s defense is to admit everything, deny nothing, and argue that Trump’s crimes are not crimes (or not “big crimes,” anyway). udy Giuliani has stepped in it again. With the walls seemingly closing in on his client, Donald Trump, Giuliani spent his Sunday morning touring the talk shows, where he continued his “nothing to see here, folks!” approach to questions about illegal hush agreements and collusion with Moscow. The Trump lawyer’s worst follies came during his appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, who was fresh off a post-sentencing interview with Michael Cohen, the president’s former fixer. Cohen, who has spent the past week publicly skewering his former boss, reiterated that he violated campaign-finance law at his boss’s direction; that Trump did, in fact, have business dealings with Russia; and that the president was continuing to lie on both counts. Giuliani’s response? Sure, the president is lying, but he’s not under oath, so it’s cool. “He’s got to do a lot of singing to get out of the three years, and he will say whatever he has to say,” Giuliani told Stephanopoulos of Cohen. “He’s changed his story four or five times.”
Trump's trade war could cost every middle-class American family $453 and could eliminate 292,000 US jobs
https://amp.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-war-china-steel-tariffs-could-cost-us-families-jobs-2018-12?fbclid=IwAR0sX5nfrrZ2kWhe6CldBdP0Z4FtRjrS1eKsTQe-tWSD7PVdDjTNC_u4K18 President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, steel, aluminum, and more. Trump has also threatened to impose more tariffs on Chinese goods and imported cars from around the world. According to a report from the Tax Foundation, Trump's existing tariffs will cost every middle-class family $146 - and the threatened tariffs could push that to $453 in a year. The tariffs will also be a drag on the economy and cost tens of thousands of jobs. President Donald Trump's trade battles are projected to hit middle-class families hard, according to a new study, especially if the president follows through on all of his threats. According to a report from the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, current tariffs will cause a squeeze for middle-class Americans - and lead to fewer jobs in the US. The think tank also estimated that the economic pain of the tariffs would get much worse in the event Trump follows through on all tariffs he has threatened. "These tariffs will increase the tax burden on Americans, falling hardest on lower and middle-income households, and reduce economic output, employment, and wages," said Erica York, an analyst at the Tax Foundation. While tariffs have the immediate effect of raising costs at a port of entry for goods, York said those effects can eventually filter to businesses and consumers purchasing imported goods. "Tariffs can raise the cost of parts and materials, which would raise the price of goods using those inputs and reduce private-sector output. Tariffs also result in consumers paying more for goods than they would have otherwise," York wrote. "Price increases such as these reduce the after-tax value of both labor and capital income; as tariffs reduce the return to labor and capital, they incentivize Americans to work and invest less, which leads to lower output."
I Don’t Grieve Over His Cruelty. I Grieve Over Yours.
https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/12/13/i-dont-grieve-over-his-cruelty-i-grieve-over-yours/?fbclid=IwAR3aCZgUw6F8wDt9c9nkMkq75uzV7XWE1HcDuJq-1LL-WsmQHTFRvXTLIjQ I really don’t care about him. I know you think I do, but my sadness really has nothing to do with him. I know who he is—and more accurately, I know what he is. I know that he is just a mirror. He has simply revealed clearly the disfigured ugliness of the place I call home and the people I live here alongside—and that is the thing I grieve over. And this is not the mourning over a singular loss, it is a daily grieving. I grieve when I see elementary school teachers dressed up like a border wall for Halloween. I grieve when I see white a woman screaming obscenities at two Muslims teenagers at a stop light. I grieve when I see a Jewish professor’s office littered with spray-painted swastikas. I grieve when I watch a father of four being tackled by ICE agents outside immigration offices. I grieve when I witness white high school seniors making a “Heil Hitler” arm gesture during class photos. I grieve when I see the contempt from white friends, when young black men die at traffic stops. I grieve when I find the most vile sickness on my social media feed, hurled toward people of color and women and transgender people. I grieve when I hear professed Christian pastors calling for the killing of LGBTQ people. I grieve when I see rambling, racist tirades on subway cars filled with families with young children. I grieve when I see supremacist candidates being elected and re-elected. I grieve when I overhear dehumanizing conversations from old, white men, about Democratic women leaders, in crowded cafés. I grieve when I sit across holiday tables, and witness bigoted tirades that I’d have thought people I knew and loved were not capable of. And though all of these things are undoubtedly emboldened by him and encouraged by him and celebrated by him—that is not the source of my despair. It is the reality that all of this vicious, toxic, filth that we are infected with today—is something you are largely fine with. The rising hatred is not alarming or discomforting enough to you, to move you to action or to speak against it. Oh sure, you might inwardly twinge with discomfort at one or two of the most egregious offenses, but by and large you’re good with it all. With your silence, as much as with your volume, you show me you are more with him than you are against him, that you are more like him than different from him—and that you and I are increasingly morally incompatible. So yes, he is a mirror, and I am seeing you my countrymen and women through him. That is why I grieve, friend. That is why I don’t see America or my church or my neighborhood or my family the same anymore, and I’m not sure I ever will again. The greatest tragedy to me, isn’t him. It isn’t that the person supposedly leading our country lacks a single benevolent impulse, that he is impervious to compassion, incapable of nobility, and mortally allergic to simple kindness. The greatest tragedy, is how many Americans he now represents. And that he represents you.
Family file lawsuit after Guatemalan toddler dies after being held in ICE detention centre in Texas
BORDER PATROL KICKED, PUNCHED MIGRANT CHILDREN, THREATENED SOME WITH SEXUAL ABUSE, ACLU ALLEGES
https://www.newsweek.com/customs-and-border-control-beat-kicked-and-threatened-migrant-children-under-941385?fbclid=IwAR3bFXvh69z7HvI_mrAQ18rLjM-Qg7-VC6lhrRAw-5wItFtl6rhf3Q7M6rY This isn't right. And the people responsible should be indicted and locked up. Based on 30,000 pages of documents obtained through a records request, the report includes gruesome, detailed accusations of physical and mental abuse at the hands of officers. The claims were filed by unaccompanied minors, most of whom hailed from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras. CBP officials have contested large swaths of the report, telling Newsweek that many of the allegations have been investigated and are "false." Border authorities were accused of kicking a child in the ribs and forcing a 16-year-old girl to “spread her legs” for an aggressive body search. Other children accused officers of punching a child in the head three times, running over a 17-year-old boy and denying medical care to a pregnant teen, who later had a stillbirth.
Giuliani: The president doesn't have to tell America the truth, he's 'not under oath' yet
https://www.sourcepolitics.com/giuliani-the-president-doesnt-have-to-tell-america-the-truth-hes-not-under-oath-yet/?fbclid=IwAR17Qy09lpGB5m2K21kNDN3hna6KpNTO-5RUa5Z8lVFnSmoqLQRe17C-RCg Rudy Giuliani just appeared on ABC to speak with George Stephanopoulos and is now saying that President Trump doesn't have to tell the American public the truth because he's 'not under oath' yet. Those were his words. It's not like Giuliani went on the show to make such an absurd statement, though. He ended up coming out with it after trying to accuse Cohen for changing his story "4 or 5 times." That kind of backfired on him. It's true that Trump isn't under oath by a special prosecutor giving a deposition, but that's not a good reason for lying to the American public. At least, don't say that on national television.
Wall Street tumbles with Dow closing down more than 500 points, S&P closing at 14-month low
What is the point of these copypasta dumps? Do you think the forum would be better if everyone dumped their newsfeed in this thread? If not, why is your feed so amazing everyone needs to see it?
Comments
Without full access to all the records, we don't know how much money was taken from tenants, but if the Trump family raised rent by just $10 across all of their buildings when this first started happening in 1995, they could have defrauded tenants out of over $33 million. If the number was higher, the cost could have been far more; rent increases that far back have exponential effects when it comes to costs in the present day (each rent increase is based on the one before it). Tenants can challenge rent hikes, but there are limits on the amount of money they can get back. It seems that the law gives preferential treatment to landlords in these disputes.
https://www.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/ajc-investigation-how-brian-kemp-turned-warning-election-system-vulnerability-against-democrats/iLOkpHK3ea39t8Eh4PCGxM/amp.html?__twitter_impression=true
This election was a farce based on this incident alone. Kemp is nothing more than low-life scum. They KNEW it was a lie, and used his inherent power as Secretary of State to manufacture bogus hacking charges out of thin air to possibly swing the election. The worst part?? It worked. There will be no consequences. What exactly are you supposed to do when the sitting Secretary of State is willing to just fabricate phantom criminal charges against your campaign hours before an election?? There is no way to combat this kind of thing.
But one thing that i really think that is worse than abortion restriction is restrictions on vasectomy. Mainly because "pro life" tends to believe that the fetus is a life. At least they wanna criminalize an "crime with victim", not a "crime without victim"...
Abotion laws around the world.
There was a female commedian whp said that if men could have kids, abortion would be a sacrament. And don't much diagree with her.
Oh, yeah, and rich politicians whose mistresses get pregnant? They have no problem with forcing the woman to get an abortion there! That's the point. Forcing the dirty hoo-er to be punished by raising the kid(s). i only wonder why they haven't made giving up your child a crime yet.
Feds targeting more worksites crack down on undocumented workers – but not their employers
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/11/donald-trump-targeted-more-worksites-undocumented-immigrants-immigration-and-customs-enforcement/2263656002/?fbclid=IwAR2a92zdvIJp0h_zjJ5IAL-2E1NJIki17FUb-xDszJ7Kh24r3HqTZ8Jc0FUIf they really didn't want undocumented immagrants employed, why not also crack down on the employers.
Pence Hires Private Lawyer for Russia Investigation
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/pence-hires-private-lawyer-russia-investigation-n773131?fbclid=IwAR3rzKcBVct7aCaTuR1eRBizmLyUuXak9i-wokPl1gctZ7wtbES2IiAlDGwHe says it's routine. I doubt it.
Trump's Interior Chief Zinke to Step Down Amid Ethics Probes
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-15/trump-s-interior-chief-said-to-step-down-amid-ethics-inquiries?fbclid=IwAR2EkVrTtT1YsSjpAKEPtjToWXmpJNZqcw5LDTV-sQNbZp1Rwxca_S2K7zM"And another one bites the dust..."
Lobbyist Sam Patten Pleads Guilty to Steering Foreign Funds to Trump Inaugural
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/us/politics/patten-fara-manafort.html?fbclid=IwAR303Fg8wzoKzsI2XNVhg1gLS_xNyGhh49iidZSm5qynMg2paym9JYQkf7YWhere are Trump's '10 terrorists' who were busted at the border?
https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-ten-terrorists-busted-border-004709585.html?fbclid=IwAR1c0tFS9KNOFim0F62EB6_5SQYTrVtZ17CURzWwDa8icsQKFa3NKe2l97QTwitter Erupts After Homeland Security Secretary Blames Parents In 7-Year-Old Migrant’s Death
https://wokesloth.com/homeland-security-secretary-blames-parents-7-year-olds-death/lindseyweedston/?utm_content=buffer845cd&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=thegoodlordabove&utm_campaign=bloomjoy&fbclid=IwAR2oPFFnuYRg1j-bFEq8QtbI9jotDRhU6Rnq9NJdncoUygWaV9R7ckxPThIThe father told DHS people that his little girl was sick and apparently, she vomited several times in the bus. The employees did nothing. When they got to their destination, 90 minutes away, the little girl was no longer breathing. She was given no water, no food, nothing by DHS. But Nielsen says the father is at fault.
Scope of investigations into Trump has shaped his presidency
https://www.apnews.com/6d6361fdf19846cb9eb020d9c6fbfa5a?fbclid=IwAR1ukVxkICwKvgW8-r25nn7JoL3OMzxmva5kdiu37IeLKuOd3v_HubcXDmAAll of this with the first special counsel investigation against a president in 20 years hanging over Trump’s head, spinning out charges and strong-arming guilty pleas from underlings while keeping in suspense whether the president — “Individual 1” in prosecutor Robert Mueller’s coded legalese — will end up accused of criminal behavior himself.
The scope of the scrutiny has shaped Trump’s presidency, proving a steady distraction from his governing agenda. So far, much of it has been launched by federal prosecutors and government watchdogs that eschew partisanship. The intensity is certain to increase next year when Democrats assume control of the House and the subpoena power that comes with it.
His worst nightmare: Trump's life under a legal microscope
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/15/politics/donald-trump-robert-mueller-investigations-russia/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0fBTqsKctRO4lGdBcQU7f7Sml30-mGOoGwnf93wV-PVapzLtDT2OlD54MWeeks of devastating legal revelations have left Donald Trump's political career clouded by criminality and his life, presidency and business empire under assault by relentless prosecutors on multiple fronts.
Days of court filings, flipped witnesses, damaging disclosures and sentencing hearings over the last month have delivered blows that appear to expose Trump and key associates to deep legal and political jeopardy.
But the head-spinning volume of material being churned out by special counsel Robert Mueller and other jurisdictions often also blurs the bigger picture of a presidency beset by a span of scandal that is staggering in its breadth.
Mueller Is Fighting a Witness in Court. Who Is It?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/us/politics/special-counsel-subpoena.html?fbclid=IwAR1GQeCA5MvVLmvXChN9LqLhRkrmZ3jr2ugCM4HRPSHogqYpAgSEJuVeKfQFormer Trump tax attorney raided by the FBI in Chicago — again: report
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/former-trump-tax-attorney-raided-fbi-chicago-report/?fbclid=IwAR3P4sSnP5triFmufi0LERw_SmML7dXMBbACc68NJK1XLr016SeZCP3wntADonald Trump’s former Chicago tax attorney, Alderman Ed Burke, had his City Hall office raided by the FBI on Thursday — and it wasn’t the first time he had an office searched by the bureau.
Trump increasingly isolated as aides leave, friends flip and investigations advance
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-increasingly-isolated-as-aides-leave-friends-flip-and-investigations-advance/ar-BBQVRWZ?ocid=ob-fb-enus-280&fbclid=IwAR2Xt-Ka-659XvFGOQde0iXeOsdWffNXxUY3QS4BhD55NgpUptdJlxNCMvMIt was almost noon Thursday when a Marine suddenly appeared outside the West Wing doors, a sign that President Donald Trump had belatedly reported to the Oval Office.
For the second day in a row, the president had been in the White House residence all morning, fuming about federal investigations that have moved closer to him — and are likely to get worse.
His former confidant, attorney Michael Cohen, and other once-stalwart supporters have flipped, becoming witnesses for a Justice Department he has struggled to bend to his will. Prosecutors also secured the cooperation of American Media Inc., the tabloid publisher that routinely helped Trump muzzle bad stories and target his enemies.
REPUBLICAN SENATORS WHO TRIED TO KILL YEMEN WAR RESOLUTION WERE PAID BY SAUDI LOBBYISTS
https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-senators-who-tried-kill-yemen-war-resolution-were-paid-saudi-1236715?fbclid=IwAR0Dsm1YhlCskbADsR12WYxBSbqOTdKpR08y0oEHb-pL4LKMqz37sAPQ8PUI hope people remember this when it's time to vote them out...
House Democrats’ big democracy reform package is good policy, and smart politics
https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2018/12/10/18134994/house-democrats-democracy-reform-package?fbclid=IwAR225WLWezK33-hVqWGjASTodfmueFLAFS4x8kUuoMQzjIeVShc7mfcbi7gHouse Democrats have decided on their priority legislation for the next Congress, and it’s all about improving the quality of American democracy. HR 1, the bill number typically reserved for the House majority party’s most important policy, marks the first time that political reform has been given this kind of top billing.
There’s a lot in the bill, including a number of ethics and disclosure and election security proposals that should be commonsense. But at heart, there are four big-ticket items that would be standalone news on their own: a small-donor matching system for campaign finance, mandatory independent redistricting commissions, automatic voter registration, and felon reenfranchisement. Collectively, this is the most transformative pro-democracy package in decades.
This sounds really good. Doing away with gerrymandering, opt-out voter registration (You are resigstered, unless you opt-out) sound really good to me.
A bill that would have given benefits to thousands of Navy veterans who might have been exposed to Agent Orange just failed to pass the Senate
https://www.businessinsider.com/senate-fails-to-pass-blue-water-navy-veterans-bill-due-to-cost-concerns-2018-12?utm_content=topbar&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-bi?utm_source=facebook&utm_term=desktop&referrer=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1pjaHCYvQcMDTM_MWX9D8EoCCyxiHBSEIFHsbmBmFYpaF0Oj_j9PncojI"Agent Orange" is not my new nickname for President Trump...He kills everything he touches, too.
Bishop Blames The Victim, Claims ‘Immodest Dress’ Of Women Causes Sexual Assault
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2018/12/bishop-blames-the-victim-claims-immodest-dress-of-women-causes-sexual-assault/?fbclid=IwAR1PlSham9bYYXtriu2ZxXc7S5AzgM9ejzT8hoSxQBFQQmlwF81UaNXsx9YTalk about living in the 1500's!
Blaming the victim: Bishop Donald Sanborn claims that the immodest dress of modern women causes sexual assault.
In a recent blog post for In Veritate, Bishop Sanborn offers a critique of the “MeToo” movement by suggesting that women cause their own sexual assault by tempting men with their “immodest dress.”
In his blog post Sanborn makes it clear that victims are at least partially responsible for their own sexual assault, writing:
It is true that the conduct of some men is deplorable in this regard, but it is also true that the conduct of some women is deplorable as well.
No, what's more deplorable is blaming women!
NY Priest Embezzled $1 Million For ‘Drug Fueled Sex Romps’ With Male Escort
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2015/12/ny-priest-embezzled-1-million-for-drug-fueled-sex-romps-with-male-escort/?fbclid=IwAR264XnZvQWzYUxF7R73LuELFyPfFnFm5_jGl3L3wI7yaMrjMYPwBOxMdS8The hypocrisy, the corruption, and the cover-up is the same, but at least this time everyone involved was a consenting adult.
Father Peter Miqueli, a 53-year-old New York City priest, embezzled $1 million in collection-plate donations to pay for drug-fueled sex romps with a heavily muscled male escort according to a report issued by the New York Daily News.
https://thefword.org.uk/2013/07/7000_irish_wome/
The same applies to gun. This children from a very strict gun control country decided to visit an USA territory to have an experience with guns who even officers can't own on his country... If he wanna, he probably can disassembly the gun, and move from a boat or something similar. No anti gun law can prevent anyone from owning a gun.
"In Japan, the gun is prohibited by a law. I came for trip to Guam and shot it and was fun."
I don't know why so many people are in favor of criminalizing crimes without victims.
Canada’s ambassador to China meets with second detained Canadian Michael Spavor
https://globalnews.ca/news/4767690/michael-spavor-meets-canadian-ambassador-china/?utm_source=notification/Race, not abortion, was the founding issue of the religious right
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/02/05/race-not-abortion-was-founding-issue-religious-right/A5rnmClvuAU7EaThaNLAnK/story.html?event=event25&fbclid=IwAR2tc6dtXfk71so0PrB7HvudVHjvldhVI9vmdx6R9QlyKi793skG8TkO564Though opposition to abortion is what many think fueled the powerful conservative white evangelical right, 81 percent of whom voted for Donald Trump, it was really school integration, according to Randall Balmer, chairman of the religion department at Dartmouth. The US Supreme Court ruled public school segregation unconstitutional in 1954. In 1976 it ruled against segregated private schools. Then courts went after the tax exemptions of these private all-white Southern schools, or so-called segregation academies, like Falwell’s Liberty Christian Academy.
The late Paul Weyrich, whom Balmer called the organizational genius behind the religious right, had long tried to mobilize evangelical voters around some hot-button issue: feminism, school prayer, pornography, abortion. But nothing lit a fire like the federal government’s threat to all-white schools. Only in 1979, a full six years after Roe, did Weyrich urge evangelical leaders to also crusade against abortion, Balmer said in an interview. That was, after all, a far more palatable, acceptable crusade, one with a seeming high moral purpose, unlike a race-based crusade against black children.
Pacific Life pulls ads from Tucker Carlson's show after 'poorer and dirtier' immigration comment
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pacific-life-pulls-ads-from-tucker-carlsons-show-after-poorer-and-dirtier-immigration-comment/ar-BBQYovd?ocid=spartandhp&fbclid=IwAR0bpnEjTCMVTuFJEHXn4sfnQOwRl5tqWytVLY7Zs67-YrWrxXYVakaO3oIInsurance company Pacific Life announced Friday that it is pulling its advertisements from Fox News's "Tucker Carlson Tonight" after the host said the "immigration crisis" in America makes the country "poorer and dirtier and more divided."
The action came after an advertisement from the company was shown on-screen right after Carlson made the comment on his opening monologue.
The ad promoted the company as having been "protecting generations of families for 150 years."
Tesla employees launch organizing drive with help of nationwide unions
https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/tesla-employees-launch-organizing-drive-with-help-of-nationwide-unions?fbclid=IwAR1mFuMMXGrXBhmzU5MOM3bdfF5_gQy4zvUS5UPlV-sN2GLt-fr8M7PNeYYGood. Unions need to make a comeback in this country.
Police officer demoted to patrol duty after dumping retired K-9 at animal shelter
https://fox59.com/2018/12/14/cop-dumps-retired-k-9-at-animal-shelter-is-demoted-to-patrol-duty/?fbclid=IwAR3vO7Zob9MK4EaAWdvFLzmBQ23S3NEv0XSowKJZtTbnxg1_7cGGWwtHP5cTossed out like an unwanted Kleenex. Disgraceful.
'Not all men': An astonishingly selfish reaction to women's pain
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/not-all-men-an-astonishingly-selfish-reaction-to-womens-pain/ar-BBQUoeZ?fbclid=IwAR3hIyAFvnRvQCNlTEecj-8SfrOrV122ImusQOc9xntSLYcMD3np2puosSsAnd if you say something critical of male behaviour online, 8000 men will squirm out of the woodwork to bleat a single phrase: "Not all men."
There's a simple reason why women fear men. The average man could easily overpower most women if he wanted to.
Up to one in five New Zealand women experience sexual assault, and because so few cases are reported the real number is likely higher. NZ Police receive a domestic violence callout every four minutes.
Women have reason to fear men. Men have no rational need for an equivalent fear of women because we pose no systemic threat to them. Incidents of female-on-male violence are no less serious than the other way around, but they're so rare that they become news events like Lorena Bobbitt or Sharon Edwards.
When a man yells something about a woman's body as he drives past her, which happened to me last Friday, or a man makes his female colleague feel unsafe when they're alone together, which happened to my friend a few weeks ago, or a man uses the excuse of a crowded dancefloor to rub his erect penis against a woman he doesn't know, which has happened to me and probably every other woman every time we go out, it doesn't feel like most men are good.
When we turn down a dark street and see a lone male figure, or have to walk past a group of drunk guys, or our Uber driver makes a weird comment as he locks the car doors, it really doesn't matter that most men don't do bad things to women.
In these situations, assuming all men are good until proven otherwise is a strategy that can get you killed.
When our lives are on the line, you all look the same. And quite frankly, I don't care if that hurts your feelings.
We might have lost John McCain, but it seems that we have Democrats who are willing to take up the issue. I hope they succeed.
I hope this won't be the end, either. Even if all of those reforms go through, that won't solve all of our corruption problems. We still need a total ban on campaign contributions--that's the most important change that we need to our system.
@jjstraka34 I don't actually know how I skew overall politically. I've had people describe me as central-leaning right, and central-leaning left. Both are probably just as reasonable. I don't care about political parties, only issues.
@LadyRhian I don't think I agree with that. People are diverse enough that its inevitable that some people see it that way, but as somebody who used to be your stereotypical pro-lifer, and who lived in those circles for a long time, most of us ARE in it for the sake of the child. The problem with it, is that its a purely EMOTIONAL reaction for most people. Too many don't think about what that looks like long term for the child and mother, or even that the abortion may be necessary to save the life of the mother. I've had these conversations with enough people to feel that most have good intentions.
It's almost as if the constant bitching about Youtube, Twitter and college campuses is completey disingenuous and cynical. Because when the leader of the United States government calls for criminalizing unflattering remarks about him on broadcast TV, there is nothing but the sound of crickets. As if every President and Presidential candidate hasn't been roasted alive by SNL since Gerald Ford.
"Defamation of character" is a catch-all term for any statement that hurts someone's reputation. Written defamation is called "libel," while spoken defamation is called "slander." Defamation is not a crime, but it is a "tort" (a civil wrong, rather than a criminal wrong). A person who has been defamed can sue the person who did the defaming for damages.
Defamation law tries to balance competing interests: On the one hand, people should not ruin others' lives by telling lies about them; but on the other hand, people should be able to speak freely without fear of litigation over every insult, disagreement, or mistake. Political and social disagreement is important in a free society, and we obviously don't all share the same opinions or beliefs. For instance, political opponents often reach opposite conclusions from the same facts, and editorial cartoonists often exaggerate facts to make their point.
The law of defamation varies from state to state, but there are some generally accepted rules. If you believe you are have been "defamed," to prove it you usually have to show there's been a statement that is all of the following:
published
false
injurious
unprivileged
Let's look at each of these defamation claim elements in detail.
1. First, the "statement" can be spoken, written, pictured, or even gestured. Because written statements last longer than spoken statements, most courts, juries, and insurance companies consider libel more harmful than slander.
2. "Published" means that a third party heard or saw the statement -- that is, someone other than the person who made the statement or the person the statement was about. "Published" doesn't necessarily mean that the statement was printed in a book -- it just needs to have been made public through social media, television, radio, speeches, gossip, or even loud conversation. Of course, it could also have been written in magazines, books, newspapers, leaflets, or on picket signs.
3. A defamatory statement must be false -- otherwise it's not considered damaging. Even terribly mean or disparaging things are not defamatory if the shoe fits. Most opinions don't count as defamation because they can't be proved to be objectively false. For instance, when a reviewer says, "That was the worst book I've read all year," she's not defaming the author, because the statement can't be proven to be false.
4. The statement must be "injurious." Since the whole point of defamation law is to take care of injuries to reputation, those suing for defamation must show how their reputations were hurt by the false statement -- for example, the person lost work; was shunned by neighbors, friends, or family members; or was harassed by the press. Someone who already had a terrible reputation most likely won't collect much in a defamation suit.
5. Finally, to qualify as a defamatory statement, the offending statement must be "unprivileged." Under some circumstances, you cannot sue someone for defamation even if they make a statement that can be proved false. For example, witnesses who testify falsely in court or at a deposition can't be sued. (Although witnesses who testify to something they know is false could theoretically be prosecuted for perjury.) Lawmakers have decided that in these and other situations, which are considered "privileged," free speech is so important that the speakers should not be constrained by worries that they will be sued for defamation. Lawmakers themselves also enjoy this privilege: They aren't liable for statements made in the legislative chamber or in official materials, even if they say or write things that would otherwise be defamatory.
The public has a right to criticize the people who govern them, so the least protection from defamation is given to public officials. When officials are accused of something that involves their behavior in office, they have to prove all of the above elements of defamation and they must also prove that the defendant acted with "actual malice." (For a definition of actual malice, see the "History of Defamation and the First Amendment, below.")
People who aren't elected but who are still public figures because they are influential or famous -- like movie stars -- also have to prove that defamatory statements were made with actual malice, in most cases.
(This is from https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-law-made-simple-29718.html)
In the landmark 1964 case of New York Times v. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain defamatory statements were protected by the First Amendment. The case involved a newspaper article that said unflattering things about a public figure, a politician. The Court pointed to "a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open." The Court acknowledged that in public discussions -- especially about public figures like politicians -- mistakes can be made. If those mistakes are "honestly made," the Court said, they should be protected from defamation actions. The court made a rule that public officials could sue for statements made about their public conduct only if the statements were made with "actual malice."
"Actual malice" means that the person who made the statement knew it wasn't true, or didn't care whether it was true or not and was reckless with the truth -- for example, when someone has doubts about the truth of a statement but does not bother to check further before publishing it.
Later cases have built upon the New York Times rule, so that now the law balances the rules of defamation law with the interests of the First Amendment. The result is that whether defamation is actionable depends on what was said, who it was about, and whether it was a subject of public interest and thus protected by the First Amendment.
This isn't some random yahoo on the Internet saying he doesn't like what other people are saying. This is the President of the United States saying he thinks "unfair news coverage" should be illegal. If Trump got his way, who exactly would get to decide what kind of coverage is "unfair?"
And are we comfortable resting on the assumption that Trump's not going to get what he wants? Is that our only reassurance that freedom of speech will remain free?
Tyranny (yes, tyranny; I'll say it) isn't a one-step process. It takes time to break down democratic norms and encourage people to turn against each other. Think about it--if American democracy ever did break down, what would be the first signs?
If you have a wood house, you start worrying about termites when you first see them. You don't wait until the house is already collapsing.
His 'friends' are ditching him like a hot potato, he can hardly find people to work for him, he's hearing crickets from Congress about his wall, he, his family and his compatriots can't walk anywhere without tripping over a federal investigator, I don't think we're going to have to wait long for some kind of nervous breakdown on his part soon...
Russia’s Massive Misinformation Campaign Continues
https://www.newsandguts.com/russias-massive-misinformation-campaign-continues/?fbclid=IwAR1UsM2TWaUrfQpNIZeLTpNg6SQ8kZy6GEEfUDweSc4DTfXmcrY8cxie2sYt didn’t end with the 2016 election, and it didn’t end after the 2018 midterms. The Russian misinformation campaign continues.
The Senate Intelligence Committee released draft reports from two research groups that show a sophisticated intelligence operation. From The Washington Post 202 column:
Their goal was to understand the inner workings of the Internet Research Agency, which the U.S. government has charged with criminal offenses for interfering in the 2016 election.
It turns out that African Americans were targeted with more Facebook ads than any other group, including conservatives.
Three of the four most-liked Facebook posts put up by the Russian influence effort came from an account called Blacktivist that urged the community to be more cynical about politics. African Americans were urged to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein throughout the month before the 2016 election. A post on Oct. 29 that year declared: “NO LIVES MATTER TO HILLARY CLINTON. ONLY VOTES MATTER TO HILLARY CLINTON.” A message on Nov. 3 added: “NOT VOTING is a way to exercise our rights.”
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO ALL 17 (KNOWN) TRUMP AND RUSSIA INVESTIGATIONS
https://www.wired.com/story/mueller-investigation-trump-russia-complete-guide/?fbclid=IwAR1WtjphaPXQ4kp_Wm5ZD9KEvxg2bvuVpwemXwSR-uzUGFacatHiEkoWCmAWHILE POPULAR MEMORY today remembers Watergate as five DNC burglars leading inexorably to Richard Nixon’s resignation two years later, history recalls that the case and special prosecutor’s investigation at the time were much broader; ultimately 69 people were charged as part of the investigation, 48 of whom pleaded guilty or were found guilty at trial.
After three weeks of back-to-back-to-back-to-back bombshells by federal prosecutors and special counsel Robert Mueller, it’s increasingly clear that, as 2018 winds down, Donald Trump faces a legal assault unlike anything previously seen by any president—at least 17 distinct court cases stemming from at least seven different sets of prosecutors and investigators. (That total does not count any congressional inquiries, nor does it include any other inquiries into other administration officials unrelated to Russia.)
Democrats take cautious view of subpoena powers as they ready investigations
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna948531?fbclid=IwAR07QyNCsBLFOJODTkyVTDqfLM0jEd8i1dILkN2GIm7pkW0L2ZZezGGX0B8As they prepare to take over the House majority, top Democrats warn that the powerful tool is not a magic wand.
Democrats poised to take control of the House in January are building a strategy for investigating the Trump administration on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues and how they may intersect with the president’s business empire. Yet the most powerful tool at their disposal — a congressional subpoena — is being held in reserve for the short term, multiple Democratic congressional officials involved in the decision-making tell NBC News.
Top lawmakers, aides and former congressional officials warn that subpoena power, while potentially a valuable tool for extracting information, is hardly a magic wand. That’s likely to be especially true now, if the Trump administration challenges Democratic-led inquiries as is widely expected.
Senate reports find millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump, GOP
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/17/russia-social-media-senate-report/2334382002/?fbclid=IwAR3CqvNqAjfqKapO5pZM9BG2xpqJbvXkMhFWBrUOJoNzbZ64HlqUtrX1geohe Senate released a pair of reports Monday that say Russia engaged in an all-out social media campaign on Donald Trump's behalf during the 2016 election and continued to support him after he took office.
One report, compiled by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and a social media analysis firm called Graphika, looked at millions of posts on every popular social media platform from Facebook to Pinterest that were provided to the Senate and House Intelligence committees.
The second report – written by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm specializing in protection from "social media disinformation attacks" – found that in addition to a "sweeping and sustained social influence operation," the Russians tried to hack online voting systems and stole Clinton campaign emails, "which led to a controlled leak via WikiLeaks."
According to the Oxford report, Russia's Internet Research Agency "launched an extended attack on the United States by using computational propaganda." More than 30 million people shared content from the Internet Research Agency on Facebook and Instagram from 2015 to 2017.
DONALD TRUMP’S LAWYER IS HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/rudy-giuliani-is-his-own-worst-enemy?fbclid=IwAR1hR5HbvnaRiqbeZboXA_A4t2OXD8rtGwAFH2Rn4Qs5bv7ZFgPbza-fRm4Rudy Giuliani’s defense is to admit everything, deny nothing, and argue that Trump’s crimes are not crimes (or not “big crimes,” anyway).
udy Giuliani has stepped in it again. With the walls seemingly closing in on his client, Donald Trump, Giuliani spent his Sunday morning touring the talk shows, where he continued his “nothing to see here, folks!” approach to questions about illegal hush agreements and collusion with Moscow.
The Trump lawyer’s worst follies came during his appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, who was fresh off a post-sentencing interview with Michael Cohen, the president’s former fixer. Cohen, who has spent the past week publicly skewering his former boss, reiterated that he violated campaign-finance law at his boss’s direction; that Trump did, in fact, have business dealings with Russia; and that the president was continuing to lie on both counts. Giuliani’s response? Sure, the president is lying, but he’s not under oath, so it’s cool.
“He’s got to do a lot of singing to get out of the three years, and he will say whatever he has to say,” Giuliani told Stephanopoulos of Cohen. “He’s changed his story four or five times.”
Trump's trade war could cost every middle-class American family $453 and could eliminate 292,000 US jobs
https://amp.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-war-china-steel-tariffs-could-cost-us-families-jobs-2018-12?fbclid=IwAR0sX5nfrrZ2kWhe6CldBdP0Z4FtRjrS1eKsTQe-tWSD7PVdDjTNC_u4K18President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, steel, aluminum, and more.
Trump has also threatened to impose more tariffs on Chinese goods and imported cars from around the world.
According to a report from the Tax Foundation, Trump's existing tariffs will cost every middle-class family $146 - and the threatened tariffs could push that to $453 in a year.
The tariffs will also be a drag on the economy and cost tens of thousands of jobs.
President Donald Trump's trade battles are projected to hit middle-class families hard, according to a new study, especially if the president follows through on all of his threats.
According to a report from the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, current tariffs will cause a squeeze for middle-class Americans - and lead to fewer jobs in the US. The think tank also estimated that the economic pain of the tariffs would get much worse in the event Trump follows through on all tariffs he has threatened.
"These tariffs will increase the tax burden on Americans, falling hardest on lower and middle-income households, and reduce economic output, employment, and wages," said Erica York, an analyst at the Tax Foundation.
While tariffs have the immediate effect of raising costs at a port of entry for goods, York said those effects can eventually filter to businesses and consumers purchasing imported goods.
"Tariffs can raise the cost of parts and materials, which would raise the price of goods using those inputs and reduce private-sector output. Tariffs also result in consumers paying more for goods than they would have otherwise," York wrote.
"Price increases such as these reduce the after-tax value of both labor and capital income; as tariffs reduce the return to labor and capital, they incentivize Americans to work and invest less, which leads to lower output."
I Don’t Grieve Over His Cruelty. I Grieve Over Yours.
https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/12/13/i-dont-grieve-over-his-cruelty-i-grieve-over-yours/?fbclid=IwAR3aCZgUw6F8wDt9c9nkMkq75uzV7XWE1HcDuJq-1LL-WsmQHTFRvXTLIjQI really don’t care about him.
I know you think I do, but my sadness really has nothing to do with him.
I know who he is—and more accurately, I know what he is.
I know that he is just a mirror.
He has simply revealed clearly the disfigured ugliness of the place I call home and the people I live here alongside—and that is the thing I grieve over. And this is not the mourning over a singular loss, it is a daily grieving.
I grieve when I see elementary school teachers dressed up like a border wall for Halloween.
I grieve when I see white a woman screaming obscenities at two Muslims teenagers at a stop light.
I grieve when I see a Jewish professor’s office littered with spray-painted swastikas.
I grieve when I watch a father of four being tackled by ICE agents outside immigration offices.
I grieve when I witness white high school seniors making a “Heil Hitler” arm gesture during class photos.
I grieve when I see the contempt from white friends, when young black men die at traffic stops.
I grieve when I find the most vile sickness on my social media feed, hurled toward people of color and women and transgender people.
I grieve when I hear professed Christian pastors calling for the killing of LGBTQ people.
I grieve when I see rambling, racist tirades on subway cars filled with families with young children.
I grieve when I see supremacist candidates being elected and re-elected.
I grieve when I overhear dehumanizing conversations from old, white men, about Democratic women leaders, in crowded cafés.
I grieve when I sit across holiday tables, and witness bigoted tirades that I’d have thought people I knew and loved were not capable of.
And though all of these things are undoubtedly emboldened by him and encouraged by him and celebrated by him—that is not the source of my despair. It is the reality that all of this vicious, toxic, filth that we are infected with today—is something you are largely fine with. The rising hatred is not alarming or discomforting enough to you, to move you to action or to speak against it.
Oh sure, you might inwardly twinge with discomfort at one or two of the most egregious offenses, but by and large you’re good with it all.
With your silence, as much as with your volume, you show me you are more with him than you are against him, that you are more like him than different from him—and that you and I are increasingly morally incompatible.
So yes, he is a mirror, and I am seeing you my countrymen and women through him.
That is why I grieve, friend.
That is why I don’t see America or my church or my neighborhood or my family the same anymore, and I’m not sure I ever will again.
The greatest tragedy to me, isn’t him. It isn’t that the person supposedly leading our country lacks a single benevolent impulse, that he is impervious to compassion, incapable of nobility, and mortally allergic to simple kindness.
The greatest tragedy, is how many Americans he now represents.
And that he represents you.
Family file lawsuit after Guatemalan toddler dies after being held in ICE detention centre in Texas
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/toddler-dies-ice-detention-centre-immigration-guatemala-mexico-us-border-mariee-juarez-a8676236.html?fbclid=IwAR1zcP38C4yjHd-tWrc8cyrTkeDkpdeBDRznz6rLulkQiOC-iN2KmJEW5YsThe mother is seeking $60 million wrongful death lawsuit against the agency
I hope she wins.
A Guatemalan family has a filed $60 million wrongful death lawsuit against Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after their toddler died six weeks after leaving US custody.
Earlier this year, Mariee Juarez and her mother Yazmin illegally crossed the US-Mexico border after fleeing an abusive situation in their Guatemalan home. Once they crossed the border, they were detained and taken to a family detention centre in Dilley, Texas.
BORDER PATROL KICKED, PUNCHED MIGRANT CHILDREN, THREATENED SOME WITH SEXUAL ABUSE, ACLU ALLEGES
https://www.newsweek.com/customs-and-border-control-beat-kicked-and-threatened-migrant-children-under-941385?fbclid=IwAR3bFXvh69z7HvI_mrAQ18rLjM-Qg7-VC6lhrRAw-5wItFtl6rhf3Q7M6rYThis isn't right. And the people responsible should be indicted and locked up.
Based on 30,000 pages of documents obtained through a records request, the report includes gruesome, detailed accusations of physical and mental abuse at the hands of officers. The claims were filed by unaccompanied minors, most of whom hailed from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras. CBP officials have contested large swaths of the report, telling Newsweek that many of the allegations have been investigated and are "false."
Border authorities were accused of kicking a child in the ribs and forcing a 16-year-old girl to “spread her legs” for an aggressive body search. Other children accused officers of punching a child in the head three times, running over a 17-year-old boy and denying medical care to a pregnant teen, who later had a stillbirth.
Giuliani: The president doesn't have to tell America the truth, he's 'not under oath' yet
https://www.sourcepolitics.com/giuliani-the-president-doesnt-have-to-tell-america-the-truth-hes-not-under-oath-yet/?fbclid=IwAR17Qy09lpGB5m2K21kNDN3hna6KpNTO-5RUa5Z8lVFnSmoqLQRe17C-RCgRudy Giuliani just appeared on ABC to speak with George Stephanopoulos and is now saying that President Trump doesn't have to tell the American public the truth because he's 'not under oath' yet.
Those were his words.
It's not like Giuliani went on the show to make such an absurd statement, though. He ended up coming out with it after trying to accuse Cohen for changing his story "4 or 5 times." That kind of backfired on him.
It's true that Trump isn't under oath by a special prosecutor giving a deposition, but that's not a good reason for lying to the American public. At least, don't say that on national television.
Wall Street tumbles with Dow closing down more than 500 points, S&P closing at 14-month low
https://news.yahoo.com/wall-street-tumbles-dow-closing-211241732.html?.tsrc=notification-brknewsTrump was taking credit for thr stock market going up. Dead silence from him now.
CBS Denies Les Moonves $120 Million Severance After Sexual Misconduct Claims
https://news.yahoo.com/cbs-denies-les-moonves-120-223430317.html?.tsrc=notification-brknewsGood!
We Stan the First Transgender Miss Universe Contestant
https://www.out.com/popnography/2018/12/17/we-stan-first-transgender-miss-universe-contestant?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=popnography&fbclid=IwAR0oHEgKqaXmtFhbM-r8ACPnKQ2FBAT6wtirXPU3fndd64NTeb07oetzDtk#media-gallery-media-2Spain’s Angela Ponce became the first transgender Miss Universe contestant this weekend, sashaying away without the crown — but with the world’s attention, and hundreds of headlines celebrating her historic run.
Dems damp down hopes for climate change agenda
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/411766-dems-damp-down-hopes-for-climate-change-agenda?fbclid=IwAR3KbsR9ByedjGrGL40tOaKPGeaAlDrwG23WNQJML0xhfLkcFkdV3lfAw7kDemocrats are unlikely to pursue major climate change legislation if they win the House majority, despite a growing body of evidence suggesting time is running out to address the issue.
This represents a shift in strategy from when House Democrats last controlled the chamber. In 2009, they passed cap-and-trade legislation, which subsequently died in the Democratic-controlled Senate. The game plan for next year, House Democrats say, is more incremental steps and hearings.