The Special Counsel's office seems to be saying certain aspects of the Buzzfeed story are inaccurate, though they declined to give a comment on the story initially when asked. They don't SEEM to be denying the story outright. I don't know what to make of it. Buzzfeed is saying they are still 100% behind the story and the sourcing. The OSC never talks, so I don't know if they are worried about leaks or what specific parts of the story they are referring to. Ronan Farrow has said he DIDN'T go with this exact same story because a source of his (but seemingly separate from the two in the article) couldn't confirm this. Not sure what to make of this, but time to pump the brakes at least a bit on this aspect of the story. But I can't for the life of me understand why two investigative journalists of this magnitude would dare drop this kind of bomb without having their ducks in a row. It's tantamount to committing career suicide for 24 hours of media play. I just can't fathom they wouldn't know a story like this would be scrutinized 6 ways from Sunday. Again, the wording from the OSC is very parsed and vague, and it seems to be by design, but at the moment it has caused alot of confusion as to what is going on here. But I would refer to this post Marcy Wheeler made last night, since there is no one I trust more on this subject than her:
Rachel Maddow grills Ben Smith, Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed News pretty good here, and he does not back down on anything, including going so far as to say they have spoken to their sources AFTER the news of the last few hours and they are still 100% confident in their reporting:
So what we have here is pretty simple. If Buzzfeed is being taken for a ride by these two sources for whatever reason, their credibility is going to be shot. One could argue they have no choice but to double down at this point. But he doesn't sound like someone who isn't confident in what they published. Wait and see. My personal belief at the moment is that the sources are not from Mueller's shop at all, but from the notoriously leak-prone SDNY. And that Mueller is quite pissed anything about this got out at all. But we shall see.
"Don't pay attention to the shut down or Mueller! Look, I'm going to meet with Kim Jong Un again@||!"
Maybe Trump's kissing up to Kim because North Korea won't extradite him.
Are we really going to go through this whole "Trump is making progress on North Korea" nonsense a second time?? Last year the media was practically breathless in it's coverage of the meeting in Singapore after which Trump claimed in no uncertain terms that the nuclear threat from North Korea no longer existed. Since that time we have had at least half a dozen news reports that indicate that they haven't done a single thing to stop their missile program from moving forward. Even most of the posters in this forum trying to give him the benefit of the doubt praised the meeting, and it has subsequently turned out to have been an utterly pointless ceremonial photo-op with a vicious dictator, which is what it should have been viewed as from the beginning. And now we're getting ramped up for a goddamn remake of a movie that isn't even two years old.
Ronan Farrow has said he DIDN'T go with this exact same story because a source of his (but seemingly separate from the two in the article) couldn't confirm this.
Farrow's source "repeatedly disputed" it, which is more than not being able to confirm.
My overall guess is similar to yours: SDNY leaked it, and Mueller is stomping it out with the extremely vague "not accurate" because he doesn't want anyone thinking his office is trying to litigate this in the media.
I agree that the likelihood for a second referendum seems to have increased. However the mechanism by which one comes about is unclear to me. Theresa May cannot do something which almost all Conservative members oppose, which means that a parliamentary majority would have to somehow assert control over paliamentary process. This would be a fundamental change, and require the co-operation of the speaker... and for the Labour leadership to play ball. On the question to be posed in such a referendum a 3-choice transferable vote system has much to recommend it except that the particular mathematical contrivance used may have a role in deciding the winner unless Remain can get 50%+ by itself. Actually deciding on things like electoral law reform will take some time, possibly so much that the UK would have to revoke article 50 if the EU was not compliant enough. Some sort of Citizen's Assembly might be best? An election on the other hand would likely settle nothing....
It is a little odd to me to remember just how often voices from the various Leave campaigns commented favourably on the prospect of a Norway-style solution. Obviously even if the UK did go for that option they would no longer settle for it, and it's unclear how tenable it would be for the UK to lose that much influence over the formulation of EU regulations.
I agree that in some ways May's deal is the only way forward, but that assumes that the positions being adopted are the product of rational thought . A Brexiter as clever as Gove knows that the way forward would be to get the UK out of the EU at any cost and then tack toward the right. However there then follows the mindbending problem that the Government might then fall because of the DUP's relentless opposition to the backstop. Some sort of coalition to prop up the Government and tweak the political declaration seems plausible I suppose, but only if time presses. In some ways this just feels like the end of the beginning...
The Special Counsel's office seems to be saying certain aspects of the Buzzfeed story are inaccurate, though they declined to give a comment on the story initially when asked. They don't SEEM to be denying the story outright. I don't know what to make of it. Buzzfeed is saying they are still 100% behind the story and the sourcing. The OSC never talks, so I don't know if they are worried about leaks or what specific parts of the story they are referring to. Ronan Farrow has said he DIDN'T go with this exact same story because a source of his (but seemingly separate from the two in the article) couldn't confirm this. Not sure what to make of this, but time to pump the brakes at least a bit on this aspect of the story. But I can't for the life of me understand why two investigative journalists of this magnitude would dare drop this kind of bomb without having their ducks in a row. It's tantamount to committing career suicide for 24 hours of media play. I just can't fathom they wouldn't know a story like this would be scrutinized 6 ways from Sunday. Again, the wording from the OSC is very parsed and vague, and it seems to be by design, but at the moment it has caused alot of confusion as to what is going on here. But I would refer to this post Marcy Wheeler made last night, since there is no one I trust more on this subject than her:
Rachel Maddow grills Ben Smith, Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed News pretty good here, and he does not back down on anything, including going so far as to say they have spoken to their sources AFTER the news of the last few hours and they are still 100% confident in their reporting:
So what we have here is pretty simple. If Buzzfeed is being taken for a ride by these two sources for whatever reason, their credibility is going to be shot. One could argue they have no choice but to double down at this point. But he doesn't sound like someone who isn't confident in what they published. Wait and see. My personal belief at the moment is that the sources are not from Mueller's shop at all, but from the notoriously leak-prone SDNY. And that Mueller is quite pissed anything about this got out at all. But we shall see.
I agree this is puzzling. Your explanation may be correct, but there have been thousands of stories about the investigation that have not prompted comments from Mueller, including some that suggest leaks, so it seems odd to me that this one if so different. It's possible that the reason for the response is that Mueller knows where the leak is from and that it's substantially accurate - and is annoyed about the potential effect on the case he's building. The response could thus be seen as a slap to the leaker. However, I feel I now need to wait for further information before deciding on the implications (and that could also be the reason for making such an ambiguous response ).
I agree that the likelihood for a second referendum seems to have increased. However the mechanism by which one comes about is unclear to me. Theresa May cannot do something which almost all Conservative members oppose, which means that a parliamentary majority would have to somehow assert control over paliamentary process. This would be a fundamental change, and require the co-operation of the speaker... and for the Labour leadership to play ball. On the question to be posed in such a referendum a 3-choice transferable vote system has much to recommend it except that the particular mathematical contrivance used may have a role in deciding the winner unless Remain can get 50%+ by itself. Actually deciding on things like electoral law reform will take some time, possibly so much that the UK would have to revoke article 50 if the EU was not compliant enough. Some sort of Citizen's Assembly might be best? An election on the other hand would likely settle nothing....
It is a little odd to me to remember just how often voices from the various Leave campaigns commented favourably on the prospect of a Norway-style solution. Obviously even if the UK did go for that option they would no longer settle for it, and it's unclear how tenable it would be for the UK to lose that much influence over the formulation of EU regulations.
I agree that in some ways May's deal is the only way forward, but that assumes that the positions being adopted are the product of rational thought . A Brexiter as clever as Gove knows that the way forward would be to get the UK out of the EU at any cost and then tack toward the right. However there then follows the mindbending problem that the Government might then fall because of the DUP's relentless opposition to the backstop. Some sort of coalition to prop up the Government and tweak the political declaration seems plausible I suppose, but only if time presses. In some ways this just feels like the end of the beginning...
@Mantis37 I agree that May would not do something that almost all Conservative MPs opposed - but that's not the situation. There are a small group of them that are already actively calling for a referendum (see here for instance), but there are substantially larger numbers that would support that if it came to a choice with a no deal - in my view this group would be larger than the 100+ that would support a no deal.
As to how it would come about, there have already been processes in the Commons started that would potentially allow MPs to direct the government on specific actions - and holding a referendum could be one such. You probably remember the huge outcry a few days ago about Bercow's (Speaker of the House) actions in allowing an amendment to be put forward in relation to this. I agree that Labour would need to support this, but that seems pretty much a foregone conclusion to me. Many senior Labour figures have already said they support a referendum and the party membership is strongly in favor. The only significant obstacle is Corbyn himself, who continues to sit on the fence. There are 2 possible reasons for that - he's still hoping that he will get a general election (but there's no chance of that), or he's still trying to avoid stating a policy in order to avoid annoying anyone. On the latter point it won't be tenable for him to continue evading the issue as the clock runs down towards an automatic no deal on 29th March.
I am a fan of Citizens Assemblies and do think they can work well in finding a way through apparently intransigent positions - take the example for instance of the recent moves to allow abortion in Ireland, that were kicked off by a Citizens Assembly. I would thus support such a proposal here, but am dubious that it would get through Parliament.
It would certainly be necessary to change the 29th March deadline in order to hold another referendum. I would be surprised if the EU did not agree to a delay if there were specific reasons for that - particularly if those could ultimately lead to the UK agreeing to remain in the EU. If they did not agree a delay, the obvious response from the UK would be to withdraw the notice to leave. I think that would clearly not be in the EU's interest, as it would keep the UK in as a disruptive partner liable to restart the process in the relatively near future - at which point people's annoyance at the EU might skew their views about staying in.
The Special Counsel's office seems to be saying certain aspects of the Buzzfeed story are inaccurate, though they declined to give a comment on the story initially when asked. They don't SEEM to be denying the story outright. I don't know what to make of it. Buzzfeed is saying they are still 100% behind the story and the sourcing. The OSC never talks, so I don't know if they are worried about leaks or what specific parts of the story they are referring to. Ronan Farrow has said he DIDN'T go with this exact same story because a source of his (but seemingly separate from the two in the article) couldn't confirm this. Not sure what to make of this, but time to pump the brakes at least a bit on this aspect of the story. But I can't for the life of me understand why two investigative journalists of this magnitude would dare drop this kind of bomb without having their ducks in a row. It's tantamount to committing career suicide for 24 hours of media play. I just can't fathom they wouldn't know a story like this would be scrutinized 6 ways from Sunday. Again, the wording from the OSC is very parsed and vague, and it seems to be by design, but at the moment it has caused alot of confusion as to what is going on here. But I would refer to this post Marcy Wheeler made last night, since there is no one I trust more on this subject than her:
Rachel Maddow grills Ben Smith, Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed News pretty good here, and he does not back down on anything, including going so far as to say they have spoken to their sources AFTER the news of the last few hours and they are still 100% confident in their reporting:
So what we have here is pretty simple. If Buzzfeed is being taken for a ride by these two sources for whatever reason, their credibility is going to be shot. One could argue they have no choice but to double down at this point. But he doesn't sound like someone who isn't confident in what they published. Wait and see. My personal belief at the moment is that the sources are not from Mueller's shop at all, but from the notoriously leak-prone SDNY. And that Mueller is quite pissed anything about this got out at all. But we shall see.
I agree this is puzzling. Your explanation may be correct, but there have been thousands of stories about the investigation that have not prompted comments from Mueller, including some that suggest leaks, so it seems odd to me that this one if so different. It's possible that the reason for the response is that Mueller knows where the leak is from and that it's substantially accurate - and is annoyed about the potential effect on the case he's building. The response could thus be seen as a slap to the leaker. However, I feel I now need to wait for further information before deciding on the implications (and that could also be the reason for making such an ambiguous response ).
There have been plenty of stories in the last two years that were, at best, half accurate in regards to this investigation. This is mostly because the entire thing has been so airtight (again I mention this is in direct juxtaposition to the Starr investigation in the '90s, when they were feeding the media on what was basically an IV drip every day of the week). I have no idea why this one would all of a sudden prompt a response from them when literally nothing else has. They could have commented on the overall veracity of dozens of stories during this time-frame. They have shown no inclination to confirm or deny anything at all until now. So now (at least tonight) you have the odd situation where Trump defenders are (and this is almost too rich for words) using Mueller himself as a reason to attack the media, when for all the other 364 days of the year he has been the head of (in their minds) a witch hunt. In the end, the entire thing has been under total secrecy from the beginning. The reporting we have being slightly shoddy isn't a result of malicious intent or malpractice, but the fact that the public is desperate for information about something that is under a shield that is almost impossible to penetrate. I have absolutely no idea how Mueller has kept the real inner workings of this investigation under wraps for this long. And at this point, everyone is starting to get impatient.
By publicly rebuting the buzzfeed report - but not any of the outrageous claims that Trump has made - Mueller has seemingly chosen a "side". That's not good.
I also feel that he has undermined his entire investigation.
Trump, and the army of Republican liars he employs to be his fake news generators, will go out and say "Buzzfeed was wrong. Mueller confirmed it. The whole investigation was because of buzzfeed and the debunked steele dossier. Now Buzzfeed is wrong again and Mueller says I'm innocent. So I've given him two days to complete the investigation and turn in the report to matt whitaker for correction. The investigation is over." Mitch McConnell and every Republican "Oh yes handsome president I agree!"
Mueller's statement will be used against the Special Counsel. The investigation will only go on until it finishes it's investigations and issues a report OR until it is no longer allowed to go on. By undermining themselves, they've given Trump and his enablers ammunition to see that it must end now.
Trump and his Republican enablers want him to be cleared regardless of the facts. Will they finally be able to neuter or even completely end the investigation??? I hope not. This was a stupid self inflicted wound by Mueller.
As I predicted this is where the propaganda will be headed see: Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Mueller's statement shows why the special counsel should release his final report quickly to end speculation about its contents. "Today's development only underscores the need for the special counsel to wrap this investigation up immediately," the North Carolina Republican tweeted. "The constant secrecy and breathless speculation helps no one. It's been 20 months — enough is enough. Wrap it up. Show us what you have." ----
Sorry, when I referred to the Conservative members I meant the party members rather than the members of Parliament. They tend to be solidly anti-Europe, although bewilderingly Conservative-leaning constituencies often tended toward Remain. I would agree that more than half of the conservatives MPs could go for a revised deal, in combination with more than half of the Labour MPs. Possibly this would include the customs union but not single market membership, and the political declaration could be revised as such. Neither Corbyn or May seem like leaders who can listen and facilitate a consensus like that right now though, so it will happen in spite of them.... This article by Ian Dunt is pretty vicious on their inadequacies:
They are the most inadequate, self-interested, unimaginative, unprincipled, irresponsible party leaders in living history. There is no thesaurus in the world which could contain all the descriptions of their failures. In a moment which requires towering political figures, we're lumped with them: a prime minister with the intellectual status of a pebble and an opposition leader with the cerebral qualities of crumbled paper.
Odds on the UK leaving the EU on March 29th have sunk to about 6-1. Even passing all the relevant legislation in an adequate fashion would be difficult in the remaining period. So it's highly likely there'll be an extension, as long as the EU can square what will happen with the European Parliament elections. In some ways revoking article 50 and working out a national consensus is the sanest choice, but it is also possibly the least politically viable one. Though the polls do seem to be marching steadily towards Remain...
This is a remarkably insightful breakdown of what happened in regards to Buzzfeed and the Mueller team pushback, and it's relation to the differences between what is going on in the SDNY and the Special Counsel. Again, Marcy Wheeler (despite this being a blog) is HIGHLY prescient and in the know about matters relating to national security and the Justice Department. She's been reporting on them in a role of criticism for years in regards to civil liberties. But she was able to point out what was wrong about the Buzzfeed report a full 24 hours before the SCO issued their statement, and also what was important about it. So I think her analysis in the aftermath is highly worth reading. She knows her stuff on this:
The whole things is noteworthy, but the last few paragraphs particularly interesting:
There’s probably another reason why Carr made this statement. I don’t doubt that Mueller hates Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier for the way they got the financial transfer part of this story when no one else did, and more of the Moscow Tower deal story than others (which seems to be forgotten in the squawking about Buzzfeed’s loneliness on this latest story).
But I suspect Carr took this step, even more, as a message to SDNY and any other Agents working tangents of this case. Because of the way Mueller is spinning off parts of this case, he has less control over some aspects of it, like Cohen’s plea. And in this specific case (again, presuming I’m right about the SDNY sourcing), Buzzfeed’s sources just jeopardized Mueller’s hard-earned reputation, built over 20 months, for not leaking. By emphasizing in his statement what happened in “the special counsel’s office,” “testimony obtained by this office,” Carr strongly suggests that the people who served as sources had nothing to do with the office.
A couple more points. A lot of people are complaining that Carr didn’t more aggressively warn Buzzfeed off the story (though he did provide what sounds like Cohen’s allocution, which — if it had been reviewed by one of Buzzfeed’s superb legal reporters — probably would have led to the cautions I raised yesterday). I get why that would be nice. But I think people really misunderstand the degree to which Mueller knows that every single action they take will eventually be subjected to scrutiny courtesy of a Judicial Watch FOIA. And any hint at all that Carr provided any inkling about the case to journalists will be blown up by Trump and his lawyers.
Finally, the actions Carr took yesterday (and Mueller’s big-footing on Cohen’s testimony before the Oversight Committee next month) only make sense if Cohen might have to play a role in a possible trial, and not a report submitted confidentially to Attorney General William Barr. That’s what more likely explains Carr’s response than anything else: the discrepancy between what Buzzfeed reported and what Cohen allocuted posed a risk to possible a jury trial. And that may explain another reason why Mueller is a lot more modest about Trump’s role in Cohen’s lies than SDNY is.
Trump’s not going to be indicted by Mueller — at least not before he leaves office via election defeat or impeachment. So Mueller’s focus needs to be on the crimes of those he can charge, like Don Jr. That doesn’t rule out that the evidence he’s looking at show that Trump oversaw a series of coordinated false statements. He did! With Mike Flynn’s lies, Don McGahn’s clean up of Flynn and Jim Comey’s firings, the response to the June 9 meeting, and yes, this Trump Tower deal, nothing explains the coordinated story-telling of multiple Trump flunkies other than Trump’s approval of those lies. It is, frankly, journalistic malpractice that the press hasn’t noted that, especially on the June 9 meeting, the evidence that Trump lied and ordered others to has already been made public. Trump’s tacit (and explicit, with the June 9 statement) approval of serial false statements, to Congress, to the FBI Director, to FBI Agents, and to Mueller, is an impeachable offense. Multiple outlets have gotten solid proof of that, they just haven’t stated the obvious like Buzzfeed did, perhaps in part because they’re relying on White House sources for their reporting.
But Mueller won’t need to allege that for his case in chief, at least not on the issue of the Trump Tower deal. Because the events that matter to Mueller’s case in chief — the events to which Cohen might have to serve as a witness — happened in 2016, not 2017 or 2018. And the guilt that Mueller would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt if he does indict this conspiracy is not Trump’s guilt — except as an unindicted co-conspirator. It is Don Jr’s guilt.
So outlets that are suggesting that Mueller’s pushback backs off any evidence that Trump committed a crime make no more sense than the original Buzzfeed report (and ignore the actual evidence of how Cohen’s lies evolved, an evolution in which these outlets were active participants). The only thing that explains Carr issuing such an unprecedented order is if Cohen’s ability to testify on the stand must be preserved.
Robert Mueller has the unenviable task of needing to sustain as much credibility for a bunch of serial liars as possible, starting with Michael Cohen. Buzzfeed’s story — whether generally true or erroneous on details about Trump Organization witnesses or totally wrong — threatened that effort.
And that’s why, I strongly suspect, Peter Carr finally publicly spoke.
Inside the GM plant where nooses and 'whites-only' signs hung
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/us/gm-toledo-racism-lawsuit/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2S7Li0KWgorhEIDU5pN3d5Vr5_GzHNN6bzh-2E-fxEG_qAxB_IU4ReUBc It took 14 months for the noose to show up. Fourteen months where Marcus Boyd says he endured racist comments, slights, even threats in a hostile workplace run by General Motors. A workplace where people declared bathrooms were for "whites only," where black supervisors were denounced as "boy" and ignored by their subordinates, where black employees were called "monkey," or told to "go back to Africa." A workplace where black employees were warned a white colleague's "daddy" was in the Ku Klux Klan. Where white workers wore shirts with Nazi symbols underneath their coveralls. In Ohio. In 2018.
Sorry, when I referred to the Conservative members I meant the party members rather than the members of Parliament. They tend to be solidly anti-Europe, although bewilderingly Conservative-leaning constituencies often tended toward Remain. I would agree that more than half of the conservatives MPs could go for a revised deal, in combination with more than half of the Labour MPs. Possibly this would include the customs union but not single market membership, and the political declaration could be revised as such. Neither Corbyn or May seem like leaders who can listen and facilitate a consensus like that right now though, so it will happen in spite of them.
I agree Conservative voters are significantly more in favor of a hard Brexit than their MPs - perhaps 60 to 70% of those voters, which is about double the proportion of Conservative MPs.
I thought I might make one point about the options that hasn't been addressed much in the debates so far and that's that the discussions are tending too much to prejudge the final outcome of the Brexit process. We know what the outcome of remaining in the EU would be, but details about what any other option would mean are actually extremely sketchy at the moment. That's because virtually all the negotiations with the EU to date have been about the withdrawal agreement and not the future relationship.
May's deal for instance only covers trade issues tangentially in relation to the 'backstop' intended to ensure that there is no hard border between north and south Ireland. It's called a backstop because the hope is that it would be rendered unnecessary by a future agreed trade deal, but there is no certainty about what such a deal would include. Even the term 'no deal' is highly misleading in fact. What that actually means is that the UK would leave the EU without a formal withdrawal agreement, but there would still be a whole host of specific agreements required urgently on particular issues (like the rights for aircraft to fly into each others airspace for instance). The intention would be that such temporary agreements (many of which are currently being drafted) would eventually be replaced by a full trade agreement.
What has received very little publicity in the UK though is that the EU has said that it would not sign a trade agreement unless that includes similar provisions to those in the existing withdrawal agreement (such as paying the £39bn as the UK's share of existing obligations). The hardline Brexiteers continue to make the case that the EU would change its mind about this in future and decide to commit to a trade deal on UK terms, but that seems to me to be either another case of people believing in Brexit 'unicorns' or another case of some dedicated leavers being willing to blatantly lie about reality (like with the £350m a week statements during the referendum) in order to push a political ideology.
Upper East Side Restaurant Nello Bans Single Women From Eating At The Bar
https://guestofaguest.com/new-york/restaurants/upper-east-side-restaurant-nello-bans-single-women-from-eating-at-the-bar?fbclid=IwAR3khT4FgKCpRNEPo5DVxLYFW0YgB4tS6KTzQBF_VLggiLqd-i5wAaK2fzw Because, apparently, the owners consider all of us escorts, and they have "special" seating rules for them. And yes, this is as disgustingly ridiculous as it sounds, so let's backtrack. This week, in an essay titled "The Night I Was Mistaken for a Call Girl," jet-setting creative executive Clementine Crawford shared her dehumanizing (in more ways than one) experience at her favorite uptown eatery upon a recent trip to New York. "I perched at my favourite seat at the bar and started to respond to all the emails that had arrived on the flight over," she explains. "A waiter approached – a familiar face, but oddly hesitant on this occasion. He advised – with evident embarrassment – that I was no longer permitted to eat at my usual spot and that I must now sit down at a table." When she returned a few days later, she was told to move yet again. Then, from her new table, she watched as a fellow regular - a male one, that is - was served his meal without incident while perched on a stool at the bar. After rightfully speaking up, Crawford learned "that the owner had ordered a crackdown on hookers" and assumed management believed "upscale escorts working the bar lowered the tone of the place and would be less obvious if escorted behind a table."
Teenagers in MAGA Hats Mocked an Omaha Elder and Vietnam Vet at the Indigenous Peoples March
Trump's big announcement?? The wall for TEMPORARY protections for Dreamers. Absolutely not. We've seen him back out of that deal once already. I trust Trump to stick to temporary protections as much as I trust an alcoholic sitting outside a liquor store to pay me back if I give him $10. If he was serious about this, he would offer a permanent amnesty solution for them, and then we'd have a deal. A permanent wall for a couple of years when he could then hold them hostage again. No way.
As for that kid.....look, I'e been talking about the nascent fascist movement building online with young males in this country for over a year. It wasn't just him, all his friends were dancing around mocking the Native American elder. But everything about that little prick, from his smug face to his MAGA hat to his utter disrespect said "I'm white and I'm more important than you, and I want to make sure you know it". You could see that thought burned into that kid's eyes. If me or my friends had ever done something so outright demonic as I saw in that video, we wouldn't have left the house again til we were 18. That said, hatred is taught. The parents and that Catholic School should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for raising their children to be such malicious sociopaths. But as I have mentioned numerous times, the cruelty is the point.
We already know that Trump committed a felony. The court documents in the SDNY case against Cohen clearly state that "Individual 1" specifically directed Cohen to make the illegal payments to Stormy Daniels. Cohen has pled guilty to doing so. The ONLY reason Trump hasn't been charged with the same crime is because he has a desk in the Oval Office. Because the Justice Department is clearly sticking with this entirely made-up notion that you can't indict a sitting President, which was just apparently pulled out of someone's ass somewhere along the line. We apparently decided at some point that only impeachment can be used to hold a criminal Presidency accountable, when that is written absolutely nowhere. It only comes from this worship of Executive Power conservatives have been pushing since Nixon.
It's also worth noting that Woodward and Bernstein got stuff wrong during Watergate. Specifically, there was a story where some their details were off, but the overarching point of the story was proved to have been accurate. At the time, they were certain Ben Bradlee was going to pull them off the story. He didn't. That inaccurate story did not save Nixon. We seem to have reached a point where if the media makes a single factual mistake, the entire idea of news itself is dismissed as unreliable, yet the President himself can lie a half a dozen times a day with impunity.
Yeah Trump offer wasn't made to Democrats. It was made to TV. He didn't discuss this with Democrats beforehand. He didn't offer them anything worthwhile. Temporary protection, screw you buddy lol.
Mitch McConnell, scourge of the Republican who has been instrumental in keeping the government closed, says he's going to bring bills up for a vote based on what the orange one said. He won't reopen the government and previously McConnell said he would only move on bills that had the support of the President and Democrats. So reminder for the millionth time these elected Republicans are literally the worst. They need to be repealed and replaced. Conservatives you need to get rid of these guys they are the worst - liars, racists, bad faith actors, snowflakes and worst of all they keep taking your money and giving it to the ultra rich. Stop trading your wealth for a false sense of security - they will keep lying to you that you are under attack while they keep stealing your money. Their wealth goes up, your wages stay the same or go lower.
Break DACA on purpose and then try sell it back for parts in negotiations. Or, imagine if someone purposefully broke your TV, then tried to sell you a shittier model of it for 5 billion dollars. And, again, I don't trust them him on DACA because we ALREADY tried this deal and they backed out at the last second. Also, let's see how long Trump sticks to this "compromise" now that President Coulter has spoken up about it. I give him 72 hours before conservative media has him backtracking, and that is being generous:
I gind the Ann Coulter thing pretty interesting. She finds herself in a position if influence - no doubt temporary - and she uses it to... destroy Trump. She's absolutely destroying him, pushing him such that any negotiation will look like failure, in a situation where the only way out is via negotiation. She is totally undermining his support with the only bloc left that really supports him. I'm really curious what her game is here...
That crowd doesn't want to negotiate, they just want to see Democrats submit. Which they may have in the past. It is not the past anymore.
Look, if he was offering full DACA protections going forward, I'd say give him his damn money for a project that is going to get tied up in years of eminent domain lawsuits anyway, and by the time anything can actually be done, he'll hopefully be gone and the whole thing can be abandoned. But that isn't what they are offering. They are offering a couple years only. Why?? What benefit is there to having the DACA discussion again 2 or 3 years from now?? If it is acceptable to let them have protections for a limited amount of time, why not permanently?? It's a joke. To negotiate from strength you need to have leverage. Trump is dropping 2 points in the polls a week. He is sub-40%. He doesn't have any leverage. Who the hell even watched this thing this afternoon?? It was Saturday at 3pm. I'm a political junkie and I didn't even bother.
I've referred a few times to the differences between UK and US on racial harassment. This story gives good coverage to that in relation to the Kiah Morris case. A couple of the points made in the story are: - there's a dispute in the US over whether the appropriate standard to judge whether something is a threat is how that would be perceived by a reasonable person or what the perpetrator's intent was. In the UK the law says it's the former. A message on social media to a politician saying something along the lines of "I'm going to murder you and rape your daughter" would clearly be unlawful in the UK, but would probably be dismissed as just 'hyperbole' in the US. - in the UK there's a specific law against harassment. That means that, while a single abusive message would not be unlawful, continued abuse potentially would - it's not that speech itself is being criminalized, but behavior.
I find the Ann Coulter thing pretty interesting. She finds herself in a position if influence - no doubt temporary - and she uses it to... destroy Trump. She's absolutely destroying him, pushing him such that any negotiation will look like failure, in a situation where the only way out is via negotiation. She is totally undermining his support with the only bloc left that really supports him. I'm really curious what her game is here...
The game is go to the right of whoever is leading your party. Trump went to the right of Bush and all the others. It's what they all do. That's how we're so crazy far right as a country.
Paint your political opponents as not radical enough, it's what all the republicans have been doing for years. All the moderates are getting out and we're left with the edgy wackaloons trying to out racist, out crazy, each other.
Imagine that--if Trump and Pence both go down, we have a situation where the entire GOP spends over 2 years (or more, depending on how things play out) trying to shield a criminal from justice, and then the Democrats are painted as the bad guy simply because they won the House in 2018 and therefore Pelosi, by longstanding constitutional precedent, becomes the third in line for the presidency. Kind of amazing to think that the GOP might do better in 2020 if both its president and vice president turned out to be literally criminals, for the sole reason that Pelosi has been arbitrarily defined as a boogieman.
It ain't the Democrats' fault that the GOP elected Trump and Pence.
Comments
White cop who shot black teen gets nearly 7 years in prison
https://news.yahoo.com/cover-trial-officer-shot-teen-sentenced-060317624.html?.tsrc=notification-brknewsBuzzFeed Reporter Responds To Trump's Anti-Cohen Tweet With Actual Facts
https://news.yahoo.com/buzzfeed-reporter-responds-trump-apos-194028662.htmlMexican airline enters border debate with 'DNA discount'
https://news.yahoo.com/mexican-airline-enters-border-debate-dna-discount-150311858.htmlOoh, sick burn on that last story!
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/01/18/about-the-buzzfeed-scoop-its-important-but-it-oversells-the-lying-part/
Rachel Maddow grills Ben Smith, Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed News pretty good here, and he does not back down on anything, including going so far as to say they have spoken to their sources AFTER the news of the last few hours and they are still 100% confident in their reporting:
So what we have here is pretty simple. If Buzzfeed is being taken for a ride by these two sources for whatever reason, their credibility is going to be shot. One could argue they have no choice but to double down at this point. But he doesn't sound like someone who isn't confident in what they published. Wait and see. My personal belief at the moment is that the sources are not from Mueller's shop at all, but from the notoriously leak-prone SDNY. And that Mueller is quite pissed anything about this got out at all. But we shall see.
Are we really going to go through this whole "Trump is making progress on North Korea" nonsense a second time?? Last year the media was practically breathless in it's coverage of the meeting in Singapore after which Trump claimed in no uncertain terms that the nuclear threat from North Korea no longer existed. Since that time we have had at least half a dozen news reports that indicate that they haven't done a single thing to stop their missile program from moving forward. Even most of the posters in this forum trying to give him the benefit of the doubt praised the meeting, and it has subsequently turned out to have been an utterly pointless ceremonial photo-op with a vicious dictator, which is what it should have been viewed as from the beginning. And now we're getting ramped up for a goddamn remake of a movie that isn't even two years old.
My overall guess is similar to yours: SDNY leaked it, and Mueller is stomping it out with the extremely vague "not accurate" because he doesn't want anyone thinking his office is trying to litigate this in the media.
I agree that the likelihood for a second referendum seems to have increased. However the mechanism by which one comes about is unclear to me. Theresa May cannot do something which almost all Conservative members oppose, which means that a parliamentary majority would have to somehow assert control over paliamentary process. This would be a fundamental change, and require the co-operation of the speaker... and for the Labour leadership to play ball. On the question to be posed in such a referendum a 3-choice transferable vote system has much to recommend it except that the particular mathematical contrivance used may have a role in deciding the winner unless Remain can get 50%+ by itself. Actually deciding on things like electoral law reform will take some time, possibly so much that the UK would have to revoke article 50 if the EU was not compliant enough. Some sort of Citizen's Assembly might be best? An election on the other hand would likely settle nothing....
It is a little odd to me to remember just how often voices from the various Leave campaigns commented favourably on the prospect of a Norway-style solution. Obviously even if the UK did go for that option they would no longer settle for it, and it's unclear how tenable it would be for the UK to lose that much influence over the formulation of EU regulations.
I agree that in some ways May's deal is the only way forward, but that assumes that the positions being adopted are the product of rational thought
As to how it would come about, there have already been processes in the Commons started that would potentially allow MPs to direct the government on specific actions - and holding a referendum could be one such. You probably remember the huge outcry a few days ago about Bercow's (Speaker of the House) actions in allowing an amendment to be put forward in relation to this. I agree that Labour would need to support this, but that seems pretty much a foregone conclusion to me. Many senior Labour figures have already said they support a referendum and the party membership is strongly in favor. The only significant obstacle is Corbyn himself, who continues to sit on the fence. There are 2 possible reasons for that - he's still hoping that he will get a general election (but there's no chance of that), or he's still trying to avoid stating a policy in order to avoid annoying anyone. On the latter point it won't be tenable for him to continue evading the issue as the clock runs down towards an automatic no deal on 29th March.
I am a fan of Citizens Assemblies and do think they can work well in finding a way through apparently intransigent positions - take the example for instance of the recent moves to allow abortion in Ireland, that were kicked off by a Citizens Assembly. I would thus support such a proposal here, but am dubious that it would get through Parliament.
It would certainly be necessary to change the 29th March deadline in order to hold another referendum. I would be surprised if the EU did not agree to a delay if there were specific reasons for that - particularly if those could ultimately lead to the UK agreeing to remain in the EU. If they did not agree a delay, the obvious response from the UK would be to withdraw the notice to leave. I think that would clearly not be in the EU's interest, as it would keep the UK in as a disruptive partner liable to restart the process in the relatively near future - at which point people's annoyance at the EU might skew their views about staying in.
There have been plenty of stories in the last two years that were, at best, half accurate in regards to this investigation. This is mostly because the entire thing has been so airtight (again I mention this is in direct juxtaposition to the Starr investigation in the '90s, when they were feeding the media on what was basically an IV drip every day of the week). I have no idea why this one would all of a sudden prompt a response from them when literally nothing else has. They could have commented on the overall veracity of dozens of stories during this time-frame. They have shown no inclination to confirm or deny anything at all until now. So now (at least tonight) you have the odd situation where Trump defenders are (and this is almost too rich for words) using Mueller himself as a reason to attack the media, when for all the other 364 days of the year he has been the head of (in their minds) a witch hunt. In the end, the entire thing has been under total secrecy from the beginning. The reporting we have being slightly shoddy isn't a result of malicious intent or malpractice, but the fact that the public is desperate for information about something that is under a shield that is almost impossible to penetrate. I have absolutely no idea how Mueller has kept the real inner workings of this investigation under wraps for this long. And at this point, everyone is starting to get impatient.
I also feel that he has undermined his entire investigation.
Trump, and the army of Republican liars he employs to be his fake news generators, will go out and say "Buzzfeed was wrong. Mueller confirmed it. The whole investigation was because of buzzfeed and the debunked steele dossier. Now Buzzfeed is wrong again and Mueller says I'm innocent. So I've given him two days to complete the investigation and turn in the report to matt whitaker for correction. The investigation is over." Mitch McConnell and every Republican "Oh yes handsome president I agree!"
Mueller's statement will be used against the Special Counsel. The investigation will only go on until it finishes it's investigations and issues a report OR until it is no longer allowed to go on. By undermining themselves, they've given Trump and his enablers ammunition to see that it must end now.
Trump and his Republican enablers want him to be cleared regardless of the facts. Will they finally be able to neuter or even completely end the investigation??? I hope not. This was a stupid self inflicted wound by Mueller.
As I predicted this is where the propaganda will be headed see:
Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Mueller's statement shows why the special counsel should release his final report quickly to end speculation about its contents.
"Today's development only underscores the need for the special counsel to wrap this investigation up immediately," the North Carolina Republican tweeted. "The constant secrecy and breathless speculation helps no one. It's been 20 months — enough is enough. Wrap it up. Show us what you have."
----
Sorry, when I referred to the Conservative members I meant the party members rather than the members of Parliament. They tend to be solidly anti-Europe, although bewilderingly Conservative-leaning constituencies often tended toward Remain. I would agree that more than half of the conservatives MPs could go for a revised deal, in combination with more than half of the Labour MPs. Possibly this would include the customs union but not single market membership, and the political declaration could be revised as such. Neither Corbyn or May seem like leaders who can listen and facilitate a consensus like that right now though, so it will happen in spite of them.... This article by Ian Dunt is pretty vicious on their inadequacies:
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2019/01/18/week-in-review-a-circular-firing-squad-of-stupidity
Odds on the UK leaving the EU on March 29th have sunk to about 6-1. Even passing all the relevant legislation in an adequate fashion would be difficult in the remaining period. So it's highly likely there'll be an extension, as long as the EU can square what will happen with the European Parliament elections. In some ways revoking article 50 and working out a national consensus is the sanest choice, but it is also possibly the least politically viable one. Though the polls do seem to be marching steadily towards Remain...
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/01/19/peter-carr-speaks/
The whole things is noteworthy, but the last few paragraphs particularly interesting:
There’s probably another reason why Carr made this statement. I don’t doubt that Mueller hates Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier for the way they got the financial transfer part of this story when no one else did, and more of the Moscow Tower deal story than others (which seems to be forgotten in the squawking about Buzzfeed’s loneliness on this latest story).
But I suspect Carr took this step, even more, as a message to SDNY and any other Agents working tangents of this case. Because of the way Mueller is spinning off parts of this case, he has less control over some aspects of it, like Cohen’s plea. And in this specific case (again, presuming I’m right about the SDNY sourcing), Buzzfeed’s sources just jeopardized Mueller’s hard-earned reputation, built over 20 months, for not leaking. By emphasizing in his statement what happened in “the special counsel’s office,” “testimony obtained by this office,” Carr strongly suggests that the people who served as sources had nothing to do with the office.
A couple more points. A lot of people are complaining that Carr didn’t more aggressively warn Buzzfeed off the story (though he did provide what sounds like Cohen’s allocution, which — if it had been reviewed by one of Buzzfeed’s superb legal reporters — probably would have led to the cautions I raised yesterday). I get why that would be nice. But I think people really misunderstand the degree to which Mueller knows that every single action they take will eventually be subjected to scrutiny courtesy of a Judicial Watch FOIA. And any hint at all that Carr provided any inkling about the case to journalists will be blown up by Trump and his lawyers.
Finally, the actions Carr took yesterday (and Mueller’s big-footing on Cohen’s testimony before the Oversight Committee next month) only make sense if Cohen might have to play a role in a possible trial, and not a report submitted confidentially to Attorney General William Barr. That’s what more likely explains Carr’s response than anything else: the discrepancy between what Buzzfeed reported and what Cohen allocuted posed a risk to possible a jury trial. And that may explain another reason why Mueller is a lot more modest about Trump’s role in Cohen’s lies than SDNY is.
Trump’s not going to be indicted by Mueller — at least not before he leaves office via election defeat or impeachment. So Mueller’s focus needs to be on the crimes of those he can charge, like Don Jr. That doesn’t rule out that the evidence he’s looking at show that Trump oversaw a series of coordinated false statements. He did! With Mike Flynn’s lies, Don McGahn’s clean up of Flynn and Jim Comey’s firings, the response to the June 9 meeting, and yes, this Trump Tower deal, nothing explains the coordinated story-telling of multiple Trump flunkies other than Trump’s approval of those lies. It is, frankly, journalistic malpractice that the press hasn’t noted that, especially on the June 9 meeting, the evidence that Trump lied and ordered others to has already been made public. Trump’s tacit (and explicit, with the June 9 statement) approval of serial false statements, to Congress, to the FBI Director, to FBI Agents, and to Mueller, is an impeachable offense. Multiple outlets have gotten solid proof of that, they just haven’t stated the obvious like Buzzfeed did, perhaps in part because they’re relying on White House sources for their reporting.
But Mueller won’t need to allege that for his case in chief, at least not on the issue of the Trump Tower deal. Because the events that matter to Mueller’s case in chief — the events to which Cohen might have to serve as a witness — happened in 2016, not 2017 or 2018. And the guilt that Mueller would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt if he does indict this conspiracy is not Trump’s guilt — except as an unindicted co-conspirator. It is Don Jr’s guilt.
So outlets that are suggesting that Mueller’s pushback backs off any evidence that Trump committed a crime make no more sense than the original Buzzfeed report (and ignore the actual evidence of how Cohen’s lies evolved, an evolution in which these outlets were active participants). The only thing that explains Carr issuing such an unprecedented order is if Cohen’s ability to testify on the stand must be preserved.
Robert Mueller has the unenviable task of needing to sustain as much credibility for a bunch of serial liars as possible, starting with Michael Cohen. Buzzfeed’s story — whether generally true or erroneous on details about Trump Organization witnesses or totally wrong — threatened that effort.
And that’s why, I strongly suspect, Peter Carr finally publicly spoke.
House Democrats to probe report that Trump ordered Cohen to lie before Congress
https://nypost.com/2019/01/18/house-democrats-to-probe-report-that-trump-ordered-cohen-to-lie-before-congress/?fbclid=IwAR3YUAvNrsxpTLyWaOWtA-pcLRJUw5BM2DrmEH9tgBMQPBfzKTw4ZefJZPA2 GOP Lawmakers Host Chuck Johnson, Holocaust-Denying White Nationalist
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-reps-host-chuck-johnson-holocaust-denying-white-nationalist_us_5c40944be4b0a8dbe16e670a?fbclid=IwAR0QzvYfg5YGOfKGL6xZmigD8sgbE3rPKQkms3DoxPBQ5L8xv5gcmAeGBZ0Woody Guthrie Sang of Contempt for his Landlord- Donald Trump's Father
https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/25/woody-guthrie-sang-of-his-contempt-for-his-landlord-donald-trumps-father/?fbclid=IwAR2VESz3Gp-fpbLQ0bLsY_i_5U6KZIogRBUsDDT1dj-vLdkpcmD-deBrFfs&mtrref=www.facebook.com&gwh=C0800B0BDFD8275BDBAA66B6F80C26AE&gwt=payREPORT: Shooting death of 7-year-old ruled 'justifiable homicide'
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/crime/report-shooting-death-of-7-year-old-ruled-justifiable-homicide/85-1713e5b9-c52d-4d72-9780-b15465fa9738?fbclid=IwAR2IIFAVtLQBjvAvARJKyDajyh-XKbIb2tgtgEt0KXav7KGVUZZftZ24pNwAs Minsc says, "That's not right!"
Furloughed mom faces choice of buying insulin or making mortgage payment
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-furloughed-mom-faces-choice-of-buying-insulin-or-making-mortgage-payment/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0h&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5c3d5fe904d301574302ae68&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3r-iPzHLeLI_MJh0we7ya5KQpg48dYWOLwbJbuFq3tnFHbOnGWicgbhBYAlso not right.
Oakland teachers hold rally, walkout over contract talks
https://abc7news.com/5095609/?fbclid=IwAR2AAIlGowIkwujp6niVcNXcwXK3Mmbyh9d5DoFeUNF0D6DuxqDnExDFvCkMelania Trump Flies to Florida on Military Plane Despite Government Shutdown
https://www.thedailybeast.com/melania-trump-flies-to-florida-on-military-plane-despite-government-shutdown?via=twitter_page&fbclid=IwAR2OeZhnjowVN0QzY6zNgFVN69hN5aU2zPk_eYHp8-pKjfg_7WvmsfYxtE4How ConVEEENient
New York bans gay conversion therapy, and passes historic trans protection law
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/01/15/new-york-gay-conversion-ban/?fbclid=IwAR1n8urirtPj95yJ6YWYkHKg39L2JhSjYCx2lnlxiDkJWu0KVYImt7UnOpkGood!
Blindspot Features Trans Actor Jen Richards in Cisgender Role
https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2019/1/18/blindspot-features-trans-actor-jen-richards-cisgender-role?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=transgender&utm_term=television&fbclid=IwAR2eF2bXT34afhTMPvQyTdaeEH15NWo5VPB_nvR3n7C1nC6rqlVCI-CjC4MPEOPLE WITH HIGH MORAL STANDARDS 'LESS LIKELY' TO BE FUNNY
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/morals-funny-sense-of-humour-virtue-joking-like-singapore-business-school-a8732251.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3Ou0uUmraMq3zpq92l7MKJzIm9z1FRYapqbHal9bQ6-OKaZj6Cun086Lk#Echobox=1547722782Louisville billboard urges voters to 'Ditch Mitch'
https://www.wdrb.com/news/louisville-billboard-urges-voters-to-ditch-mitch/article_5a4d0278-923c-5f82-ba90-7c6e426969a3.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share&fbclid=IwAR1meyVbh3EVtfnlC2NX_QdQAHAm-vr43_fCHPyE3V6mefj5DbYHtkIaKA0Jared Kushner 'admitted Donald Trump lies to his base because he thinks they're stupid'
https://www.yahoo.com/news/jared-kushner-apos-admitted-donald-102800653.html?soc_src=community&soc_trk=fb&fbclid=IwAR3N8eV4w5d0WPcJreYNwPoamgV9n64uUZNJvOpYHcnL_FeY78uKws8_AzwOh dear!
Texas Judge Tells Jury God Says Defendant Is Not Guilty
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2018/01/texas-judge-tells-jury-god-says-defendant-not-guilty/?fbclid=IwAR3f1iIZ5vqhTa-w2HUZhVUq_1N1qnRyJ0QU71PwbS0hkjxx0eS4TPJz3EsGod, save me from those to whom you speak directly....
Inside the GM plant where nooses and 'whites-only' signs hung
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/us/gm-toledo-racism-lawsuit/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2S7Li0KWgorhEIDU5pN3d5Vr5_GzHNN6bzh-2E-fxEG_qAxB_IU4ReUBcIt took 14 months for the noose to show up.
Fourteen months where Marcus Boyd says he endured racist comments, slights, even threats in a hostile workplace run by General Motors.
A workplace where people declared bathrooms were for "whites only," where black supervisors were denounced as "boy" and ignored by their subordinates, where black employees were called "monkey," or told to "go back to Africa."
A workplace where black employees were warned a white colleague's "daddy" was in the Ku Klux Klan. Where white workers wore shirts with Nazi symbols underneath their coveralls.
In Ohio.
In 2018.
There's nothing wrong with Open Borders
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/opinion/open-borders-immigration.html?fbclid=IwAR115yuSE1vCsMt33zmLJWqie73PolEqCSN1EUo-du_cj4PInStyJQqEDMUI thought I might make one point about the options that hasn't been addressed much in the debates so far and that's that the discussions are tending too much to prejudge the final outcome of the Brexit process. We know what the outcome of remaining in the EU would be, but details about what any other option would mean are actually extremely sketchy at the moment. That's because virtually all the negotiations with the EU to date have been about the withdrawal agreement and not the future relationship.
May's deal for instance only covers trade issues tangentially in relation to the 'backstop' intended to ensure that there is no hard border between north and south Ireland. It's called a backstop because the hope is that it would be rendered unnecessary by a future agreed trade deal, but there is no certainty about what such a deal would include. Even the term 'no deal' is highly misleading in fact. What that actually means is that the UK would leave the EU without a formal withdrawal agreement, but there would still be a whole host of specific agreements required urgently on particular issues (like the rights for aircraft to fly into each others airspace for instance). The intention would be that such temporary agreements (many of which are currently being drafted) would eventually be replaced by a full trade agreement.
What has received very little publicity in the UK though is that the EU has said that it would not sign a trade agreement unless that includes similar provisions to those in the existing withdrawal agreement (such as paying the £39bn as the UK's share of existing obligations). The hardline Brexiteers continue to make the case that the EU would change its mind about this in future and decide to commit to a trade deal on UK terms, but that seems to me to be either another case of people believing in Brexit 'unicorns' or another case of some dedicated leavers being willing to blatantly lie about reality (like with the £350m a week statements during the referendum) in order to push a political ideology.
Senator Requests FBI Investigation Of Trump DHS Secretary For Perjury
https://www.politicususa.com/2019/01/18/senate-requests-fbi-investigation-of-trump-dhs-secretary-for-perjury.html/amp?fbclid=IwAR0OZgecN_3U3L5Tm8oQFK9_KPPj4EJVf_RqkKsk9Glhxj3pAh7GCrDmkokIt's NOT About A Wall....
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/19/1827587/-It-s-NOT-About-A-Wall?fbclid=IwAR1N1byImbWJfppYXH65JyaXfM2UoZh5mHOJE35lxZRusxPGWxGibLjpsC8Chris Wallace: ‘It Takes Two to Tango’ on Shutdown; Shepard Smith: ‘There’s No Tango Here,’ It’s on Trump
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/chris-wallace-it-takes-two-to-tango-on-shutdown-shepard-smith-theres-no-tango-here-its-on-trump/?fbclid=IwAR089VkpM8vH2_IabxEFZQJK-XiPRarONyewtio3yzhNUdA1d2fBwWi8xQUTrump proposes wall-for-DACA in bid to end shutdown
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-propose-immigration-compromise-end-shutdown-source-160838537--business.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews22 immigrants died in ICE detention centers during the past 2 years
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/22-immigrants-died-ice-detention-centers-during-past-2-years-n954781?fbclid=IwAR1mYUWajFRQ3W4X5LWn9ZIYN6QdCQEy_9xsAmL7DMcmav1zvuy6AeAtIQQAn NBC News analysis of dozens of government reports, death reviews and audits of ICE detention centers reveals a system long riddled with problems.
Trump’s unfounded tweet stoking fears about Muslim “prayer rugs,” explained
https://www.vox.com/2019/1/18/18188476/trump-muslim-prayer-rugs-tweet-border?fbclid=IwAR2fnqOeb6XpbkgCabpf5WDFBi2SncUHLaSCEPv9we0kXr88xiOgy7B3XTIUpper East Side Restaurant Nello Bans Single Women From Eating At The Bar
https://guestofaguest.com/new-york/restaurants/upper-east-side-restaurant-nello-bans-single-women-from-eating-at-the-bar?fbclid=IwAR3khT4FgKCpRNEPo5DVxLYFW0YgB4tS6KTzQBF_VLggiLqd-i5wAaK2fzwBecause, apparently, the owners consider all of us escorts, and they have "special" seating rules for them.
And yes, this is as disgustingly ridiculous as it sounds, so let's backtrack.
This week, in an essay titled "The Night I Was Mistaken for a Call Girl," jet-setting creative executive Clementine Crawford shared her dehumanizing (in more ways than one) experience at her favorite uptown eatery upon a recent trip to New York.
"I perched at my favourite seat at the bar and started to respond to all the emails that had arrived on the flight over," she explains. "A waiter approached – a familiar face, but oddly hesitant on this occasion. He advised – with evident embarrassment – that I was no longer permitted to eat at my usual spot and that I must now sit down at a table."
When she returned a few days later, she was told to move yet again. Then, from her new table, she watched as a fellow regular - a male one, that is - was served his meal without incident while perched on a stool at the bar. After rightfully speaking up, Crawford learned "that the owner had ordered a crackdown on hookers" and assumed management believed "upscale escorts working the bar lowered the tone of the place and would be less obvious if escorted behind a table."
Teenagers in MAGA Hats Mocked an Omaha Elder and Vietnam Vet at the Indigenous Peoples March
https://jezebel.com/teenagers-in-maga-hats-mocked-an-omaha-elder-and-vietna-1831896034Texas GOP lawmaker calls Trump border crisis a 'myth'
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/426047-gop-lawmaker-from-texas-calls-trumps-border-crisis-a-myth?fbclid=IwAR3lVpwC0YVtH7STsSR6L8PIy4g9WcrVw9apugkUI1xI1mGWjxTFTbIuk7IHate Groups Are Growing Under Trump
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/536793/hate-groups-are-growing-under-trump/?utm_term=2019-01-14T22:38:57&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1POS2bfx-wtIV4H7OPxABMdSayj7-Q33JrW9TpCQdc2vsSCGOF7-cdZogWorld-Famous Deja Vu Showgirls offering jobs to furloughed government workers
https://www.wsmv.com/news/world-famous-deja-vu-showgirls-offering-jobs-to-furloughed-government/article_18a1ee9a-1b84-11e9-bccc-ff86f3b2b1e6.html?fbclid=IwAR0-I72sJfe7MdOSTntJ7V39dDf0HWFLIwEIu1VRY_TSY9AgskNK_44LmPwAs for that kid.....look, I'e been talking about the nascent fascist movement building online with young males in this country for over a year. It wasn't just him, all his friends were dancing around mocking the Native American elder. But everything about that little prick, from his smug face to his MAGA hat to his utter disrespect said "I'm white and I'm more important than you, and I want to make sure you know it". You could see that thought burned into that kid's eyes. If me or my friends had ever done something so outright demonic as I saw in that video, we wouldn't have left the house again til we were 18. That said, hatred is taught. The parents and that Catholic School should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for raising their children to be such malicious sociopaths. But as I have mentioned numerous times, the cruelty is the point.
Donald Trump Sparks Anger With 'Send A Brick' To Nancy Pelosi And Chuck Schumer Campaign
https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-sparks-anger-apos-121654127.html4 boys, ages 12 to 14, arrested for rape in Delaware
https://www.yahoo.com/news/4-boys-ages-12-14-230610429.htmlIt's also worth noting that Woodward and Bernstein got stuff wrong during Watergate. Specifically, there was a story where some their details were off, but the overarching point of the story was proved to have been accurate. At the time, they were certain Ben Bradlee was going to pull them off the story. He didn't. That inaccurate story did not save Nixon. We seem to have reached a point where if the media makes a single factual mistake, the entire idea of news itself is dismissed as unreliable, yet the President himself can lie a half a dozen times a day with impunity.
Mitch McConnell, scourge of the Republican who has been instrumental in keeping the government closed, says he's going to bring bills up for a vote based on what the orange one said. He won't reopen the government and previously McConnell said he would only move on bills that had the support of the President and Democrats. So reminder for the millionth time these elected Republicans are literally the worst. They need to be repealed and replaced. Conservatives you need to get rid of these guys they are the worst - liars, racists, bad faith actors, snowflakes and worst of all they keep taking your money and giving it to the ultra rich. Stop trading your wealth for a false sense of security - they will keep lying to you that you are under attack while they keep stealing your money. Their wealth goes up, your wages stay the same or go lower.
Look, if he was offering full DACA protections going forward, I'd say give him his damn money for a project that is going to get tied up in years of eminent domain lawsuits anyway, and by the time anything can actually be done, he'll hopefully be gone and the whole thing can be abandoned. But that isn't what they are offering. They are offering a couple years only. Why?? What benefit is there to having the DACA discussion again 2 or 3 years from now?? If it is acceptable to let them have protections for a limited amount of time, why not permanently?? It's a joke. To negotiate from strength you need to have leverage. Trump is dropping 2 points in the polls a week. He is sub-40%. He doesn't have any leverage. Who the hell even watched this thing this afternoon?? It was Saturday at 3pm. I'm a political junkie and I didn't even bother.
- there's a dispute in the US over whether the appropriate standard to judge whether something is a threat is how that would be perceived by a reasonable person or what the perpetrator's intent was. In the UK the law says it's the former. A message on social media to a politician saying something along the lines of "I'm going to murder you and rape your daughter" would clearly be unlawful in the UK, but would probably be dismissed as just 'hyperbole' in the US.
- in the UK there's a specific law against harassment. That means that, while a single abusive message would not be unlawful, continued abuse potentially would - it's not that speech itself is being criminalized, but behavior.
Paint your political opponents as not radical enough, it's what all the republicans have been doing for years. All the moderates are getting out and we're left with the edgy wackaloons trying to out racist, out crazy, each other.
It ain't the Democrats' fault that the GOP elected Trump and Pence.