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| 07-02-22 08:22pm - 810 days | #201 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Texas, the land of freedom, the land of "Give me liberty or give me death", now says that slavery has been mis-identified in the past. Black people from Africa were brought to America to build better lives. So everyone could be content. And happy. And enjoy the beauty of America. That's why Texans can now say, "Give me liberty or give me death. But first, let me enjoy my re-location." ------ ------ Some Texas schools may call slavery 'involuntary relocation' Some Texas schools may call slavery 'involuntary relocation' Associated Press July 2, 2022, 9:05 AM AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Public schools in Texas would describe slavery to second graders as “involuntary relocation” under new social studies standards proposed to the state's education board. A group of nine educators submitted the idea to the State Board of Education as part of Texas' efforts to develop new social studies curriculum, according to the Texas Tribune. The once-a-decade process updates what children learn in the state's nearly 8,900 public schools. The board is considering curriculum changes one year after Texas passed a law to eliminate topics from schools that make students “feel discomfort.” Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, raised concerns during a June 15 meeting that the term wasn't a fair representation of the slave trade. The board sent the draft back for revision, urging the educator group to “carefully examine the language used to describe events.” “I can’t say what their intention was, but that’s not going to be acceptable,” Davis told The Texas Tribune on Thursday. Part of the proposed draft standards obtained by The Texas Tribune say students should “compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.” Texas' public education system has become heavily politicized in recent years, with lawmakers passing legislation to dictate how race and slavery should be taught in schools and conservative groups pouring large amounts of money into school board races. Texas drew attention for a similar situation in 2015, when a student noticed wording in a textbook that referred to slaves who were brought to America as “ workers.” The book's publisher apologized and promised to increase the number of textbook reviewers is uses. | |
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| 07-03-22 09:26am - 809 days | #202 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dondle Trump, the Fightenest President of the Untied States of Trumperland, cries tears of rage that people of the Untied States have abandoned him. Not only has Sleepy Joe Biden stolen the Whitest House away from Dondle, but some American people no longer support Dondle in his efforts to make America great again. Dondle rallied the troops on Jan 6, 2021. Some of them carried weapons. But Dondle was not worried. Trump was aware that members of the crowd at his rally at the Ellipse had weapons preceding the riot but said he did not care because they were “not here to hurt me.” In fact, Dondle was encouraging people to carry weapons, because the Constitution shows the right to bear arms. And it's been said that Dondle wanted to eliminate magnetometer screening because it affected crowd size. Of course, Dondle says it's all lies and smears. Something he is a master at detecting, since he's used those tactics since childhood. Enquiring minds want to know: Can Sleepy Joe put Dondle Trump in prison, for crimes he committed? Or is Sleepy Joe going to snooze through the rest of his stolen Presidency? Republicans, on the other hand, are awake, and denying all sorts of stories about Dondle Trump, saying he is the man to lead the Untied States of Trumperland back to a nation of Free, White, 1%ers. ------ ------ The Hill Jan. 6 panel member ‘surprised’ by prosecutors’ reaction to Hutchinson testimony Caroline Vakil Sun, July 3, 2022 at 6:00 AM Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who sits on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, said she is “surprised” by federal prosecutors’ reactions to testimony given before the panel this week by Cassidy Hutchinson, who previously served as an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that was aired on Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Lofgren to react to a story published last week in The New York Times that reported federal prosecutors working on the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation felt blindsided after watching Hutchinson’s testimony and were as surprised by her remarks as those watching it. Several officials who spoke to the newspaper said that prior to her testimony, prosecutors had not been given transcripts or videos of her past interviews with the committee. Hutchinson spoke to panel investigators behind closed doors four times before testifying in Tuesday’s public hearing. “You know, I was surprised that the prosecutors were surprised. What are they doing over there? They have a much greater opportunity to enforce their subpoenas than our legislative committee does,” Lofgren told Todd. Asked if she thought it was a fair characterization that the House panel had blindsided the Justice Department, she said she did not think so. “We’re not an arm of the Department of Justice. We’re a legislative committee. They have subpoena power. They could subpoena Ms. Hutchinson. I’m surprised they had not done so. We interviewed her four times. I think that’s publicly known at this point. And the fourth interview was very compelling,” she added. Lofgren’s comments come after Hutchinson gave explosive testimony during a last-minute hearing held by the panel on Tuesday. Among the most significant pieces of her testimony, she said that both Meadows and Rudy Giuliani sought pardons from former President Trump, that Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the car he was in on Jan. 6 in an attempt to get to the Capitol after being informed he could not be taken there and that Meadows told her on Jan. 2 that things could “get real, real bad” on the day the riot ultimately occurred. Tensions have arisen between the House select committee and the Justice Department, the latter of which has complained its investigation has been hampered by the panel refusing to provide transcripts of witness interviews. Sunday shows preview: Cassidy Hutchinson gives bombshell testimony before Jan. 6 panel Jared Gans Sat, July 2, 2022 at 1:00 PM Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is expected to dominate this week’s Sunday show circuit. Hutchinson, who served as a special assistant to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the House Jan. 6 Select Committee on Tuesday in a surprise hearing that the committee scheduled the day before. The panel had previously announced that it would not hold further public hearings until July. Hutchinson shared several significant pieces of information about former President Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 and his reactions to the mob that gathered at the Capitol. She testified that Trump was aware that members of the crowd at his rally at the Ellipse had weapons preceding the riot but said he did not care because they were “not here to hurt me.” She recounted a tense moment she said then-deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato described to her in which Trump allegedly insisted that he be taken to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse and tried to grab the steering wheel of a presidential vehicle after being told he could not go. She also said that former White House counsel Pat Cipollone was concerned about violence happening on Jan. 6 in advance and was angry during the attack that Trump and Meadows did not try to do anything to control the mob even as it called to hang former Vice President Mike Pence. The committee has subsequently issued Cipollone a subpoena to testify. Multiple members of the House Jan. 6 panel will appear on Sunday shows following the most recent hearing. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chairwoman of the committee, backed Hutchinson’s testimony in an interview that will air in full on ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday after attacks were made over the former aide’s credibility. Trump denied lunging at his Secret Service detail in the car after they refused to take him to the Capitol. Speaking to the conservative news outlet Newsmax, Trump also said that White House staff were not aware members of the crowd at Trump’s rally were armed and repudiated Hutchinson’s testimony that he wanted to eliminate magnetometer screening because it affected crowd size. Hutchinson’s lawyers have said she is standing by her testimony, in which she said Robert Engel, the special agent in charge for the Secret Service on Jan. 6, was present when Ornato told her of the incident in the presidential vehicle and did not counter any of the details of the account. Multiple news outlets have reported that Ornato and Engel are prepared to testify that Trump did not try to grab the steering wheel. The Secret Service said in a statement on Tuesday that it will provide more information about the allegations. “She’s an incredibly brave young woman,” Cheney said. “The committee is not going to stand by and watch her character be assassinated by anonymous sources and by men who are claiming executive privilege.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the other Republican member of the panel, similarly defended Hutchinson, saying on CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” that Hutchinson had “far more courage” than almost all the Republican members of Congress. “I want to again say, Cassidy Hutchinson is a hero and a real patriot (not a faux “patriot” that hates America so much they would attempt a coup.),” he tweeted on Thursday. Kinzinger will appear on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Democratic panel members Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) also defended Hutchinson and emphasized the importance of her testimony. Schiff will appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation” while Lofgren will appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Other Jan. 6 testimony has faced some pushback as well. The committee revealed last month that in testimony former Trump aides said Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.) sought presidential pardons over their votes to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) said on Thursday that he was not aware of any of his Republican colleagues requesting pardons related to the attack, according to Spectrum News’s NY1 in New York. Hutchinson testified that Meadows and Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani also sought pardons. Zeldin will appear on “Sunday Morning Futures.” | |
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| 07-03-22 09:59am - 809 days | #203 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Amber Heard says she wants the defamation verdict to be tossed. Says there is no evidence to support the verdict. Amber also says she is considering an offer by Dongle Trump of marriage. This would give her sufficient funds to pay for better lawyers. If Dongle is willing to fork over the money without a pre-nup. Dongle is famous for offering to pay, without ever paying himself. Dongle has raised many millions of dollars in his fight to overturn the election loss to Sleepy Joe Biden, most of which he has kept safely in banks in case he might really need some cash. Enquiring minds want to know: what do the stars reveal about the Amber-Dongle romance? During the trial, Amber said, under oath, that she still loves Johnny Depp. And that she wants him to stop fighting with her. So why does she, after the trial is over, still continue to claim that Johnny Depp brutalized her? It ain't over till the fat lady sings. And Amber Heard is still singing. ---- ---- Amber Heard Amber Heard’s attorneys request defamation verdict be tossed Actor says in 43-page memorandum that the jury’s verdict should be set aside on the grounds that it was unsupported by evidence Amber Heard at the courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, in May. Amber Heard at the courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, in May. Photograph: Steve Helber/AFP/Getty Images Edward Helmore Sun 3 Jul 2022 09.37 EDT Last modified on Sun 3 Jul 2022 10.30 EDT Attorneys for actor Amber Heard have requested that the judgment against her in the dueling defamation case with ex-husband Johnny Depp be entirely set aside. Heard, who was found liable on three claims of defamation in June, said in a 43-page memorandum that the jury’s verdict should tossed – and with it a more than $10m award – on the grounds that it was unsupported by evidence. Amber Heard Amber Heard calls out ‘unfair’ role of social media in Johnny Depp case Read more Represented by attorney Elaine Bredehoft at trial, Heard argued – among other things – that it was false for Depp to claim that he lost his role in Pirates of the Caribbean because of statements made by Heard in a Washington Post op-ed. Depp “proceeded solely on a defamation by implication theory, abandoning any claims that Ms. Heard’s statements were actually false”, her attorney argued in a motion filed on Friday. Heard also claims that the jurors’ award against her was excessive, having been handed down after a split verdict that found she and Depp had defamed one another. In an email to Courthouse News, Depp’s lead attorney, Ben Chew, dismissed the motion to dismiss as “what we expected, just longer, no more substantive”. Heard also claims that one juror who served during the seven-week trial was not properly vetted by court officials because their listed birth year was 1945. The juror, identified in the filing as Juror 15, “was clearly born later than 1945. Publicly available information demonstrates that he appears to have been born in 1970,” the motion said. “This discrepancy raises the question whether Juror 15 actually received a summons for jury duty and was properly vetted by the court to serve on the jury.” The court clerk’s office is obligated to verify the identity of the jurors, but in this case, “it appears his identity could not have been verified”, the motion added. Judge Penney Azcarate has indicated that she is not inclined to schedule more hearings in the case. In the last legal encounter, on 24 June, Azcarate put the final judgment in the court record after Bredehoft argued for further hearings. Azcarate bluntly told Heard’s attorney that if she wanted to appeal the verdict from the seven-person jury, she would have to file motions with the court. Azcarate also informed Bredehoft that the Aquaman star will have to put up an $8.35m bond with an annual 6% interest before any appeal would move forward. Representatives for Heard have said she does not have the money to pay Depp or meet the bond. With the $10m judgment against Heard – and a $2m judgment against Depp on a single count of defamation – now registered with the court, there appears little opportunity left for the parties to reach an out-of-court settlement. After the verdict, Depp’s lawyers hinted that the Pirates star might be willing to forgo his share of the award. But Heard has since repeated many of her claims against him, including during an interview on NBC, suggesting that the matter, at least for Heard, is far from resolved. | |
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| 07-04-22 11:47am - 808 days | #204 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Ohio city mayor declares the city will not tolerate property damage. An unarmed black man was killed by police. With around 60 bullet wounds in his body. That's not the problem: the problem is, people need to accept that the police have the right to defend themselves. That is a basic right police have. And the dead black man? Well, he's dead. Who cares about him? Bring back the Dongle Trump: he will fix America. ---- ---- Ohio city imposes curfew after protests over Black man killed by police Reuters Daniel Trotta July 4, 2022, 10:13 AM By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) - The Ohio city of Akron declared a state of emergency on Monday, setting a curfew and canceling Independence Day fireworks, after protests over the police killing of an unarmed Black man turned unruly on Sunday night. The protests broke out after police released body camera video that showed eight officers shooting at Jayland Walker, 25, as he fled a traffic stop last week. Walker's body was found to have some 60 gunshot wounds. Daytime protests on Sunday were peaceful but, despite pleas from the Walker family that demonstrations remain peaceful, Akron police declared an unlawful assembly once property was damaged. Officers in riot gear fired about a dozen canisters of tear gas to scatter protesters, WKYC-TV said. Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan said a curfew for downtown Akron was in effect from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice, and a pair of Fourth of July fireworks displays also were canceled. "There was significant property damage done to downtown Akron. Small businesses up and down Main Street have had their windows broken. We cannot and will not tolerate the destruction of property or violence," Horrigan said in a statement. The Jayland Walker shooting marks the latest in a series of police killings of unarmed Black men, raising questions about police use of force and equal justice for African Americans, and contributing to increased polarization in the United States. Police said Walker had a gun in his car but left it on the front seat as he fled on foot. Officers believed he fired a round from inside the car before fleeing, police said, and that Walker was "moving into firing position" when he got out of his car, prompting them to react to him as a potential threat, Akron Police Chief Stephen Mylett said. VOW OF 'FAIR' INVESTIGATION The mayor praised the peaceful protests, which were led by the Akron chapter of the NAACP. Hundreds of demonstrators marched in the streets of the city of about 200,000 people, waving "Black Lives Matter" flags and chanting, "We are done dying," and "Justice for Jayland." Horrigan said the trouble began after nightfall, a pattern that was seen in the turbulent summer of 2020 when protests spread across the United States over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died when a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Officers were later convicted of various charges including murder and civil rights violations in the Floyd case. On Sunday, the attorney for the Walker family, Bobby DiCello, told reporters he was "very concerned" about the police accusation that Walker had fired at officers from his car, adding that there was no justification for his violent death. "I ask you, as he's running away, what is reasonable? To gun him down? No, that's not reasonable," DiCello said. The Ohio attorney general and Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation are investigating, and the file will be made public at the conclusion of the case, Attorney General Dave Yost said on Sunday. "People want and deserve answers, and they shall have them. BCI will conduct a complete, fair and expert investigation," Yost said in a statement The eight officers directly involved in the shooting have been placed on paid administrative leave, the Akron police chief said. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Mary Milliken and Bill Berkrot) | |
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| 07-04-22 11:57am - 808 days | #205 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Deadly outbreak of Listeria infections, CDD says. Dongle Trump offers the best solution: drink a quart of bleach a day: that will clean out your insides. Note: consult with your medical doctor before drinking bleach. Although Dongle Trump is the most genius President of Trumperland we've ever seen, Dongle Trump has not yet gotten his Medical Certificate to practice Medicine. So drinking bleach might have serious side effects: such as killing you. ----- ----- Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream tied to deadly outbreak of Listeria infections, CDC says USA TODAY Camille Fine July 3, 2022, 9:12 AM Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream is behind a deadly Listeria monocytogenes breakout impacting 10 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One person from Illinois died, one pregnant woman lost her fetus and 22 people have been hospitalized as a result of the outbreak, the CDC said Friday. “As a result of this investigation, Big Olaf Creamery in Sarasota, FL, is voluntarily contacting retail locations to recommend against selling their ice cream products. Consumers who have Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream at home should throw away any remaining product,” according to the CDC. USA TODAY has reached out to Big Olaf Creamery for comment. No updates have been posted on the company's website or social media. Of the 17 people interviewed by public health officials, 14 reported eating ice cream. Six of the 13 people who remembered details about the type of ice cream they ate reported eating Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream or eating ice cream at locations that might have been supplied by Big Olaf Creamery, the CDC said. Video: Doctors concerned about crowds on Calif. beaches Previously: Outbreak of listeria, a dangerous form of food poisoning, tied to 23 illnesses and 1 death, CDC says Big Olaf Creamery's web site calls the ice cream "A Florida Tradition Since 1982," saying it "has been family owned and operated for 25 Years." "All of our ice cream is handmade in batch freezers just like the good old days!" the web site says. "Creamery direct delivery to most of Florida. Our primary focus is to serve ice cream parlors, senior homes, restaurants, fairs, and supermarkets with a full range of premium frozen products." Consumers and businesses should immediately dispose of any remaining Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream and clean surfaces that may have had contact with it. Listeria, one of the most dangerous forms of food poisoning, can be treated with antibiotics, but pregnant women, newborns, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems are at high risk of severe illness. Symptoms usually start one to four weeks after eating contaminated food, but can start as soon as the same day. More: About 400,000 outdoor umbrellas sold at Costco recalled for overheating, fire risk Signs of illness include fever, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea, headaches, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions. When severe, Listeria can spread from the gut to other parts of the body. CDC officials said late last week that nearly all the people known to have been infected in the outbreak either live in, or traveled to, Florida about a month before they got sick. The first cases occurred in January of this year, but have continued through this month, when two of the people got sick, CDC officials said. Contributing: The Associated Press and The Sarasota (Florida) Herald-Tribune This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: CDC says ice cream behind deadly outbreak of Listeria infections | |
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| 07-05-22 09:56am - 807 days | #206 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Man running as GOP candidate for governor of Illinois says, "Let's move on" after Highland Park shooting. Yeah, people died. And people were hurt by gunfire. But let's be tough and admit that life sometimes throws a lemon in your way. So man up and get past that. Look at Dongle Trump. He lost the White House, and he's still going strong. It was stolen from Dongle. But he's tough. We need to be tough. So move on. Forget the dead. They're dead. We still have a life to lead. What'll you have, whiskey, bourbon, vodka? What's the best choice? He added: “We have got to get corruption and evil out of our government.” And bring back the Dongle. He will make America great again. ------ ------ Illinois GOP candidate for governor apologizes for saying 'let's move on' after Highland Park shooting Yahoo News Dylan Stableford July 5, 2022, 8:39 AM “If you’re angry today, I’m here to tell you: Be angry. I’m furious.” That was Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker at a press conference in Highland Park on Monday, hours after a gunman on a rooftop opened fire on an Independence Day parade there, killing at least six people and leaving at least 30 others wounded. Authorities named a person of interest, 22-year-old Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, who was taken into custody after an hours-long manhunt on Monday evening. Illinois state Sen. Darren Bailey, the Republican candidate for governor who is running to unseat Pritzker, was in nearby Skokie, Ill., one of several surrounding communities forced to cancel their Independence Day parades in the wake of the mass shooting in Highland Park. “The shooter is still at large, so let’s pray for justice to prevail,” Bailey said while leading a group prayer that was broadcast live on his Facebook page. “And then let’s move on and let’s celebrate the independence of this nation.” He added: “We have got to get corruption and evil out of our government.” Bailey later apologized for suggesting the community quickly “move on” and “celebrate” Independence Day. “I apologize if in any way we diminished the pain being felt across our state today,” he said in a statement. “I hope we can all come together in prayer and action to address rampant crime and mental health issues to make sure these horrific tragedies don’t happen again.” At the press conference Monday, Pritzker was joined by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an Iraq War veteran, who said she listened to the sounds of the gunfire on a video captured by one of the bystanders at the parade. “The last time I heard a weapon with that capacity firing that rapidly on a Fourth of July was Iraq,” Duckworth said. “It was not the United States of America.” She added: “We can and we should and we will do better.” Pritzker said he had spoken to President Biden, who said in a statement that he was “shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day.” “I recently signed the first major bipartisan gun reform legislation in almost 30 years into law, which includes actions that will save lives,” Biden said. “But there is much more work to do, and I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence.” | |
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| 07-07-22 07:41pm - 805 days | #207 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Although it was revealed that Dongle Trump was Hitler's secret love child, people I respect have been wondering whether Hitler and Dongle Trump are also aliens sent to earth as part of a pre-invasion force. This would explain why Dongle Trump is a Master of Violence and Illusion. He was able to hypnotize the American people into making Dongle Trump the firstest President-For-Life of the Untied States of Trumperland. Hail, Dongle Trump, the most glorious President we've ever known. Greater than Washington. Greater than Lincoln. Bow your heads, and raise your AK-47s and hypersonic nuclear fired missiles in defense of Dongle Trump and his return to the White House. | |
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| 07-08-22 09:23am - 804 days | #208 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Boris Johnson is the step-brother Dongle Trump wishes he always had. ----- ----- The New York Times Johnson's Lies Worked for Years, Until They Didn't Sarah Lyall Fri, July 8, 2022 at 5:03 AM After a lifetime of swaggering and dissembling his way through one scandal after another on the strength of his prodigious political skills — a potent mix of charm, guile, ruthlessness, hubris, oratorical dexterity and rumpled Wodehousian bluster — Boris Johnson has finally reached the end. It seems that the laws of gravity apply to him after all. It’s not that he ever fooled anyone about who he really was. Over the years, he has routinely been described as mendacious, irresponsible, reckless and lacking any coherent philosophy other than wanting to seize and hold on to power. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times “People have known that Boris Johnson lies for 30 years,” writer and academic Rory Stewart, a former Conservative member of Parliament, said recently. “He’s probably the best liar we’ve ever had as a prime minister. He knows a hundred different ways to lie.” In contrast to former President Donald Trump, another politician with an improvisational and often distant relationship to the truth, Johnson’s approach has rarely been to double down on his lies or to delude himself for consistency’s sake into acting as if they were true. Rather, he recasts them to fit new information that comes to light, as if the truth were a fungible concept, no more solid than quicksand. Mislead, omit, obfuscate, bluster, deny, deflect, attack, apologize while implying that he has done nothing wrong — the British prime minister’s blueprint for dealing with a crisis, his critics say, almost never begins, and rarely ends, with simply telling the truth. That approach worked for him for years — until finally it didn't. His government weathered scandal after scandal, much of it centered on Johnson’s behavior. He was rebuked by the government’s ethics adviser after a wealthy Conservative donor contributed tens of thousands of pounds to help him refurbish his apartment. (Johnson repaid the money.) There were the private text messages he exchanged with a wealthy British businessman over his plan to manufacture ventilators in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, which raised questions of impropriety. There was an almost farcical accrual of embarrassing disclosures about how often Johnson’s aides (and sometimes Johnson) attended boozy parties during the worst days of the COVID lockdown, flagrantly violating rules the country had set for itself. In the end, the prime minister’s different explanations for what he knew, and when, about Chris Pincher, a Conservative legislator accused of sexual impropriety, finally tipped the scales against him. It was clear that he had once again failed to tell the truth. “He’s been found out,” said Anthony Sargeant, 44, a software developer who lives in the northern city of Wakefield. “The annoying thing about it is that the signs were there.” “He’s been sacked from previous journalism roles for lying,” Sargeant went on, pointing to the time Johnson, then a young reporter, was fired from The Times of London for making up a quote. “Yet there he was, the leader of the Conservative Party becoming the prime minister.” After helping engineer the downfall of his competent but lackluster predecessor, Theresa May, in 2019, Johnson entered office with an energetic mandate for change. His populist message, buoyant personality and easy promises to cut taxes and red tape, free Britain from the burdens of belonging to the European Union and restore the country’s pride in itself appealed to a public weary of the brutal fight over the Brexit referendum and eager to embrace someone who appeared to be expressing what they themselves felt. But like Trump, who put a more sinister cast on his own populist message, Johnson has always behaved as if he were bigger than the office that he held, as if the damage he caused was inconsequential as long as he could remain in power. His resignation speech, in which he vowed to remain in office until the Conservatives could choose a new leader, was notable for its lack of self-awareness and its misreading of the curdled mood of his former supporters. Born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson — he began using “Boris” in a sort of rebranding exercise in high school — the soon-to-be-ex prime minister has a long and well-documented history both of evading the truth and of acting as if he believes himself to be exempt from the normal rules of behavior. His many years in public life — as a newspaper reporter and columnist, as the editor of an influential London political magazine, as a politician — have left a trail of witnesses to, and victims of, his slippery nature. When he was editor of the Spectator magazine, he lied to the editor, Conrad Black, promising not to serve in Parliament while working at the magazine. (He did.) When he was first elected to Parliament, he lied to his constituents when he promised to quit his Spectator job. (He didn’t.) As a legislator, he lied to the party leader, Michael Howard, and to the news media when he publicly declared that he had not had an affair with a writer for the magazine, nor gotten her pregnant and paid for her abortion. (He had done all of that.) In a strange incident that he found hilarious but that epitomized his general lack of seriousness, in 2002 he ordered an employee at The Spectator to impersonate him when a photographer for The New York Times arrived to take his picture, fully expecting The Times to embarrass itself by publishing a photograph of the wrong person. (The ruse was discovered only toward the end of the photo shoot, when the magazine’s publisher found out what was happening.) When he was the Brussels correspondent for the right-leaning Daily Telegraph in the late 1980s, Johnson wrote highly entertaining but blatantly inaccurate articles designed to paint the European Union as a factory of petty regulation intent on stamping out British individuality — articles that helped establish an anti-Europe narrative for a generation of Conservatives and pave the way for Brexit, two decades later. Johnson himself described the experience years later to the BBC as akin to “chucking rocks over the garden wall” and then realizing that “everything I wrote from Brussels was having this amazing, explosive effect on the Tory party.” “And it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power,” he said. In 2016, serving simultaneously as mayor of London and a member of Parliament, Johnson betrayed the Conservative Party leader, Prime Minister David Cameron, when he led the pro-leave side of the Brexit debate, contrary to the party’s position. Serving as foreign secretary under Cameron’s successor, May, he stabbed her in the back — and set the stage for his own accession to the job — by resigning from the government and denouncing the Brexit agreement she had spent months negotiating. His womanizing and affairs were an open secret during his marriage to his second wife, Marina Wheeler, the mother of four of his (at least) seven children. They separated when his affair with a Conservative official, Carrie Symonds, now the mother of two of the seven, came to light. He has at least one other child, a daughter born during a liaison with a married adviser when he was the (still-married) mayor of London, in the 2010s. “I would not take Boris’ word about whether it is Monday or Tuesday,” Max Hastings, the Telegraph editor who hired Johnson as his Brussels correspondent, once said. In 2019, when Johnson was poised to become prime minister, Hastings wrote an article titled “I was Boris Johnson’s Boss: He is Utterly Unfit to be Prime Minister.” In it, he called Johnson a “cavorting charlatan” who suffered from “moral bankruptcy” and exhibited “a contempt for the truth.” Hastings, who employed Johnson when the future prime minister was in his 20s, was not the first to raise questions about his seriousness of purpose and inflated sense of self. When Johnson was 17 and a student at Eton College, the all-boys boarding school that caters to the country’s elites, his classics teacher sent a letter home to Johnson’s father, Stanley. “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies,” the teacher, Martin Hammond, wrote, and “sometimes seems affronted when criticized for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility.” He added, speaking of the teenager who would grow up to be a prime minister: “I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation that binds everyone else.”  2022 The New York Times Company | |
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| 07-12-22 04:28am - 801 days | #209 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Are Dongle Trump and Elong Musk still bestest buddies? Maybe not. Dongle Trump says Elong Musk is a bullshit artist. And that's probably true: who better to recognize a bullshit artist than another bullshit artist? And Elong Musk returns the compliment, saying he doesn't hate Dongle Trump, but it's time Dongle "hang up his hat and sail into the sunset." So there is real affection between the two world-class leaders. Maybe they can get together in Florida and watch the next launch of a spaceship going into outer space? Better yet, would be if both geniuses were on board the spaceship, so they would have time to talk over their future plans for world domination. ----- ----- It's time for Trump to 'sail into the sunset,' says Musk Reuters July 12, 2022, 1:59 AM (Reuters) - Elon Musk said on Monday it was time for Donald Trump to "hang up his hat and sail into the sunset," days after the former U.S. President mocked the billionaire at a political rally and called him a "Bull***t artist." Writing on Twitter, Musk said, "I don't hate the man, but it's time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset." "Dems should also call off the attack – don't make it so that Trump's only way to survive is to regain the Presidency," he added without explanation. Musk's remarks were in response to comments Trump made at a rally in Anchorage, Alaska on Saturday, where he was speaking in support of U.S. House of Representatives candidate Sarah Palin and U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka. The former president said at the rally that Musk was not going to buy Twitter Inc and that the Tesla Inc chief executive had got himself a mess. "(Musk) said the other day, I've never voted for a Republican. I said I didn't know that; he told me he voted for me. He's another bull***t artist, but he is not going to be buying it (Twitter)," Trump said. Last month, Musk said at the Qatar Economic Forum that he had not decided whom he would support in the next presidential election, a week after saying on Twitter that he was leaning towards supporting Florida governor Ron DeSantis for president in 2024. On Monday, Musk added that if DeSantis ran against Biden in 2024, "then DeSantis will easily win" and that "Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America." | |
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| 07-12-22 04:36am - 801 days | #210 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Chuck Norris will come out of retirement to arrest his own grandson. The grandson was a contestant on a new reality show. And he was cheating. So the grandson was kicked off the show. Chuck Norris, when contacted, said he was personally disappointed and furious his grandson didn't do better on the series. But the grandson grew up in a culture where the hero is always known for breaing the rules. That's why the grandson cheated. And it's not fair if the grandson is penalized for trying to follow in the footsteps of his famous grandparent. ------ ------ Chuck Norris's grandson kicked off Jonas brothers’ new reality show for cheating Yahoo TV George Back July 11, 2022, 11:51 PM The series premiere of Claim to Fame ended in a scandalous fashion on Monday. The series challenges mystery contestants to guess the famous relatives of the other contestants. And right out the gate, there was an unexpected twist at the end of the episode. Contestants are not allowed to have personal phones, because it would make it much too easy to cheat. During the first elimination, Kevin Jonas and Frankie Jonas revealed that one of the contestants cheated by using their phone. The guilty party was Maxwell Norris, the grandson of legendary martial arts actor Chuck Norris. Norris can be seen using a smuggled phone while his upper body is hidden under a comforter. “As you know, when you came to the house, we took all your devices to protect your identities, keep away information, to make sure the game was fair to everyone,” said Kevin Jonas. “And one of you has broken that rule. As you guys know, we take this very seriously. We want you to take the game seriously. This is truly a competition.” After revealing to the cast and viewers that Norris was related to the former star of Walker Texas Ranger, everyone was shocked. They were equally shocked to learn that Norris had used his phone to cheat. While Maxwell’s new found fans were disappointed in him for getting disqualified, his new found castmates were worried about what will happen when his law abiding grandfather finds out he cheated. “Why the hell would you cheat?” asked contestant Logan. “I'd be nervous to go home to my grandfather, and my grandfather ain't even Chuck Norris. So good luck. Have fun, Max.” Claim to Fame airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on ABC. | |
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| 07-13-22 12:31am - 800 days | #211 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
It's dangerous to use a cell phone or camera around a cop. He can shoot you, and claim self-defense, because he thought the cell phone or camera was a weapon. Better to be safe than sorry when pulling out a camera or cell phone around a cop. You have the right to film. But cops have the right to kill you, if they are threatened. --------- --------- New Arizona law places limits on filming police amid growing calls for transparency Yahoo News Marquise Francis July 11, 2022, 10:49 AM A new state law in Arizona will soon make it illegal for people to film a police officer from 8 feet or closer without the officer’s permission, placing greater limits on how people can video police officers at a time when calls are growing louder for increased law enforcement transparency. Supporters of the legislation, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey on Thursday, say it protects officers from people who have poor judgment or ulterior motives. “I’m pleased that a very reasonable law that promotes the safety of police officers and those involved in police stops and bystanders has been signed into law,” Republican state Rep. John Kavanagh, the bill’s sponsor, told the Associated Press Friday. “It promotes everybody’s safety yet still allows people to reasonably videotape police activity as is their right.” As part of the law, an officer can also stop someone from filming on private property, even if the person has the owner’s consent. The law makes exceptions for people who are the direct subject of a police interaction. Those people are allowed to film as long as they are not being searched or arrested. The penalty for breaking this law is a misdemeanor that would likely result in a fine without jail time. Critics of the law contend that filming police is an American right upheld by the federal appellate courts and the First Amendment of the Constitution. “A blanket restriction is a violation of the First Amendment,” Stephen Solomon, a constitutional expert and director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, told the Washington Post. More than 60% of Americans — including residents of Arizona — live in states where federal appeals courts have recognized a First Amendment right to record police officers as of 2019, according to a citizen’s guide to recording police from NYU’s First Amendment Watch. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has not ruled on the issue. In February, 26 media groups, including the AP, were signatories to a letter from the National Press Photographers Association, or NPPA, in opposition to the bill. “We are extremely concerned that this language violates not only the free speech and press clauses of the First Amendment, but also runs counter to the ‘clearly established right’ to photograph and record police officers performing their official duties in a public place, cited by all the odd-numbered U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, including the Ninth Circuit,” the letter read. “While such rights are not absolute and subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, we believe that requiring the ‘permission of a law enforcement officer’ ... would not survive a constitutional challenge and is completely unworkable in situations (such as demonstrations and protests) where there are multiple officers and people recording.” Arizona state police Arizona state police stand between supporters and opponents of Arizona's immigration enforcement law during a 2010 demonstration in Phoenix. (John Moore/Getty Images) Video captured on cellphones has significantly affected policing in the last few years, especially after the the 2020 police murder of George Floyd. In that instance, police initially said Floyd died “after a medical incident during police interaction,” but cellphone video captured by a teenage bystander proved this wasn’t true. Floyd was murdered after Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck and back for more than nine minutes. More recent video capturing an arrest on Saturday in Fairfax, Va., appeared to show two officers pointing their guns at a man filming the arrest of another person. Critics online have slammed the officers for overreacting and possibly escalating an already tense situation. However, in a statement to Yahoo News, Fairfax police said a group of juveniles had threatened a hostess, allegedly brandishing a weapon. Police were able to arrest two of the juveniles when they said a third “approached with something in his hands” and given the nature of the arrest, police drew their guns until they realized it was a cellphone. No guns were found on the juveniles and they were reportedly released to their parents. As support grows for Arizona’s law, civil rights advocates are wary that it will have a chilling effect on people wanting to film encounters at all. Others question how the law will be enforced, particularly if the officer moves closer to the person filming. “It might deter them from actually recording or might make them back up even further than the eight feet that the law requires,” Alan Chen, a law professor at the University of Denver, told the New York Times. “There’s certainly some First Amendment concerns here.” The law goes into effect Sept. 24. _____ | |
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| 07-14-22 06:31am - 798 days | #212 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Ryan Gosling confesses he waited to become Ken his entire life. Does this mean he will come out as Trans in the near future? Enquiring minds want to know: how much Trans is there in most Americans? Was Donald Trump not only Hitler's secret love child, but also the inheritor of Joseph Stalin's legacy of mass destruction? ---- ---- Jul 13, 2022 9:01pm PT Ryan Gosling Couldn’t Wait to Become Ken in ‘Barbie’: ‘This Has Been Coming My Whole Life’ By J. Kim Murphy, Marc Malkin ryan gosling the gray man premiere Amy Sussman/Getty Image Ryan Gosling was just as excited as large swaths of the internet were when he was introduced to what he would look like playing Ken in Warner Bros.’ upcoming “Barbie” film. “Finally,” he told Variety’s Marc Malkin at the premiere of his new action film “The Gray Man.” “Finally, it’s happening. This has been coming my whole life.” Gosling’s bare-chested beach blonde design, complete with spray tan and personalized underwear, made waves when it debuted online in June. The film, which is co-written and directed by Greta Gerwig, stars Gosling alongside Margot Robbie, who is portraying the flagship Mattel missie in the film. Beyond Robbie and Gosling, the supporting cast includes a deep bench of talent, with America Ferrera, Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Issa Rae and Michael Cera attached. Sharing the spotlight with so many big names, Gosling jokes that his mission for the project was a matter of on-screen representation. “I felt like I was seeing myself. I felt seen. I think a lot of Kens will feel seen when they see this,” Gosling continued. “Gotta do it for the Kens. Nobody plays with the Kens.” Gosling also took time to divulge his experience making “The Gray Man,” his new Netflix action film that sees the actor wrack up a high body count, leap from buildings and showdown with a mustachioed Chris Evans. Gosling shared that he loved playing a super spy who’s over it in the Russo brothers-directed production. “It’s like he doesn’t even want to be in this movie. He just wants to be home watching Netflix like everyone else,” Gosling said. “He doesn’t want to be a spy and he has to be.” On the matter of a potential sequel, Gosling stated that the film’s reception will determine plans moving forward, but that he wants to see his character exit the espionage game for good. “I want to see him get home. I’d like to see how it ends for him,” Gosling said. “The Gray Man” will begin a limited theatrical engagement on Friday, with a debut on Netflix following on July 22. “Barbie” is set to hit theaters on July 21, 2023. | |
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| 07-16-22 06:56am - 796 days | #213 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP politicians are above the law: they make their own rules. When Dongle Trump lost the election in 2020 for president, Georgia politicians elected themselves as the "true electors" to vote to keep Dongle Trump as president of the United States. Their authority?: The self-confidence and chutzpah of a GOP politician. Which is criminal activity, according to the law. And a Georgia county DA is seeking to hold them accountable. ------- ------- Exclusive: Fulton County DA sends 'target' letters to Trump allies in Georgia investigation Yahoo News Michael Isikoff July 15, 2022, 11:25 AM ATLANTA — In the latest sign that she is moving rapidly in her investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis has sent so-called target letters to prominent Georgia Republicans informing them they could be indicted for their role in a scheme to appoint alternate electors pledged to the former president despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state, according to legal sources familiar with the matter. The move by Willis, a Democrat, could have major political implications in a crucial battleground state with high-profile races for governor and the U.S. Senate this fall. Among the recipients of the target letters, the sources said, are GOP state Sen. Burt Jones, Gov. Brian Kemp’s running mate for lieutenant governor; David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party; and state Sen. Brandon Beach. Jones and Shafer were among those who participated in a closed-door meeting at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, in which 16 Georgia Republicans selected themselves as the electors for the state, although they had no legal basis for doing so. Shafer, according to a source who was present, presided over the meeting, conducting it as though it were an official proceeding, in which those present voted themselves as the bona fide electors in Georgia — and then signed their names to a declaration to that effect that was sent to the National Archives. The offices or spokespersons for Jones, Shafer and Beach did not respond to requests for comment. Willis, in an interview, declined any comment on the target letters. But she confirmed she is considering another potentially controversial move: requesting that Trump himself testify under oath to the special grand jury investigating his conduct. “Yes,” said Willis when asked if there was any chance Trump will be called to testify. “I think it's something that we’re still weighing and evaluating.” She also said she had spoken to Dwight Thomas, a veteran local defense lawyer who has been retained to represent Trump, as recently as Thursday. She declined to say what they talked about. Thomas did not respond to requests for comment. Willis also brushed aside the possibility that she will be sharply criticized by state Republicans, and perhaps others, for using her powerful prosecutorial position to target political adversaries. “I don’t make decisions based on what people say about me,” she said. Charlie Bailey is the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor and a close ally of Willis (she recently helped sponsor a fundraiser for him). He has made Jones’s role in the so-called fake elector scheme a major issue in his campaign. “To come in and say: 'No, the voters don’t matter, and I get to decide, the party gets to decide who wins this election,' that is authoritarian,” Bailey said in an interview on the Yahoo News "Skullduggery" podcast this week. “It’s the most un-American thing you can do.” Randy Evans, a Republican lawyer in Georgia who served as Trump’s ambassador to Luxembourg, said the target letters will reinforce GOP efforts to attack the credibility of Willis’s probe. “It drops it right into a characterization of this as a political, partisan witch hunt, as opposed to a legitimate inquiry,” he said in an interview. Evans, who has been briefed about the target letters, added: “It will become a fundraising letter [for the Republican Party]: 'Help us fend off the unfounded legal attacks by the Democratic district attorney for Fulton County.’ You and I know that’s what’s going to happen.” (After this story was published, Jones on Friday filed a motion in Fulton County Superior Court to disqualify Willis and her chief prosecutor on the Trump probe, Nathan Wade, for "conflicts of interest" due to their financial support for Bailey, Jones's opponent. "This is a blatant effort to sway the outcome of the election in Mr. Bailey's favor," the motion reads. "Therefore, District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified.") The plan by the Trump campaign to designate alternative electors was not limited to Georgia. Pro-Trump Republicans in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Michigan took similar steps — bolstered by constitutional lawyer John Eastman’s view that alternate electors could provide a basis for then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. But details about the events in Georgia have attracted particular scrutiny, both by Willis’s grand jury and by the U.S. Department of Justice, whose prosecutors in Washington also recently subpoenaed the GOP electors from the state. Among those details was an email from Robert Sinners, who served as the Trump campaign’s Election Day coordinator in Georgia, which was sent to the would-be electors on the day before the Dec. 14 meeting. In the email, Sinners urged them to act with “complete secrecy” and to refuse to speak to any members of the news media about what they were doing. If asked, they were to say they were attending a meeting with Jones and Beach, the two state senators. “I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote at the time, according to the Washington Post, which first reported on the email. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.” He also instructed the electors to tell security guards at the Capitol that they had an appointment with one of two state senators. “Please, at no point should you mention anything to do with Presidential Electors or speak to the media,” Sinners wrote in bold. George Chidi, an Atlanta-based independent journalist and political activist, told Yahoo News that he testified Wednesday for about an hour in front of the special grand jury, and was closely questioned by prosecutors about how he was tipped off about the secret meeting of electors at the Capitol that day. He said he attempted to report on it until he was evicted from the room. “They wanted to know how I knew to barge into that meeting,” he told Yahoo News. Chidi said he was informed that the room had been reserved by somebody in the office of Speaker of the House David Ralston. (Ralston testified before the grand jury on Thursday, but declined comment, citing respect for “the privacy of grand jury proceedings,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.) When he tracked down the room and entered, Chidi testified, he was told the assembled group was holding “an education meeting.” “A guy got up and walked me out the door,” he testified, adding that “they posted a guy out front” to keep others out. (An Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter, Greg Bluestein, has written that he, too, was kept from the room.) Prosecutors appear to be focusing on the secrecy of the meeting as evidence of consciousness of guilt on the part of the Trump electors. But defense lawyers will argue that Sinners's email and Chidi’s eviction from the room notwithstanding, the alternative electors did not attempt to keep the secret after their business was over — and that they had a valid reason to act as they did: to preserve the Trump campaign’s legal rights in the event that one of its legal challenges to Biden’s victory in Georgia prevailed. (The theory was that the state Legislature would not have time to formally name new electors before the Jan. 6 deadline, when Congress was due to certify the Electoral College vote.) Shafer gave a number of interviews that day saying as much, although it's not clear whether he did so because he had learned that Chidi and Bluestein had discovered the meeting. It is also not clear how the target letters to Jones and Shafer fit into Willis’s overall strategy in the investigation. She could indict the fake electors on a so-called false writing charge — alleging that they filed a fraudulent document naming themselves electors for the state. Alternatively, or in addition, she could use a false writing charge as a “predicate act” as part of a much broader conspiracy indictment encompassing all the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the election results in the state, including Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to “find” enough votes to flip the electoral result there. | |
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| 07-16-22 07:08am - 796 days | #214 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP party using the rape and pregnancy of a 9-year-old girl to say "Vote for Dongle Trump. 9-year-old girls will be safe under Dongle Trump, because he wants his victims to be slightly older." Also, even if conservative media and politicians are narrow minded, they are quick to change sides and attack scummy Democrats with whatever weapons are available. Go, Dongle Trump, he will make America Free, White, and the Land of Opportunity for Brave Men everywhere. ------- ------- Conservative media and politicians doubted the story of a pregnant 10-year-old. Then they pivoted their messaging. NBC Universal Morgan Sung and Jason Abbruzzese July 15, 2022, 8:00 AM In a matter of days, a case described in a news story in Indiana turned into a national flashpoint in the culture wars. An Indy Star story included the case of a pregnant 10-year-old who traveled out of state for an abortion after she was sexually assaulted. The support for the report was the doctor who performed the procedure, quoted by name. The story quickly caught on in national media as an example of the need for accessible abortion care — and was just as quickly seized on by conservative media and Republican politicians who said the doctor’s words were not enough proof, questioning whether the story was even true, and that it was another example of agenda-driven coverage from mainstream news outlets. The outrage churned for a week. Then, on Wednesday, an Ohio man was arrested and charged with the rape of a minor. But rather than putting the issue to rest, the revelation gave a further boost to what has become one of the first major news stories of the post-Roe era. It’s not expected to be the last. “What makes this type of thing so engaging, I think, for conservative news consumers is that it puts all the focus on questioning the motives of liberal media and political figures,” Anthony Nadler, an associate professor of media and communication studies at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, wrote in an email. It’s a dynamic that also points to how the ongoing culture war around abortion can quickly become about anything other than the people at the center of these stories. As Laura Hazard Owen put it in an article for Harvard University’s NiemanLab: Unimaginable abortion stories will become more common. Is American journalism ready?” Such a frenzy can take away from the crux of the story. “This obscures any focus on the actual victim’s experience or what her experience tells us about political choices about abortion rights,” Nadler noted. The news cycle began on July 1, when the Indy Star published an article highlighting how patients from neighboring states seeking abortions in Indiana, where abortion remains legal following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The article mentioned the pregnant child as an example of patients traveling from states like Ohio, where abortion is banned after the sixth week of pregnancy. The case of the 10-year-old girl was widely re-reported across mainstream national outlets in the following days. Abortion rights activists denounced the cruelty of abortion bans, citing the story as a shocking example of the need for accessible abortion care. Questions about the story began gaining attention on July 5, most notably in a Twitter thread from Megan Fox, a writer for conservative media outlet PJ Media. Fox’s questions sparked coverage from some conservative influencers and media, and intensified after President Joe Biden mentioned it during an event last Friday, in which he signed an executive order to safeguard abortion rights. “This isn’t some imagined horror, it’s already happening,” Biden said. “10 years old, raped, six weeks pregnant. Already traumatized, then forced to travel to another state.” That same day, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, tweeted that “it looks like the story was fake to begin with.” Noem’s tweet along with a Washington Post analysis published the day after Biden’s comments about the 10-year-old further galvanized right-wing media. Fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted that Bernard was the sole source cited for the story, and reported that he could not corroborate the story with the several Ohio-based child service agencies he contacted. By Monday, the story had become a hot topic among mainstream conservative media figures from Fox News, The Daily Wire, the New York Post and more. An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal decried the story as a “fanciful tale,” criticizing Biden for repeating an “unlikely story from a biased source that neatly fits the progressive narrative on abortion but can’t be confirmed.” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a now-deleted tweet that the story was “another lie.” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, claimed that there was “not a whisper” of the girl’s case in the state’s centralized law enforcement system. Yost doubled down the next day, telling USA Today’s Ohio network bureau, “Every day that goes by, the more likely that this is a fabrication.” But less than 24 hours after Yost’s comments, 27-year-old Gerson Fuentes was arrested and charged with rape of a minor. Franklin County detective Jeffrey Huhn testified that Fuentes confessed to raping the 10-year-old at least twice. The girl had an abortion in Indianapolis on June 30. Following Fuentes’ arrest, Yost stated, “I am grateful for the diligent work of the Columbus Police Department in securing a confession and getting a rapist off the street.” Wednesday’s news of charges filed in connection to the assault have not marked the end of the story. Zignal Labs, a company that analyzes social media, broadcast, traditional media and online conversation, found that response to news of the arrest surpassed the furor around initial coverage. Some conservative media figures began targeting Bernard, the doctor. Some shifted focus to the immigration status of the man accused of rape. Few of the most outspoken deniers backtracked. Heidi Julien, a professor of information science who specializes in digital literacy at the University of Buffalo, said even though the report was substantiated, there should be little expectations of people changing their minds. “If you construct an identity around a particular political persuasion and a particular set of news sources, and you construct a reality that is an ‘us against them,’ kind of stance, then you can’t make space for any right or any truth on the other side,” she said. She added that “egregious” cases like that of the 10-year-old in Ohio are “very, very challenging” to those vehemently against abortion rights — which is why casting doubt and attacking media reporting on it is such common practice among many conservative pundits. It’s easier to deny that abortion patients like the 10-year-old girl exist, she said, to justify that abortion should be “limited at all costs.” “The bottom line is that all of us tend to operate in our echo chambers,” Julien continued. “And we tend to discount information or news that comes from political perspectives that differ from our own.” Nadler noted that the pivot to focus on the doctor and also the immigration status of the person accused of the assault keep the focus on a conservative trope that liberals are quick to abandon their ideals to make political points. That has coincided with some reticence from conservative media to focus on the issue of abortion. “I think a lot of conservative media, particularly what you might call mainstream conservative media has been a little bit hesitant to dive into a hardcore ‘we need to end abortion’ discourse.” | |
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| 07-16-22 07:18am - 796 days | #215 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump, the bestest president of the Untied States of Trumperland, is mulling a withdrawal from US politics and setting up his own separate Untied States of Trumperland. What would be the tax advantages of such a move? Would he be exempt from political and legal persecution from the old United States of America, if he creates his own private Untied States of Trumerland? Enquiring minds want to know: do you support a separate nation under God and Dongle Trump? ---- ---- Poll: Many red-state Trump voters say they'd be 'better off' if their state seceded from U.S. Yahoo News Andrew Romano July 15, 2022, 10:04 AM Red-state Donald Trump voters are now more likely to say they’d be personally “better off” (33%) than “worse off” (29%) if their state seceded from the U.S. and “became an independent country,” according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll. It’s a striking rejection of national unity that dramatizes the growing culture war between Democratic- and Republican-controlled states on core issues such as guns, abortion and democracy itself. And an even larger share of red-state Trump voters say their state as a whole would be better off (35%) rather than worse off (30%) if it left the U.S. Donald Trump stands onstage pointing amid throngs of supporters who carry signs that read Save America. The survey of 1,672 U.S. adults, which was conducted from July 8 to 11, comes as a series of hard-line conservative decisions by the Supreme Court — coupled with continued gridlock on Capitol Hill — have shifted America’s center of political gravity back to the states, where the parties in power are increasingly filling the federal void with far-reaching reforms of their own. The further apart they push their states — on voting rights, on misinformation, on post-Roe regulations, on gun-safety measures — the more the country morphs into what one political analyst has described as “a federated republic of two nations: Blue Nation and Red Nation.” “[This] is a defining characteristic of 21st-century America,” the Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein recently argued. “The result through the 2020s could be a dramatic erosion of common national rights and a widening gulf — a ‘great divergence’ — between the liberties of Americans in blue states and those in red states.” Regardless of where they live, most Americans are hardly ready to dissolve the union (even though, in a previous Yahoo News/YouGov poll, a majority of Republicans [52%] did predict that “there will be a civil war in the United States in [their] lifetime”). Overall, just 17% of Americans actually want their state to “leave the U.S. and become an independent country,” a number that is remarkably consistent across party lines. Only slightly more (19%) favor the U.S. eventually becoming “two countries — one consisting of ‘blue states’ run by Democrats and one consisting of ‘red states’ run by Republicans.” But dig a little deeper and it becomes clear that this level of consensus is, in part, an illusion. For the purposes of the survey, Yahoo News defined red states as those with consistent Republican control on the state level in recent years, and blue states as those with consistent Democratic control. Divided states were excluded. Yet despite obvious and expected differences in party composition, neither red nor blue states consist of anywhere near monolithically Republican or Democratic populations. In fact, across all Yahoo News/YouGov polls conducted so far this year, more than a third of red-state respondents (34%) identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents; likewise, more than a quarter of blue-state respondents (26%) identify as Republicans or Republican leaners. In other words, there are a lot of blue-state and red-state residents who have more in common with their political brethren elsewhere than with their governors or state legislatures. To truly gauge the gap between red states and blue states, then, it helps to set aside these mostly powerless political minorities and focus instead on the dominant voters who are actually steering state leaders to the left or the right. Among red-state Trump voters, 92% trust their state government more than the federal government to do “what’s best.” Almost as many (86%) say the federal government is “not working well”; a full two-thirds (67%) insist it’s not working well “at all.” In contrast, nearly 8 in 10 red-state Trump voters (79%) say their state government is working well, with huge majorities approving of how state leaders are handling guns (78%), democracy (73%), COVID-19 (71%), race (69%), the economy (68%), crime (65%) and abortion (63%). People at a rally, many of whom wear American-flag printed hats and jackets, along with a child wearing a Statue of Liberty costume, stand behind a low fence near two American flags against a white sky. Trump supporters at a rally in Commerce, Ga., on March 26. (Megan Varner/Getty Images) As a result, red-state Trump voters are alone in saying that it’s more important for “individual states to make their own laws with minimal interference from the federal government” (56%) than it is for “the federal government to protect people’s constitutional rights when violated by state laws” (33%). And red-state Trump voters divide roughly down the middle on the question of whether things would be better (37%) or worse (40%) if the country as a whole actually split into a Blue Nation and a Red Nation. No other cohort views disunion so favorably. Blue-state Joe Biden voters, for instance, are only slightly more inclined (27%) than Americans as a whole (21%) to say things would be better if America broke in two. Just 14% want their own state to secede, versus 29% of red-state Trump voters. And only slightly more blue-state Biden voters (21%) think they themselves would be better off in such a scenario; a full 47% say they’d be worse off. Given that Democrats generally trust Washington, D.C., more than Republicans do — and currently control it — this may not come as a surprise. But much like red-state Trump voters, blue-state Biden voters also prefer their state government to the federal government by sizable margins. In fact, blue-state Biden voters (75%) are actually more likely than red-state Trump voters (65%) to say America as a whole would be better off if it “did things more like [their] state.” They’re also more likely to say their state government is working well (84%) — and nearly as likely to say they trust their state government (80%) over the federal government (20%) to do “what’s best.” Frustrated by the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster, most Biden voters everywhere (53%) say the U.S. Senate has “too much power”; more than three-quarters (76%) say the same of the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court. Nearly half of Biden voters (48%) say they’ve “considered moving to a different country because of politics.” And nearly 6 in 10 blue-state Trump voters say they’ve considered moving to another state for the same reason. In short, America’s “great divergence” isn’t a one-sided phenomenon. It’s happening in both red America and blue America. Why? The new Yahoo News/YouGov poll hints at two reasons. The first is pervasive — and not particularly partisan — disillusionment with America as a whole. Exactly two years ago, a clear plurality of Americans (46%) told Yahoo News and YouGov that the nation’s “best days are still to come”; at the time, just 25% believed the United States’ best days were “behind us.” Now those numbers are reversed, with 37% saying our best days are behind us and just 31% saying they’re still to come. Similarly, just 19% of Americans predicted two years ago that “their children” would be worse off than they are; today, a full 46% believe the “next generation” will be worse off than their own. That’s a stunning change. Overall, two-thirds of Americans (65%) say the federal government is not working well. Just 23% say the opposite. People stand in front of the White House fence holding American flags and a sign reading: Impeach and removed partisan zealots from the court. Abortion rights activists march to the White House on July 9 to denounce the Supreme Court decision to end federal abortion rights protections. (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) It’s no wonder, then, that blue- and red-state residents who agree with the party in power there are retreating into their respective geographic corners. It’s no wonder, either, that they increasingly see each other as cautionary tales — the second factor that seems to be supercharging the “great divergence.” When asked to compare red states with blue states on a host of issues, red-state Trump voters say by wide margins that blue states have more gun deaths (68%) and discrimination (56%) while red states have more economic growth (75%) and education (55%). Blue-state Biden voters, in contrast, say it is red states that suffer more gun deaths (62%) and discrimination (75%) — and blue states that enjoy more economic growth (65%) and education (77%). Obviously, both sides can’t be right. (According to Brownstein, blue-state Biden voters are closer to the mark; other analystsmight disagree.) But that isn’t stopping either side from thinking the worst of the other. _____________ The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,672 U.S. adults interviewed online from July 8 to 11, 2022. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, as well as 2020 presidential vote (or nonvote) and voter registration status. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.6%. | |
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| 07-16-22 08:29pm - 796 days | #216 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP politicians want free, honest elections. And if the media report they lost an election, they want to know why. Any GOP candidate deserves the element of doubt. They deserve to be elected. Just like Dongle Trump was elected in 2020, but the scummy Democrats and the Fake News stole the White House from Dongle. ---- ---- Parroting Trump, GOP primary losers cast doubt on elections Associated Press NICHOLAS RICCARDI July 16, 2022, 7:52 AM DENVER (AP) — It was no shock that state Rep. Ron Hanks and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters handily lost their recent Republican primaries in Colorado for U.S. Senate and secretary of state. Hanks was outspent 14-to-1 by his rival. Peters, who was vying to become Colorado's top elections official, had been indicted on seven felony charges alleging she helped orchestrate a breach of her voting system's hard drive. But this past week, both candidates formally requested recounts of their primary elections from June 28, suggesting widespread irregularities seen by no one other than their own campaigns and allies. “I have reasons to believe extensive malfeasance occurred in the June 2022 primary,” Peters wrote in her recount request, “and that the apparent outcome of this election does not reflect the will of Colorado voters not only for myself but also for many other America First statewide and local primary candidates.” America First is a coalition of conservative candidates and officeholders who, among other things, promote the falsehood that Democrat Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election. This idea has seeped deeply into this year's Republican primaries, which have revealed a new political strategy among numerous candidates: running on a platform that denies President Donald Trump's defeat two years ago. As some of those candidates lose their own races, they are reaching new frontiers in election denial by insisting that those primaries, too, were rigged. “There's a clear reason they're doing it, and it's a much broader, coordinated attack on the freedom to vote across the country,” said Joanna Lydgate of States United Action. Her group supports election officials who recognize the validity of the 2020 election. Noting that she coaches youth basketball, Lydgate added another reason: “Really, what this is is people who are sore losers, people who don't want to accept defeat." The primary losers have an obvious role model: Trump himself. After his first election loss during his 2016 run for the White House, in the Iowa caucuses, Trump baselessly claimed fraud and demanded an investigation. When he was elected president later that year, he claimed that fraud was the reason Democrat Hillary Clinton won more votes than he did. Trump set up a commission to try to prove that. That commission was disbanded when it failed to produce any evidence. After his 2020 defeat, Trump and his supporters lost 63 of 64 legal challenges to the election. Trump continued to blame fraud, without evidence, even after his own attorney general and election reviews in the states failed to turn up any widespread wrongdoing that would have any impact on the outcome. This year's post-primary election denial may be a preview for November, when Republicans face Democrats in thousands of races across the country. The GOP is expected to do well — an expectation that could set the stage for more false claims of fraud when some of those candidates lose. Still, some Republicans aren't waiting for Democratic voters to weigh in before making unsubstantiated fraud claims. Some recent candidates who have done that are relatively marginal ones. In Georgia, Trump's two recruits to challenge the state's governor and secretary of state — former Sen. David Perdue and former Rep. Jodi Hice — admitted defeat after they lost the May primaries. But Kandiss Taylor, a fringe candidate who won only 3% of the primary vote for governor, refused to concede, claiming there was widespread cheating. In South Carolina, Republican Harrison Musselwhite — who goes by Trucker Bob — lost his primary against Gov. Henry McMaster by 66 percentage points. Still, he complained of problems with the election to the state party, as did another losing GOP contender, Lauren Martel, who ran for for attorney general. The party rejected their claims. Others who have cried fraud are more prominent. Joey Gilbert, who came in second in the Nevada Republican primary for governor, posted a Facebook video days after the June tally showing him 26,000 votes short. “These elections, the way they’ve been run, it’s like Swiss cheese,” he said. "There’s too many holes.” Gilbert, who attended Trump's rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, demanded a recount. The results appear unlikely to substantially change the final tally. He did not return messages seeking comment. In Arizona, former newscaster Kari Lake won Trump's endorsement in her quest for the party's nomination for governor, insisting that he won the presidency in 2020. This past week, she told supporters that her top opponent in the primary “might be trying to set the stage for another steal” in next month's primary. That earned her a rebuke from Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who has endorsed Lake's chief rival, Karin Taylor Robson. “The 2022 elections haven’t even been held yet, and already we’re seeing speculation doubting the results – especially if certain candidates lose,” Ducey tweeted. “It’s one of the most irresponsible things I can imagine.” Lake's campaign did not return messages seeking comment. In Colorado, county clerk Peters immediately questioned the primary results once the tally showed her losing badly in the secretary of state's race. Claiming fraud as she trailed former county clerk Pam Anderson, a regular debunker of Trump's election lies, Peters said: “Looking at the results, it’s just so obvious it should be flipped.” She and Senate candidate Hanks repeated Trump's election lies, a position that had won them strong support last spring at the 3,000-strong GOP state assembly, a convention attended by the party's strongest activists. Both candidates, in letters to the secretary of state’s office this past week demanding a recount, cited that support in explaining why they could not have lost their primaries. Hanks referred a reporter to an email address for media for the two candidates, though no one responded to questions sent to that address. The activists who attend the GOP gathering are just a small fraction of the 600,000 who voted in the June primary. According to preliminary results, Peters lost by 88,000 votes and Hanks by 56,000 votes. Their recount letters gave reasons why the candidates believed those vote tallies were “being artificially controlled.” The Colorado Secretary of State's office said a recount will cost $236,000 for each candidate. As of Friday night, the deadline set by the office to receive the money, neither candidate had paid, according to spokeswoman Annie Orloff. | |
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| 07-17-22 05:29am - 795 days | #217 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The cover-up continues. A major news organization finds no problems with ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election. This is another blow against President-For-Life Dongle Trump. Dongle Trump wants Sleepy Joe Bidens fake victory stricken from the history books, and to regain his rightful place in the Whitest House, home to Dongle Trump and his lovely children, who have been forced to live elsewhere at tremendous expense. Drop boxes are a hoax set up by scum Democrats from Hell, to steal elections from our God-fearing Republican Overlords. Hail, Dongle Trump, the secret love-child of our beloved Adolf Hitler, and the proud disciple of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Man of Steel. Although Dongle Trump really admires Al Capone, who was shamefully put in prison on a witch hunt for hiring unlicensed tax preparers. ---- ---- No major problems with ballot drop boxes in 2020, AP finds Associated Press ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY July 17, 2022, 5:08 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. ATLANTA (AP) — The expanded use of drop boxes for mailed ballots during the 2020 election did not lead to any widespread problems, according to an Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. that revealed no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft that could have affected the results. The findings from both Republican- and Democratic-controlled states run contrary to claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies who have intensely criticized their use and falsely claimed they were a target for fraud. Drop boxes are considered by many election officials to be safe and secure, and have been used to varying degrees by states across the political spectrum. Yet conspiracy theories and efforts by Republicans to eliminate or restrict them since the 2020 election persist. This month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that drop boxes are not allowed under state law and can no longer be widely used. Drop boxes also are a focal point of the film “2,000 Mules,” which used a flawed analysis of cellphone location data and ballot drop box surveillance footage to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election. In response to the legislation and conspiracy theories surrounding drop boxes, the AP sent a survey in May to the top elections office in each state seeking information about whether the boxes were tied to fraudulent votes or stolen ballots, or whether the boxes and the ballots they contained were damaged. All but five states responded to the questions. None of the election offices in states that allowed the use of drop boxes in 2020 reported any instances in which the boxes were connected to voter fraud or stolen ballots. Likewise, none reported incidents in which the boxes or ballots were damaged to the extent that election results would have been affected. A previous AP investigation found far too few cases of potential voter fraud in the six battleground states where Trump disputed his loss to President Joe Biden to affect the outcome. A number of states — including Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas — said they do not allow the use of drop boxes. Some had not allowed them before the 2020 election, when the coronavirus pandemic prompted wider use of mailed ballots. In states where they are used, secretaries of state or election commissioners may not be aware of every incident involving a drop box if it was not reported to their office by a county or other local jurisdiction. Drop boxes have been a mainstay in states with extensive mail voting for years and had not raised any alarms. They were used widely in 2020 as election officials sought to provide alternative ways to cast ballots with the COVID-19 outbreak creating concerns about in-person voting. The boxes also gave voters a direct method for submitting their ballots, rather than sending them through the U.S. Postal Service and worrying about delivery delays. Starting months before the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his allies have made a series of unfounded claims suggesting that drop boxes open the door to voter fraud. Republican state lawmakers, as part of their push to add new voting restrictions, have in turn placed rules around when and where the boxes could be accessed. Arizona Assistant Secretary of State Allie Bones said drop boxes are “safe and secure” and might even be considered more secure than Postal Service mailboxes. She said bipartisan teams in the state collect ballots from the drop boxes and take them directly to secure election facilities, following so-called chain-of-custody protocols. "Not to say that there’s anything wrong with USPS, and I think they do a great job as well, but the hysteria around ballot drop boxes I think is just a made-up thing to create doubt and fear,” Bones said. Arizona has had robust mail-in voting for years that includes the use of drop boxes, and in the AP survey, the state reported no damage, stolen ballots or fraud associated with them in 2020. Nevertheless, Trump-aligned lawmakers in the state pushed for legislation that would ban drop boxes, but were stymied by Democrats and several Republicans who disagreed with the strategy. Utah is a state controlled by Republicans that also has widespread use of mailed ballots and no limits on the number of drop boxes a county can deploy. The office of Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who is the state’s top election official, said in the AP survey that Henderson encourages counties to make secure drop boxes accessible to voters. Of the states responding to the survey, 15 indicated that drop boxes were in use before 2020 and 22 have no limits on how many can be used in this fall's election. At least five states take the extra step of setting a minimum number of drop boxes required. Republican-led Florida and North Dakota and Democratic-led New York did not respond. Montana and Virginia did, but did not answer the survey questions related to the 2020 election. Last year, five states added new restrictions to ballot drop boxes, according to research by the Voting Rights Lab. That included Georgia, where President Joe Biden won a narrow victory and where drop boxes were allowed under an emergency rule prompted by the pandemic. Georgia Republicans say their changes have resulted in drop boxes being a permanent option for voters, requiring all counties to have at least one. But the legislation, which includes a formula of one box per 100,000 registered voters, means fewer will be available in the state’s most populous communities compared with 2020. Iowa lawmakers last year approved legislation to limit drop boxes to one per county. Previously, state law did not say how many drop boxes counties could use. This year, Louisiana, Missouri and South Carolina have passed laws effectively prohibiting drop boxes, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which researches state election law changes. Along with incidents recorded in news reports, the AP survey found a handful of cases in 2020 in which drop boxes were damaged. Officials in Washington state said there were instances when drop boxes were hit by vehicles, but that no ballot tampering had been reported. Massachusetts election officials said one box was damaged by arson in October 2020 but that most of the ballots inside were still legible enough for voters to be identified, notified and sent replacements. A drop box also was set on fire in Los Angeles County in 2020, but a local election official said the vast majority of the ballots that were damaged were able to be recovered and voters provided new ballots. Another drop box in California was temporarily closed because of a wildfire. “The irony is they were put in place to respond to a problem with the post office and make sure people had a secure way of returning their ballots,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat. “And so there’s no actual legitimate concern except for, again, potential external threats or people who have been radicalized through misinformation to try to tamper with drop boxes to make a point.” North Carolina provides an example of how deep-seated the misinformation has become. The state does not allow drop boxes and did not use them during the 2020 election. “And despite that fact, people are still claiming drop box fraud must have occurred in North Carolina," said Patrick Gannon, public information director for the State Board of Elections. "You can’t make this up. Oh wait. Yes, you can.” In Wisconsin, Republicans had supported the use of drop boxes before Trump seized on mailed ballots as part of his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Some voters said they were frustrated by the recent state Supreme Court ruling, which said no one other than the voter can return their mailed ballot and that those ballots can go only to a local clerk’s office or alternate site. Kelly O’Keefe Boettcher of Milwaukee said she cast her ballot in a drop box in 2020 because of safety concerns during the pandemic and is upset that they’ll no longer be an option for her or for voters who are less able to get to the polls. “Drop boxes are accessible; they are egalitarian,” she said. “To watch them go, I feel, people can say it’s not voter suppression. But it is.” Wisconsin state Rep. Tim Ramthun, a Republican candidate for governor, reintroduced a resolution this past week for the GOP-controlled Legislature to decertify Biden’s victory there, adding the state Supreme Court ruling on drop boxes as one reason to do so. Trump also renewed his calls for decertification in Wisconsin, citing the ruling. According to the AP survey, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said it is not aware of any cases in 2020 in which drop boxes were damaged, had submitted ballots stolen or destroyed, or were used for fraudulent ballots. | |
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| 07-17-22 11:45am - 795 days | #218 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The US Secret Service serves Americans. They have the higher, highest honor of protecting the President. Can they lie? Of course not. Unless they are doing it for a reason. Congress wants to investigate what the Secret Service did on Jan 6, during the riots. The Secret Service has said they've cooperated fully with Congress. But Congress has learned that some messages, that were supposed to be kept as records of what the Secret Service did on Jan 6, have been deleted. The Secret Service says the deleted messages were deleted as part of routine maintenance, not to keep the messages from Congress. But Congress has doubts. Is the Secret Service telling Congress everything about Jan 6, or shading the truth? ---- ---- Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages ABC News MEGHAN MACPHERSON July 17, 2022, 9:51 AM Ahead of Thursday's hearing by the House's Jan. 6 committee, investigators anticipate receiving more information from the Secret Service "to get the full picture" of what occurred before and during the Capitol insurrection last year, including as it related to text messages agents sent in that period of time, Rep. Zoe Lofgren said Sunday. "We expect to get them by this Tuesday," Lofgren, a California Democrat and member of the House committee, told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz. Lofgren was referring to "pertinent texts" the agency said they had in the wake of a complaint last week from an internal watchdog that the Secret Service had deleted texts from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, after the watchdog sought those records. "We need all of the texts from the fifth and sixth of January. I was shocked to hear that they didn't back up their data before they reset their iPhones. That's crazy, and I don't know why that would be," Lofgren told Raddatz, "but we need to get this information to get the full picture." In a previous statement, the Secret Service -- which was subpoenaed by the committee on Friday -- said any "insinuation" that they intentionally deleted texts was false and that the committee had their "full and unwavering cooperation." On "This Week," Raddatz asked Lofgren about what evidence the public could expect at Thursday's hearing, which the committee has said will detail the Trump White House's reaction to the unfolding riot. MORE: Jan. 6 committee sets next -- and possibly final -- hearing, to detail riot reaction 'minute by minute' "I'm going to let the hearings speak for itself, but we hope to go through minute by minute what happened, what didn't happen on that day and people can make their own judgment," Lofgren said. She said the hearing would not touch on the allegation of witness tampering that Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice-chair, raised during the last hearing -- saying that Trump had attempted to contact an unnamed witness who hasn’t appeared publicly. (Trump's spokesman called Cheney a liar.) Raddatz noted that while some in the public have been influenced by the committee's evidence during the hearings, "a recent Monmouth poll [from late June] found less than a quarter of Americans are paying attention and 90% of those say the hearings have not changed their minds." MORE: Jan. 6 committee member previews what's to come in next hearing "I think some people have heard us. More than 55 million people have watched some part of the committee proceedings," Lofgren said. Meanwhile, she said, "This investigation is very much ongoing. The fact that series of hearings is going to be concluded this Thursday doesn't mean that our investigation is over. It's very active, new witnesses are coming forward, additional information is coming forward." The committee is also weighing seeking interviews with Trump and Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, as was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. "Everything is on the table," Lofgren said -- including a possible criminal referral, which committee members have repeatedly said they are considering but which amounts to a symbolic gesture rather than a legal directive. The decision is ultimately up to prosecutors. MORE: Key takeaways from Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony to Jan. 6 committee As for the Department of Justice's cases related to Jan. 6, Lofgren said she believed the wrongdoing went beyond the false electors scheme the committee had detailed -- evidence the committee said the DOJ has now requested. "I do think that there's a much broader plot here. I think that's pretty obvious," Lofgren said. "I would not want to tell the attorney general how to conduct his investigations. But I will say this, they have subpoena power and they have a lot easier way to enforce their subpoenas than the Congress does." Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages originally appeared on abcnews.go.com | |
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| 07-17-22 11:53am - 795 days | #219 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The only good Indian is a dead Indian. But the IOC has given Jim Thorpe back his victory as the sole winner of 2 gold medals in the 1912 Olympics. Dongle Trump will travel to Washington and complain about this injustice: You are taking medals away from White men and giving it to an Indian? Shame on you. ----- ----- IOC reinstates Jim Thorpe's sole possession of 1912 Olympic gold medals Yahoo Sports Jack Baer July 14, 2022, 7:48 PM For the first time in 110 years, Jim Thorpe stands alone atop the Olympic podium. The International Olympic Committee reinstated Jim Thorpe as the sole winner of the gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics, according to ESPN. The decision fully reverses a controversy that had lingered for more than a century. Thorpe easily won both events, the only athlete to ever win both events, but had his medals stripped a year later after the IOC learned he had been paid to play minor league baseball in 1909 and 1910. As The Oklahoman notes, Thorpe was far from the only Olympic athlete to receive professional money while competing as an "amateur," he was just the only one who didn't use a fake name while doing it. Because he received a reported $2 per game to $35 per week, Thorpe had his amateur status withdrawn by the Amateur Athletic Union and lost his medals in a unanimous IOC vote. As would be later noted, the IOC violated its own rules in doing so, as no protest was made against Thorpe's eligibility in the 30 days after the Games. Thorpe went to his grave in 1953 without getting his medals back, and it was only in 1982, 30 years later, the IOC recognized it had acted improperly in taking the medals. Thorpe's medals were restored, but even then he was only identified as the co-champion alongside Sweden's Hugo Wieslander in the decathlon and Norway's Ferdinand Bie in the pentathlon. View of American football player Jim Thorpe, circa 1910. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images) Jim Thorpe once again stands alone. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images) Thursday's decision restores Thorpe as the sole winner in each event, and no one is happier than the Native American community that has long lamented the decision against one of its greatest heroes. From ESPN: "We are so grateful his nearly 110-year-old injustice has finally been corrected, and there is no confusion about the most remarkable athlete in history," said Nedra Darling, the co-founder of Bright Path Strong, a group created to share Native American voices and a leading organization that fought for Thorpe — who died in 1953 — to regain his medals. She is also a citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. "Jim Thorpe is a hero across Indian Country, and he is an American hero," she said. "He represented this country before it even recognized Native Americans as citizens, and he did so with humility and grace. Even after he was wronged by his coach, the American Athletic Union, and many others, he never gave in to bitterness and led with a spirit of generosity and kindness. I pray that Jim, his family, and our ancestors are celebrating that the truth has been respoken today, on this 110th anniversary of Jim being awarded his Olympic gold medals." Thorpe, of course, enjoyed plenty of other athletic success in his life, between an All-Pro NFL career and a seven-year MLB career, but, like many, hit hard times during the Great Depression. He was named the greatest athlete of the first 50 years of the 20th century by The Associated Press in 1950, and third-greatest of the entire century in 1999, behind only Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan. | |
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| 07-18-22 01:50am - 795 days | #220 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The US Secret Service says it's shocked and does not understand why Congress has doubts about the truthfulness of the Secret Service. The Secret Service says it has fully cooperated with Congress in telling everything that happened around the time of the Jan 6, 2021 riots. Congress asked for the text messages agents sent in that period of time. And the Secret Service gave Congress everything it had. Unfortunately, some text messages were deleted from Jan 5 and Jan 6, after Congress asked for the records. But the deletions were a "normal" part of the Secret Service operations. Why normal? Because the Secret Service was only doing its job. Not trying to hide anything. As the Secret Service keeps explaining. Even though the law states that the records are to be kept intact. And the honorable Secret Service follows the law. Especially since it's hard to charge the Secret Service with breaking the law. Unlike charging a civilian with breaking the law: much easier charging a civilian with breaking the law. Everyone is equal under the law: which is why the laws are written by lawyers, who put loopholes in for protection of the empowered. ------ ----- Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages ABC News MEGHAN MACPHERSON July 17, 2022, 9:51 AM Ahead of Thursday's hearing by the House's Jan. 6 committee, investigators anticipate receiving more information from the Secret Service "to get the full picture" of what occurred before and during the Capitol insurrection last year, including as it related to text messages agents sent in that period of time, Rep. Zoe Lofgren said Sunday. "We expect to get them by this Tuesday," Lofgren, a California Democrat and member of the House committee, told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz. Lofgren was referring to "pertinent texts" the agency said they had in the wake of a complaint last week from an internal watchdog that the Secret Service had deleted texts from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, after the watchdog sought those records. "We need all of the texts from the fifth and sixth of January. I was shocked to hear that they didn't back up their data before they reset their iPhones. That's crazy, and I don't know why that would be," Lofgren told Raddatz, "but we need to get this information to get the full picture." In a previous statement, the Secret Service -- which was subpoenaed by the committee on Friday -- said any "insinuation" that they intentionally deleted texts was false and that the committee had their "full and unwavering cooperation." On "This Week," Raddatz asked Lofgren about what evidence the public could expect at Thursday's hearing, which the committee has said will detail the Trump White House's reaction to the unfolding riot. MORE: Jan. 6 committee sets next -- and possibly final -- hearing, to detail riot reaction 'minute by minute' "I'm going to let the hearings speak for itself, but we hope to go through minute by minute what happened, what didn't happen on that day and people can make their own judgment," Lofgren said. She said the hearing would not touch on the allegation of witness tampering that Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice-chair, raised during the last hearing -- saying that Trump had attempted to contact an unnamed witness who hasn’t appeared publicly. (Trump's spokesman called Cheney a liar.) Raddatz noted that while some in the public have been influenced by the committee's evidence during the hearings, "a recent Monmouth poll [from late June] found less than a quarter of Americans are paying attention and 90% of those say the hearings have not changed their minds." MORE: Jan. 6 committee member previews what's to come in next hearing "I think some people have heard us. More than 55 million people have watched some part of the committee proceedings," Lofgren said. Meanwhile, she said, "This investigation is very much ongoing. The fact that series of hearings is going to be concluded this Thursday doesn't mean that our investigation is over. It's very active, new witnesses are coming forward, additional information is coming forward." The committee is also weighing seeking interviews with Trump and Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, as was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. "Everything is on the table," Lofgren said -- including a possible criminal referral, which committee members have repeatedly said they are considering but which amounts to a symbolic gesture rather than a legal directive. The decision is ultimately up to prosecutors. MORE: Key takeaways from Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony to Jan. 6 committee As for the Department of Justice's cases related to Jan. 6, Lofgren said she believed the wrongdoing went beyond the false electors scheme the committee had detailed -- evidence the committee said the DOJ has now requested. "I do think that there's a much broader plot here. I think that's pretty obvious," Lofgren said. "I would not want to tell the attorney general how to conduct his investigations. But I will say this, they have subpoena power and they have a lot easier way to enforce their subpoenas than the Congress does." Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages originally appeared on abcnews.go.com | |
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| 07-18-22 06:42am - 794 days | #221 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Betsy Devos shows her inner truth: The Department of Education should be abolished. That is why she tried to destroy education in the United States under Trump: There is no truth except for Dongle Trump. Trump uber alles. Under Trump, she enjoyed orgies that lasted all night. And she wants to bring them back. Power to Dongle Trump, the most corrupt President the US has ever had. --- --- Trump Education secretary says ‘Department of Education should not exist’ The Hill Olafimihan Oshin July 17, 2022, 4:24 PM Former Secretary of Education Betsy Devos believes that the department she once led should be abolished. Devos, who spent four years as the Education secretary during the Trump administration, made the remarks at the inaugural Moms for Liberty summit on Saturday, according to the Florida Phoenix. “I personally think the Department of Education should not exist,” Devos told the mostly conservative crowd in Tampa, Fla. Devos was a leading proponent of “education freedom” during her time in office, promoting vouchers to allow families to choose their children’s school. In a speech in 2020, she said, “I fight against anyone who would have government be the parent to everyone.” Moms for Liberty is a conservative group that rose to national prominence for its objection to children wearing face masks at school during the COVID-19 pandemic. The local news outlet also reported that summit attendees were given tips on how to recruit, promote and endorse conservative school board candidates. Devos is not the first conservative figure to suggest nixing the federal agency charged with overseeing schools. A group of GOP House members backed a bill last year sought to abolish the Department of Education. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced the bill in February 2021 with co-sponsors including Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). “Schools should be accountable,” Massie said in a statement at the time. “Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school, or private school.” Devos’s remarks come as schools have become a battleground for politicized culture wars, with Democrats and Republicans battling over issues such as critical race theory, LGBTQ rights and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) campaigned on a pledge to give parents a louder voice in schools, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) drew national blowback with his signing of a bill barring teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. | |
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| 07-18-22 01:41pm - 794 days | #222 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump says: if he had been in the area, he would have rushed in with his bare hands to take down the shooter (an echo of a statement he made while President of the US). Police and the public vow to disclose all the details of the Texas school shooting in May 24. It might take 100 years, since the police are shielded by many laws, but there will be books and investigations. Support your local cops, even when they are lying. ---- ---- 5 key takeaways from the Texas House report on Uvalde massacre Yahoo News Dylan Stableford July 18, 2022, 9:50 AM The Texas House of Representatives released a preliminary report Sunday outlining a series of failures by multiple law enforcement agencies in their response to the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers were killed by an 18-year-old gunman who was eventually killed at the scene. The 82-page report was released by a special investigative committee of the Republican-controlled Texas state Legislature. Here are five key takeaways. There was a massive law enforcement response, but no one took control Law enforcement officers are seen in a hallway of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24. Law enforcement officers are seen in a hallway of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24. (Texas House Investigative Committee/Handout via Reuters) According to the report, 376 law enforcement officers from 23 agencies responded to the shooting, ranging from 149 Border Patrol personnel and 91 members of the Texas Department of Public Safety to single officers from neighboring jurisdictions. The Uvalde Police Department had 25 officers present, the Uvalde County Sheriff's Office had 16, and the Uvalde school district had five. While school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo had been cited by state officials as the on-site commander responsible for the failed response, the report said that no one from state and federal law enforcement asked to take control of the situation. Arredondo had told the Texas Tribune in June that he didn’t consider himself in charge of the scene. Earlier this month, Arredondo resigned from his position on the Uvalde City Council, a seat he was elected to prior to the shooting. He had secretly taken the oath of office in June, but had not attended any meetings and has been on administrative leave from his position overseeing the school district’s police force since late June. Parents who attended a Sunday press conference by three committee members expressed anger and frustration, calling for discipline against the officers and saying they didn’t learn anything new from the report. “It’s a joke. They’re a joke. They’ve got no business wearing a badge. None of them do,” Vincent Salazar, grandfather of one of the victims, told the Associated Press. “They should be charged for not going in and for letting that happen to our kids,” Evadulia Orta, whose son was killed, told the Texas Tribune. A false narrative was pushed by authorities Texas Gov. Greg Abbott holds a press conference in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25, the day after the massacre at Robb Elementary. Sen. Ted Cruz stands in the background at right. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott holds a press conference in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25, the day after the massacre at Robb Elementary. Sen. Ted Cruz stands in the background at right. (Photo by Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images) The official story about the shooting began to unravel shortly after the tragedy, as it became clear that law enforcement had botched the response, waiting for more than an hour while the shooter was in a second grade classroom. Responding officers were initially praised for their work, including by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, before officials admitted that a school resource officer who they said engaged the gunman never existed, and a barricaded classroom door supposedly preventing them from engaging hadn’t even been locked. Three days after the shooting, officials conceded that law enforcement had stood in the hallway outside the classroom while students inside called 911 begging them for help. The report said that the initial statements “repeated a false narrative that the entire incident lasted as little as forty minutes thanks to officers who rapidly devised a plan, stacked up, and neutralized the attacker. The general sentiments shared that day were that law enforcement responders were courageous in keeping the attacker pinned down while children were evacuated.” In the aftermath of the shooting, parents spoke to the media about how they were threatened and detained outside the school when they tried to get in to rescue their children and confront the gunman. Angeli Rose Gomez, one of the mothers who was detained outside the school by police before persuading them to release her and run into the school to retrieve her children, has said that law enforcement has been harassing her for speaking out about their failure to act. “A complete and thorough investigation can take months or even years to confirm every detail, especially when this many law enforcement officers are involved,” read the report. “However, one would expect law enforcement during a briefing would be very careful to state what facts are verifiable, and which ones are not.” The report said that Abbott and other officials who weren’t on the scene were delivering “secondhand” information from those who were at the school, and that a Uvalde police lieutenant who was supposed to speak at a press briefing the day after the shooting “literally passed out while waiting in the hallway beforehand.” The report also noted that while officials had initially blamed a teacher for leaving an exterior door open, that teacher had actually slammed the door shut and called 911 when she saw the shooter approaching, although the door did not lock. The committee also criticized the media for repeating the “communication failures of relevant authorities.” Police failed to follow active-shooter protocols Police deploy in a hallway at Robb Elementary on May 24. Police deploy in a hallway at Robb Elementary on May 24. (City of Uvalde Police Department/Handout via Reuters) The report noted that in the wake of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, law enforcement training has emphasized that all officers “must now acknowledge that stopping the killing of innocent lives is the highest priority in active-shooter response, and all officers must be willing to risk their lives without hesitation.” However, the responders at Robb Elementary School “failed to adhere to their active-shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety." This was in line with the criticism leveled by a senior government official who conducts school active-shooter training who told Yahoo News in May that the responding officers broke every protocol put in place in the two decades since Columbine. “What they did was pre-Columbine protocol. After Columbine, all this changed — active shooters, you go in, the first guy goes in and neutralizes the threat,” the official said. “They broke every rule in the book. They did everything wrong.” “Nineteen cops … didn’t breach the door, they waited for [Customs and Border Protection]. Shoot the door, just shoot the door,” the official added. “I don’t know why they waited, they could have gone outside of [the] building and fired into the glass. Saying, ‘Sorry, it’s a bad call’ — well, it’s a bad call with 21 people dead.” The school's safety protocols failed too The memorial outside Robb Elementary School is seen on July 13. The memorial outside Robb Elementary School is seen on July 13. (Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Reuters) The doors to classrooms at Robb Elementary were supposed to be locked during school hours. But multiple witnesses told House investigators that doors were often left unlocked, and teachers would use rocks, door stops, wedges and magnets to prop them open, in part because of a "shortage" of keys at the school. The door to Room 111, one of the two adjoining classrooms where the shooting took place, was reported by a teacher in March to not always lock. But the head custodian testified he had never heard of any problems with that door, and maintenance records during the school year do not contain any work orders for it. The Uvalde school district used an alert system that allowed anyone in the event of an active shooter to initiate a lockdown, but the committee found that the staff at Robb Elementary did not always receive the alerts due in part to poor Wi-Fi and cellphone service. And employees often "had to log in on a computer to receive" the message. One of the survivors, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, said her teacher received an email alert about an active shooter. When the teacher went to the door, Miah said, the gunman was in the hallway. The report also found that school personnel didn’t always respond to alerts with a sense of urgency because the vast majority of them were issued by police during pursuits of vehicles with undocumented immigrants on highways near the school. Reports of so-called bailouts — incidents in which officers chase a vehicle containing suspected undocumented migrants who then purposely crash and scatter to avoid apprehension — were frequent. Since late February, there had been 47 “secure” or “lockdown” events at Uvalde schools, according to the report. About 90% of them were attributed to bailouts. The gunman was nicknamed 'School Shooter' online The report intentionally does not include the name of the gunman, who the committee said was driven in part by "notoriety and fame." But it does provide some new details about his background, education and childhood — as well as an increasing interest in violent imagery. | |
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| 07-19-22 03:14am - 794 days | #223 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Shane rises from the grave to say: "Dongle Trump is a low down, Yankee liar." Dongle Trump cries like a baby when he thinks of Sleepy Joe Biden sleeping in the White House. But even though Dongle Trump has raised millions in donations from foolish supporters based on the Great Lie (a tactic he stole from his father, Adolf, Dongle Trump is holding onto the money, in case he needs to buy more houses. Or to pay penalties on his fake income tax filings. | |
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| 07-19-22 07:34pm - 793 days | #224 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Jan. 6 committee has presented evidence of Trump's criminal behavior. But does Joe Biden have the balls to push the Justice Department into charging Trump with crimes? Or will he be a pussy, and let Trump get away with crimes against the nation, because Sleepy Joe wants to be fair? Trump was strong, and pushed the government to act against people Trump didn't like. But Biden is trying to take the higher moral position. Which on a practical basis, means Biden is a fucking fool. And doesn't deserve to be president. If the Dems can't put a stronger, abler man in the White House, let the Republicans take it back. And the Republicans will push their political positions with glee. People died from the Jan. 6 riots. Under law, that means everyone involved can be charged with murder. If someone dies during the commission of a crime, all the associates in the crime can be charged with murder, even if the person who died was killed by the police, even if the person who died was a suicide. That's the way the law works. ------ ------ The Jan. 6 committee has made a compelling case against Trump. But will he face criminal charges? Yahoo News Caitlin Dickson July 19, 2022, 12:15 PM Six weeks ago, the House Jan. 6 committee presented the American people with a tantalizing offer. Over the course of several public hearings, committee chairman Bennie Thompson promised, the panel would show evidence that former President Donald Trump was at the center of a “sprawling, multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election” and remaining in power after his term ended. Thompson’s pledge was initially met with a mixture of curiosity and doubt. A year and a half after a violent pro-Trump mob had stormed the U.S. Capitol, delaying the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election results with a riot that left five people dead and more than 150 police officers injured, many wondered what the select committee could possibly reveal about the deadly attack that wasn’t already widely known. Even then, it seemed unlikely that the most damning new evidence would result in consequences for Trump. Not even the members of the Jan. 6 committee, who widely agree that Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election broke the law, have been able reach a consensus on whether to formally refer the former president to the Justice Department for prosecution. And while Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged to hold “all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law,” the only charges that have been brought against Trump associates so far have been for failing to cooperate with the select committee’s probe. Of the more than 800 defendants who have been charged as a result of the Justice Department’s investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, only about 50 have pleaded guilty to felony charges. Legal experts have debated the issue of whether there would be sufficient evidence for the Justice Department to take the unprecedented step of prosecuting a former president. “The likelihood that the president broke laws here is extremely high,” Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor, said after the select committee’s second public hearing last month. Parker, who focused on prosecuting police excessive force and hate crimes cases as a deputy chief of the Criminal Section at the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, now serves as counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonprofit founded after Trump’s election in 2016 whose stated mission is “to prevent American democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.” She spoke to reporters as part of a Protect Democracy press briefing about potential avenues for criminal prosecution stemming from the Jan. 6 committee’s probe. Specifically, Parker listed obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, seditious conspiracy and wire fraud among the federal crimes likely to have been committed by Trump and associates, based on what was known at that point. However, she explained, whether the Justice Department ultimately decides to prosecute will depend not on its ability to prove that a crime took place, but rather if it can obtain sufficient evidence that those involved, including the former president, acted with criminal intent. “For the kinds of charges we’re talking about here, the department would essentially be required to prove that Donald Trump and his associates knew what they were doing was wrong when they acted,” she said. Yahoo News spoke with Parker ahead of this Thursday’s primetime hearing, which the select committee has indicated will be the last in this series. She said she thinks the committee “has done an excellent job of surfacing evidence” linking Trump to the violence that unfolded at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but cautioned that this still may not be enough for an indictment. “I wouldn't think that they're too far from that,” she said, referring to the Justice Department. “But I think there's still more work they would want to do before they got to that point.” Other legal experts, however, insist that they’ve seen enough. “The evidence is now overwhelming that Donald Trump was the driving force behind a massive criminal conspiracy to interfere with the official January 6 congressional proceeding and to defraud the United States of a fair election outcome,” former federal prosecutors Donald Ayer, Stuart Gerson and Dennis Aftergut wrote in a piece at the Atlantic last week. Ayer, who participated alongside Parker at a Protect Democracy press briefing in June, served as principal deputy solicitor general in the administration of Ronald Reagan and as deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, while Gerson served as assistant attorney general during the first Bush administration. They highlighted their Republican bona fides, as well as their DOJ credentials, writing, “The evidence is clearer and more robust than we as former federal prosecutors — two of us as Department of Justice officials in Republican administrations — thought possible before the hearings began.” Specifically, the three former prosecutors argued that “the committee has demonstrated repeatedly that [Trump] knew beyond all doubt that he had lost fair and square,” putting to rest speculation that his campaign to change the election outcome was based on a genuine belief that he was the rightful winner. Additionally, they wrote, the witness testimony and other evidence presented during the hearings placed Trump solidly at the center of every aspect of his effort to overturn his electoral loss — from his direct calls to state officials to his personal ploy to use the Justice Department to legitimize his bogus voter fraud claims, and his alleged advance knowledge of the danger posed by the crowd on Jan. 6 when he directed it to march on the Capitol. “Any argument that Donald Trump lacked provable criminal intent is contradicted by the facts elicited by the January 6 committee,” they wrote, concluding that “the tradition of not prosecuting a former president must yield to the manifest need to protect our constitutional form of government and to ensure that the violent effort to overthrow it is never repeated.” Rep. Liz Cheney wears a doubtful expression, while Rep. Bennie Thompson looks grave. Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., at a hearing of the committee on June 23. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Other initial skeptics, such as law professors Alan Rozenshtein and Jed Handelsman Shugerman, have reached a similar conclusion. Rozenshtein, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and Shugerman, a professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York, had both previously argued that the Justice Department lacked sufficient evidence to indict Trump for his actions on Jan. 6. But in a July 1 post for Lawfare, they wrote that they had been swayed by the unexpected testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. In particular, they cited Hutchinson’s account of a conversation that took place moments before Trump delivered his Jan. 6 speech at the Ellipse, in which she said the former president ordered the removal of magnetometers, or metal detectors, that were being used to keep armed rally-goers away from the stage. “I overheard the president say something to the effect of 'I don’t care that they have weapons, they’re not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away, let my people in. … They can march to the Capitol from here,’” Hutchinson recalled, explaining that Trump was frustrated by the empty space in the crowd. “He wanted it full, and he was angry that we weren’t letting people through the mags with weapons.” All three men raise their right hands. From left, former Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel, former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue are sworn in before the committee on June 23. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) Before Hutchinson’s testimony, Rozenshtein and Shugerman had independently argued that Trump’s statements on Jan. 6 urging his supporters to “fight” and telling them to march to the Capitol, while based on a lie, amounted to political speech covered by the First Amendment. | |
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| 07-19-22 07:39pm - 793 days | #225 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
ARTICLE CONTINUES: “In particular,” they wrote, “we were skeptical that Trump’s speech would satisfy the stringent requirement of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the landmark case in which the Supreme Court held that the government could only criminalize speech advocating unlawful action if ‘such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.’” However, Hutchinson’s account of Trump’s demand to remove the magnetometers undermines that position, they wrote, serving as “additional proof of intent and context, and — crucially — a material act to increase the likelihood of violence,” which “easily distinguishes Trump’s speech at the rally from other kinds of core political speech that should never be criminalized.” Not only could Hutchinson’s account be used to prosecute Trump for inciting or encouraging a riot under 18 U.S. Code section 2101, but Rozenshtein and Shugerman argued that the former White House aide’s testimony also “bolsters the case” for charging the former president with obstruction of Congress, as well as insurrection and seditious conspiracy. They aren’t the only ones who were influenced by Hutchinson. Solomon Wisenberg, a former deputy independent counsel under Ken Starr during the investigation of President Bill Clinton, called Hutchinson’s testimony “the smoking gun,” making a case for Trump’s “criminal culpability on seditious conspiracy charges.” Meanwhile, John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, appears to have been swayed by the “powerful” testimony of Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, and Stephen Ayres, a former Trump supporter who was charged with illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6. Dean, who was a key witness in the Watergate investigation, predicted that “Trump is in trouble” after hearing Van Tatenhove and Ayres testify before the committee last Tuesday. “I think a criminal case is going to come out of it,” Dean said on CNN following the committee’s seventh hearing. “And I don’t see how … prosecutors at the Department of Justice can’t take a lot of this evidence and use it. A lot of these people who are involved in this are going to be in front of a grand jury, if they’re not already.” An image of Jeffrey Clark, labeled: Former Assistant Attorney General . An image of former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark on a screen at a hearing on June 23. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) This week, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported that Garland had issued a memo in May extending a 2020 policy first introduced by former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr, which requires federal investigators to obtain written approval from the attorney general for any investigations into a presidential candidate or their staff. Although Trump has strongly hinted that he intends to run for president again in 2024, he has yet to formally announce his candidacy. A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Garland memo or whether it applies to Trump. Still, since the committee began its latest round of public hearings, there have been some signs that the Justice Department may be expanding the scope of its Jan. 6 inquiry. For example, the department renewed an earlier request for the panel’s interview transcripts, and issued several new subpoenas, apparently in relation to its ongoing inquiry into the potentially fraudulent effort to use fake pro-Trump electors to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Last month, federal agents also searched the home of former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, who allegedly tried to help Trump use the department to help subvert the election. Meanwhile, in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has empaneled a special grand jury and subpoenaed several Trump advisers, including his attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as well as a number of prominent Georgia Republicans, as part of her fast-moving investigation into Trump’s attempt to meddle with the election in her state. Willis told Yahoo News last week that she is considering calling Trump himself to testify to the special grand jury. Merrick Garland raises his hand in a gesture of exasperation. Attorney General Merrick Garland at a press conference on June 13. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) As the select committee wraps up this series of hearings, Parker argued that the real question is not whether the evidence it has presented is sufficient to indict Trump, but whether it’s enough to merit a criminal investigation of which the former president is the subject. “There’s more than enough evidence” for that, she said. “I think sometimes we get so saturated with the coverage of this that we forget to step back and take note of just how incredible it is that we are hearing and seeing this amount of evidence of potential criminality on the part of the president of the United States that was aimed at overturning the results of an election,” she said. “I mean, criminality aimed at the very heart of our democratic system of government.” Parker noted that one of the factors the Justice Department manual instructs prosecutors to consider when deciding whether to prosecute a criminal case is the seriousness of the offense. “I’m not sure you could find a more serious offense than attempting to destroy American democracy,” she said, adding that federal prosecutors regularly bring charges against everyday Americans for arguably much less serious offenses, such as using or selling drugs or trying to enter the country illegally. Parker suggested that if the Justice Department fails to prosecute Trump, “the most powerful person in the country,” for crimes “aimed at destroying our democratic system of government,” while continuing to bring charges against average citizens for these kinds of lesser offenses, it would send a “terrible and possibly even fatal message.” “The criminal justice system in a democratic system is basically a form of a social contract. We all agree to be bound by the laws on the theory that the laws will be enforced fairly as to everyone,” she said. “That idea is seriously undermined when Joe and Jane Average can be charged with crimes but the president of the United States isn’t charged for the most serious thing you can imagine somebody doing.” The rioters got within two doors of Vice President Mike Pence's office. See how in this 3D explainer from Yahoo Immersive. | |
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| 07-20-22 06:33am - 792 days | #226 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Department of Justice is not the sharpest blade in the drawer. When fake electors tried to push Dongle Trump as the real winner of the 2020 election, the Justice Department is still trying to figure out if they did anything illegal. Why is it so easy for them to make a criminal out of a regular Joe, who has no power? But so hard for them to see Dongle Trump supporters doing crimes? Biden needs to clean house: fire most of the Justice Department, put people in charge who will go after Trump supporters who are doing crimes. -------- -------- Georgia 'fake electors' hit with subpoenas in criminal probe NBC Universal Zoë Richards and Blayne Alexander and Jonathan Allen July 19, 2022, 2:33 PM Nearly a dozen of Georgia’s "fake electors" revealed Tuesday they've been subpoenaed to appear before the Fulton County special grand jury hearing evidence in the criminal investigation into possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies. The revelations came in a court filing where attorneys for 11 of the state's 16 false presidential electors attempted to quash the subpoenas, calling them “unreasonable and oppressive." The attorneys also argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office initially said their clients were “witnesses, not subjects or targets” of the investigation, and that the electors had agreed to voluntary interviews with the team investigating election interference beginning in April. NBC News has reached out to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office for comment. After the 2020 election, certificates purporting to be from Trump electors were sent to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., by Republicans in seven battleground states that Joe Biden won — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That effort, which was ultimately unsuccessful, created two sets of electors: an official group selected by the states and the fake ones. During a public hearing last month, the House Jan. 6 committee presented documents and testimony that appeared to show Trump’s team had plotted to overturn the 2020 election by organizing the slates of alternate “fake electors” in those seven states. The fake electors submitted false certifications of Trump victories to the National Archives hoping that then-Vice President Mike Pence would swap them for the legitimate electoral votes that solidified Joe Biden’s victory, the panel alleged. Lawyers for the 11 Georgia electors argued Tuesday that their clients were unaware of any alleged plot by former Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani to use their votes improperly. “[T]he nominee electors did not and could not have had any involvement in or knowledge of any such plan, as it was not even conceived until several weeks after the GOP electors had completed their contingent electoral slates on December 14, 2020,” the attorneys wrote. “And, in any event, it was never disclosed to or discussed with the nominee electors at any time.” “As such, none of the nominee electors could have anticipated on December 14, 2020 that there could or would be any attempt to misuse their lawfully cast contingent electoral slate in such manner, nor did they or could they have participated in the same,” they added. The attorneys further argued that county prosecutors had changed course in the probe despite cooperation from their clients. “The abrupt, unsupportable, and public elevation of all eleven nominee electors’ status wrongfully converted them from witnesses who were cooperating voluntarily and prepared to testify in the Grand Jury to persecuted targets of it,” the attorneys said in the court filing. “The unavoidable conclusion is that the nominee electors’ change of status was not precipitated by new evidence or an honestly-held belief that they have criminal exposure but instead ad improper desire to force them to publicly invoke their rights as, at best, a publicity stunt,” they added. According to the attorneys, the electors had the right to cast "contingent" electoral votes, drawing similarities between the 2020 actions and those made by Democratic electors in the judicially contested 1960 presidential contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. “There, the contingent, provisional electoral ballots cast by the Kennedy presidential elector were ultimately the ones counted by Congress as Hawaii’s electoral votes,” they argued. The effort to quash the subpoenas in Fulton County comes as Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., a Trump ally, is fighting a similar subpoena to testify in the probe. The Justice Department said this year that federal prosecutors were looking into the legal ramifications for those involved in the scheme to push slates of fake Electoral College members declaring Trump the winner of states that Biden won. | |
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| 07-20-22 06:39am - 792 days | #227 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump mulling movie to Ukraine, where bestest buddy Vlad Putin will put Dongle in charge of the re-education effort of the Ukraine workers who are still alive. The dead Ukraine workers will be buried shortly, with ceremony overseen by Dongle Trump, who loves to put on a good show. ----- ----- White House says Russia laying groundwork to annex Ukraine territory Reuters Nandita Bose and Steve Holland July 20, 2022, 6:15 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia is laying the groundwork for the annexation of Ukrainian territory and is installing illegitimate proxy officials in areas there under its control as it seeks to exert total control over its gains in the east, the White House said on Tuesday. Unveiling what he said was U.S. intelligence, John Kirby, the chief National Security Council spokesman, told a White House news briefing that the Russians are preparing to install proxy officials, establish the rouble as the default currency and force residents to apply for citizenship. "We have information today, including from downgraded intelligence that we're able to share with you, about how Russia is laying the groundwork to annex Ukrainian territory that it controls in direct violation of Ukraine's sovereignty," Kirby said. The same tactic was used in 2014 when Russia announced its annexation of Crimea after taking over control from Ukraine, Kirby said. The international community considers Crimea's annexation illegitimate. "We want to make it plain to the American people," Kirby said. "Nobody is fooled by it. (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is dusting off the playbook from 2014." Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to ensure its own security. Russia is now also attempting to take control of broadcasting towers, he said. White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby answers questions during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, July 19, 2022. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst) White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby answers questions during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, July 19, 2022. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst) At the same time, Kirby said the United States in the next few days will announce a new weapons package for Ukraine as it engages Russia in fierce battles in eastern Ukraine. It will be the 16th such drawdown of money approved by Congress and allocated under presidential authority, he said. The package is expected to include U.S. mobile rocket launchers, known as HIMARS, and rounds for Multiple Launch Rocket Systems as well as artillery munitions. The Russian embassy in the United States dismissed Washington's comments as "fundamentally false". "To date, more than 45 thousand tons of humanitarian cargo have been sent to Ukraine, the DPR and the LPR. How does all this relate to the concept of annexation?" it said in a Facebook post, referring to the Russian-backed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The United States has provided $8 billion in security assistance since the war began, including $2.2 billion in the last month. Washington will impose sanctions on officials involved in representing themselves as proxy officials, Kirby said. He predicted these proxies to try to hold "sham referenda" seeking to legitimatize Russian control. | |
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| 07-20-22 07:45am - 792 days | #228 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Steve Bannon says the low-down dirty Dems are holding a witch hunt to crucify Dongle Trump. But Stevie is smart: he knows that he is above the law, and can hold Congress in contempt. Dongle, Stevie, and other supporters of the Untied States of Trumperland will rise in revolt and take back the Whitest House to rule Trumperland with fists of steel. ---- ---- 'Above the law': Feds unveil contempt case against Steve Bannon; defense claims case driven by politics USA TODAY Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY July 20, 2022, 7:47 AM WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors began unveiling their case in the contempt trial of former White House strategist Steve Bannon on Tuesday, asserting that the longtime aide to President Donald Trump “decided he was above the law” when he defied a subpoena from a House committee investigating the Capitol attack. “It wasn't an accident; it wasn’t a mistake," Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Vaughn told jurors in opening arguments. "It was a decision; it was a choice. "This case is about the defendant thumbing his nose at the orderly process of our government. It is that simple," Vaughn said. Bannon put himself above the U.S. government's effort to examine the assault Jan. 6, 2021, she said. "Congress was entitled (to the information)," Vaughn said. "It was mandatory. ... He chose to show his contempt for Congress and its processes." Bannon attorney Evan Corcoran offered a stark counterpoint to the government's case, walking to his client's side at the defense table. "This is Steve Bannon, and he is innocent of the charges," Corcoran told the jury. Corcoran argued that "politics" drove the committee's decision to seek Bannon's testimony. "Politics is the lifeblood of the U.S. House of Representatives," Corcoran said. "Politics invades every decision that they make. It’s the currency of Congress." Corcoran denied that Bannon ignored the subpoena, arguing that there was no set time for Bannon to appear for a deposition and provide documents as his attorneys and the committee engaged in negotiations. "No one ignored the subpoena," Corcoran said. "Quite the contrary, there was direct engagement (with the committee). The evidence will be crystal clear. No one expected that Steve Bannon would appear. ... There will be no evidence that anyone ordered Steve Bannon to do anything." The government's very first witness, Kristin Amerling, deputy staff director and chief counsel to the Jan. 6 committee, directly challenged the defense claims. In her role as counsel, Amerling said she was personally involved in advising the committee related to the Bannon subpoena. Amerling said the committee had established specific deadlines for Bannon's compliance to produce documents by Oct. 7, 2021, and appear for a deposition on Oct. 14. Asked whether Bannon had satisfied those demands, Amerling told the prosecutor: "He did not." U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols moved ahead with the trial after an evidentiary dispute threatened to delay the case as defense lawyers expressed confusion over the judge's rulings. Bannon's defense team sought to exclude correspondence between the House committee and defense lawyers relating to the subpoena Bannon defied, resulting in his indictment. Nichols ruled Tuesday that he would admit the letters in their entirety, including discussions of executive privilege, which Bannon argued shielded him from the subpoena. Jan. 6 chair has COVID-19: Rep. Bennie Thompson tests positive for coronavirus 2 former Trump aides to testify: Matthew Pottinger, Sarah Matthews expected to testify at Jan. 6 hearing The judge had previously excluded the defense's executive privilege argument. Referring to the dispute, Corcoran said a delay was needed to resolve evidence questions and a "seismic shift" in the defense's understanding of the case. Bannon faces two counts of contempt, one for his refusal to appear for a deposition and another involving his refusal to produce documents, despite a subpoena from the House committee. The panel held a series of hearings this summer featuring damning testimony from former Trump administration officials. Steve Bannon's attorney David Schoen talks to reporters after a hearing on Bannon's trial on July 11 in Washington. Steve Bannon's attorney David Schoen talks to reporters after a hearing on Bannon's trial on July 11 in Washington. Each count could carry a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a maximum fine of $100,000. The subpoena was issued Sept. 23, 2021, and the committee and full House voted to hold Bannon in contempt. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in November. Amerling told the jury Tuesday that the committee's interest in seeking Bannon's testimony was related to alleged efforts to block the certification of Joe Biden's election as president, his contacts with Trump in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, and participation in pre-Jan. 6 strategy sessions at a downtown D.C. hotel where Trump allies gathered to discuss how to keep Trump in power. "Mr. Bannon had played multiple roles concerning the events of Jan. 6," Amerling testified. Bannon also is linked to two telephone contacts with Trump on Jan. 5, 2021, according to records gathered by the House investigating committee. Ketchup, regrets, blood and anger: A guide to the Jan. 6 hearings' witnesses and testimony President Donald Trump congratulates his adviser Steve Bannon in January 2017 during the swearing-in of senior staff in the East Room of the White House in Washington. President Donald Trump congratulates his adviser Steve Bannon in January 2017 during the swearing-in of senior staff in the East Room of the White House in Washington. The calls were highlighted during the panel's public hearing last week, examining the role of extremist groups who answered Trump's call to gather in Washington. After their initial call Jan. 5, Bannon said on his podcast, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. “It’s all converging, and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack,” Bannon said. “Right, the point of attack tomorrow. I’ll tell you this. It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. And all I can say is strap in.” What did Trump do on Jan. 6? On Jan. 6, Trump was out of public view as aides urged him to act. A breakdown of those 187 minutes. | |
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| 07-20-22 12:29pm - 792 days | #229 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Attorney General Garland says Trump would not be indicted before the November election. Because the federal government would not announce any investigation of a major political figure during the election season. Which is why the FBI reported an investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails during her election season against Dongle Trump: Hillary Clinton was a Democrat, so the FBI was allowed to announce an investigation. But Dongle Trump is a Republican, shielded by the might of the law. Are politician hypocrites? Do bears shit in the woods? Trump enemies’ tax audits under review; IRS defends exams of ex-FBI chiefs. Trump used the federal government as a weapon to punish and harass his enemies. But the federal government denies it did anything wrong. How can you tell when an employee of the federal government is lying? If his lips move when he talks. ------- ------- Attorney General Merrick Garland memo suggests no federal indictment of Donald Trump before November election USA TODAY David Jackson, USA TODAY July 20, 2022, 10:24 AM WASHINGTON – A Justice Department memo suggests Donald Trump won't face any federal indictment over the insurrection Jan. 6, 2021, before the election in November, legal analysts said. Attorney General Merrick Garland reminded U.S. Department of Justice officials that extra steps are required before action can be taken in politically sensitive cases during the fall election season – and unprecedented charges against a former president would qualify. Legal analysts said Garland restated a long-standing policy that discourages the announcement of investigations or indictments of major political figures on the cusp of elections because it could be construed as interference. In the memo May 25, Garland: Cited policies "governing the opening of criminal and counter-intelligence investigations by the Department, including its law enforcement agencies, related to politically sensitive individuals and entities," especially during campaigns. The Trump investigations: Inquiries set to accelerate in coming weeks: Where they stand The Jan. 6 committee:For the first time, panel alleges Trump, others engaged in criminal conspiracy to overturn election Did not mention Trump or any other politician who may be under investigation. Justice Department officials who charged hundreds of people for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, haven't said whether their investigation touches on Trump specifically. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland cautioned Justice Department officials about bringing charges in politically sensitive cases before an election. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland cautioned Justice Department officials about bringing charges in politically sensitive cases before an election. Reminded officials they are subject to the federal Hatch Act, which "generally prohibits Department employees from engaging in partisan political activity while on duty, in a federal facility, or using federal property." Takeaways: Garland reminded prosecutors that they need extra approvals for cases involving political figures in the weeks leading up to an election. What they're saying: Anti-Trump commentators cast the memo – first reported by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow – as an excuse for inaction against Trump. The Maddow Blog says the memo "doubles down" on the policy of Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr "against investigating candidates without approval." Attorneys, including Trump critics, noted that the caution makes sense because the department wants to avoid the perception of politically motivated investigations. In a video posted on Twitter, former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., a former federal prosecutor, described the Garland guidance as "a reaffirmation of what has been Justice Department policy for a long, long time." Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted, "Yes, Garland extends Barr’s instruction that investigations of presidential candidates and their senior aides must be cleared by the AG. That would typically happen in any event." Mariotti said, "Although that is not explicitly stated in the policy, I agree that we are unlikely to see an indictment of Trump or his associates before November." He added, "I don’t consider Garland’s memo to be a significant change from DOJ policy before Biden’s presidency." Bottom line: Few people expect the Justice Department to indict Trump in the weeks before the November midterm election. Bear in mind: As in previous guidance, the Garland memo does not foreclose all investigative action. It only calls for more consultation before moving forward in a politically sensitive case. Garland's guidance applies to the federal Department of Justice, not to law enforcement officials in Georgia. An Atlanta-based grand jury is investigating Trump's attempts to pressure state election officials to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden in Georgia. The Georgia story:Atlanta-area DA weighs whether to call Trump to testify before grand jury in election fraud probe Bottom line: The Garland memo tells employees that "we must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department's reputation for fairness, neutrality, and non-partisanship." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Garland memo to DOJ lays out steps for "politically sensitive" cases | |
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| 07-20-22 03:03pm - 792 days | #230 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Trump called him last week asking him to decertify President Biden’s win in his state. Can we dump Sleepy Joe Biden and put Dongle Trump back in the Whitest House? Will Dongle do a better job of man of action, going after his personal enemies with the full force and might of the federal government, no matter where they are hiding? And put Sleepy Joe Biden and his infamous son in jail, where they really belong, for holding back Dongle Trump's plans to make America the land of the Free, White, Empowered Men of Action? And Dongle Trump has exposed Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos as a RINO, which might be even lower than a scummy Democrat. Power to the people. Take back America, and give to Dongle Trump, the truly elected leader of our proud nation. ----- ----- Wisconsin GOP leader says Trump's still begging him to decertify 2020 election HuffPost Ben Blanchet July 19, 2022, 8:30 PM A top Republican in Wisconsin says former President Donald Trump swung and missed in an attempt to coax him into decertifying the state’s 2020 presidential election results. Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Trump called him last week asking him to decertify President Biden’s win in his state. Vos told Wisconsin’s WISN-TV that the call followed the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month that limited absentee ballot drop-box locations to election offices. Trump, after the ruling, falsely claimed on his Truth Social platform that the ruling meant he won Wisconsin because the state used “corrupt and scandal-ridden Scam Boxes.” The former president later made a pitch to Vos and suggested he had a “decision to make” on the outcome of the election in the state. Biden beat Trump in the state by fewer than 21,000 votes, and he received the state’s 10 Electoral College votes. “It’s very consistent, he makes his case, which I respect. He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin,” Vos said of Trump’s call last week. “I explained it’s not allowed under the Constitution. He has a different opinion, and then he put out the [post]. So that’s it.” Vos referred to a post Trump later added to Truth Social that referred to him as a RINO, or “a Republican in name only.” “Looks like Speaker Robin Vos, a long time professional RINO always looking to guard his flank, will be doing nothing about the amazing Wisconsin Supreme Court decision,” Trump wrote. “The Democrats would like to sincerely thank Robin, and all of his fellow RINOs, for letting them get away with ‘murder.’” Vos reiterated that the ruling, however, doesn’t “go back and say what happened in 2020 was illegal.” “I think we all know Donald Trump is Donald Trump,” Vos said. “There’s very little we can do to control or predict what he will do.” Trump, in a response to the interview on Tuesday night, continued to assert that it was Vos’ “time to act” in response to the ruling. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. | |
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| 07-21-22 01:02am - 792 days | #231 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Secret Service deleted Jan. 6 text messages after House requested them. The Secret Service says it did nothing wrong in deleting the message, even though legally they did not have the right to delete the messages. The Secret Service says the deletions were innocent and done in error. “I smell a rat,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told a reporter Wednesday. In other words, Secret Service agents can lie to defend themselves. Will they be held accountable? They broke the law deleting the messages. But they claim they are honorable and truthful. Shades of Brett Kavanaugh, the beer-drinking good old boy who cries when people don't swallow his lies. --------- --------- Secret Service deleted Jan. 6 text messages after House requested them Yahoo News Tom LoBianco July 20, 2022, 3:17 PM The Secret Service erased text messages that could help verify, or rebut, some of the most stunning testimony about President Donald Trump’s actions during the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Secret Service officials say the wiped messages were part of a prescheduled “reset” of their phones. But House lawmakers have cast doubt on that explanation for the missing messages, which cover critical moments leading up to and through the Jan. 6 insurrection. “I smell a rat,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told a reporter Wednesday. Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks during a hearing of the House's select committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks during a hearing of the House select committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Members of the House select committee looking into the events of Jan. 6, as well as others, have been pushing the Secret Service to turn over texts and other records as part of their investigations into the attack. Last week, news reports revealed that the Secret Service had deleted the requested messages, according to the government watchdog that oversees the Department of Homeland Security. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi called the reports “categorically false” at the time. The agency was engaged in a prescheduled reset of devices before receiving the request from the DHS inspector general to protect records, according to a Secret Service statement. However, the text messages were requested before they were deleted. “Congress informed the Secret Service it needed to preserve and produce documents related to January 6 on January 16, 2021, and again on January 25, 2021, for four different committees who were investigating what happened, according to the source,” CNN reported Wednesday. “The Secret Service migration did not start until January 27, 2021.” Immediately following the reports, the Jan. 6 committee, which includes Raskin, subpoenaed the Secret Service for the texts. Earlier this week, the agency turned over one text message to the panel, according to a committee aide who said lawmakers are still looking at ways to find the messages. “We have concerns about a system migration that we have been told resulted in the erasure of Secret Service cell phone data,” the Jan. 6 committee said in a statement released Wednesday. A committee staffer said Wednesday in a briefing with reporters that “members are still determining exactly how to get the information we’re seeking.” The Secret Service got pulled into an offshoot of the sweeping Jan. 6 hearings late last month after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson relayed a story from fellow aide Tony Ornato — who previously served in the Secret Service and is currently a high-ranking official in the organization — that Trump lunged at his security detail and attempted to force them to drive him to the Capitol to join the rioters. Secret Service officials, speaking anonymously, denied that account. But Ornato and another agent, Bobby Engel, have not yet spoken publicly about the incident. A Washington, D.C., police officer who was part of Trump’s motorcade that day confirmed Hutchinson’s testimony in an interview with House investigators recently, according to a CNN report. The stunning depiction of Trump thrusting at his own protectors caught the most attention, but House investigators have uncovered multiple other events about which questions remain. In one particularly chilling scene recounted by former Vice President Mike Pence’s ex-counsel, Greg Jacob, agents wanted to drive Pence from a secure location beneath the Capitol to Joint Base Andrews during the Capitol assault. The seemingly innocuous request, however, may have been enough for Trump to claim that the election result was never certified and that therefore the transfer of power to Joe Biden was not complete, based on Trump lawyer John Eastman’s legal reasoning. “I know you, I trust you, but you’re not the one behind the wheel,” Pence told one of his agents with him at the time, according to Jacob. Pence and his team have not explained exactly what he meant by that statement. But Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker reported in their book, “I Alone Can Fix It,” that Pence was wary of unchecked support for Trump among the rank and file of the Secret Service. And Pence’s former national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, testified that he had to tell Ornato on Jan. 6 not to direct that the vice president be driven away from the Capitol. _____ The rioters got within two doors of Vice President Mike Pence's office. See how in this 3D explainer from Yahoo Immersive. | |
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| 07-21-22 01:19am - 792 days | #232 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
California beachfront land taken from black family returned in ceremony. The land was taken in 1924. It's now 2022. Around 98 years later. So when the law sets limits for the number of years a case can be disputed, there are sometimes ways around the limits. Dongle Trump is considering holding a protest against this action, taking property away from White people and giving it back to Black people. ----- ----- California beachfront land taken from Black family returned in ceremony Reuters Rollo Ross July 20, 2022, 6:08 PM By Rollo Ross MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) - A century-old racial injustice was righted on Wednesday when the deed to Los Angeles County beachfront property that had been taken from an African-American couple was ceremoniously returned to their heirs. Dignitaries participating in the ceremony called the return of government land unjustly acquired from Black citizens unprecedented in the United States and a model for other jurisdictions to follow. The property now belongs to Marcus and Derrick Bruce, great-grandsons of Willa and Charles Bruce, who said they will share the proceeds with their extended family. Derrick Bruce attended Wednesday's ceremony along with his son Anthony Bruce, who will manage the property, which houses a lifeguard training facility. Los Angeles County will now lease the land for $413,000 per year and retain the right to buy it for $20 million. "I hope that many people are propelled to action because of this and that they understand that it does take a lot of grit. ... You've got to be protesting if you really want to get this done," Anthony Bruce told Reuters, crediting community activist Kavon Ward with spearheading the return campaign. Bruce's Beach, 7,000 square feet (650 square meters) of prime real estate in the city of Manhattan Beach, had once been the rare resort where Black people could gather and enjoy the beach in segregated and discriminatory Los Angeles County of the early 20th century. In 1924 Manhattan Beach officials, ostensibly claiming eminent domain to build a park, forced out Willa and Charles Bruce. The land was later transferred to the state and then the county. Activists and politicians determined the real motivation for eminent domain was racism, and passed a state law last year to approve returning the land to the Bruces' heirs. Ward's campaign included a protest in 2020 that was noticed by County Supervisor Janice Hahn. "This is something that's happened across this country and if the people in power really want to make amends for what they have done to Black people, this is the way to do it - return stolen land," Ward told Reuters. Hahn said when she approached county lawyers about returning the land under these circumstances, she was told it had never been done before. "Today, we're sending a message to every government in this nation confronted with this same challenge: This work is no longer unprecedented," Hahn said at the ceremony. Dignitaries at the ceremony acknowledged two atrocities of U.S. history - slavery and the genocide of Native American people - by recognizing that the land originally belonged to the Tongva indigenous people and that it was essentially stolen from the Bruces in a country that had not granted equality to the descendants of slaves. "If the ripple effects of slavery and slavery itself did not exist, then we would not be here today," said state Senator Steven Bradford, who sponsored the state legislation behind the return. (Reporting by Rollo Ross; Writing by Daniel Trotta; editing by Donna Bryson and Leslie Adler) Tags | |
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| 07-21-22 02:57am - 792 days | #233 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
US Congress is mulling bills to stop Dongle Trump from the White House. Dongle Trump rallies his supporters with the cry: "Give me liberty or give me death!!!!" But Dongle Trump is playing it smart: he's made a deal with bestie bosom friend Vlad Putin to open hotels with the Dongle Trump brand in Moscow and other spots that are safe from savage Democrats from Hell. Hail, Dongle Trump: We love you, buddy. The Secret Service is considering holding a memorial march in honor of Dongle Trump, the bestest President of Trumperland. And maybe locking up Sleepy Joe, in a hidden closet. The Untied States of Trumperland needs a strong leader to fight and make America great again. ---- ---- Senators announce bipartisan bills to stop candidates from stealing elections NBC Universal Sahil Kapur and Frank Thorp V July 20, 2022, 10:44 AM WASHINGTON — After months of negotiating, a group of senators announced two proposals Wednesday designed to close gaps in federal law and prevent future candidates from stealing elections. The measures — called the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act and the Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act — are led by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. The bills seek to close loopholes in election law that then-President Donald Trump and his allies tried to exploit to keep him in power despite his defeat in the 2020 election. The first bill would clarify the vice president's role in counting Electoral College votes, raise the bar for members of Congress to object, and try to prevent fake slates of electors from interfering in the process. The second is aimed at protecting election workers. The bills come as the House’s Jan. 6 committee prepares to holds its last public hearing — at least for the time being — on Thursday outlining evidence it has received in connection to what it calls a plot to overturn the result of the 2020 election. “Through numerous meetings and debates among our colleagues as well as conversations with a wide variety of election experts and legal scholars, we have developed legislation that establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President," Collins, Manchin and the rest of the Senate group said in a joint statement. "We urge our colleagues in both parties to support these simple, commonsense reforms.” Preventing fake electors The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act would overhaul the 1887 Electoral Count Act by making clear that the vice president's role in confirming an election result is "solely ministerial" — that she or he doesn't have unilateral power to reject electors. It would also raise the threshold for forcing a vote on objecting to electors — from one House and Senate member to one-fifth of each chamber, the authors said. In all, 147 Republicans, including eight senators, objected to certifying electors on Jan. 6, 2021. The bill would also amend the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 to ensure that candidates of both parties receive resources to aid the transition, in limited circumstances "when the outcome of an election is reasonably in doubt," according to a summary. One of the thorniest issues for the group was how to make sure the correct electors for the winning candidate are counted. The legislation would identify the state's governor unless otherwise specified by the state, as the person responsible for submitting the election result — an attempt to avoid dealing with competing slates of electors. The Jan. 6 committee has outlined how Trump's team organized groups of fake electors in multiple states to try to overturn the 2020 election result in his favor; nearly a dozen false electors in Georgia have been hit with subpoenas in a criminal investigation into election interference in the state. The bill would also provide a process for expedited judicial review, featuring a three-judge panel and the possibility to directly appeal to the Supreme Court if a candidate wants to challenge the submitted electors. "This accelerated process is available only for aggrieved presidential candidates and allows for challenges made under existing federal law and the U.S. Constitution to be resolved more quickly," says the summary of the legislation. And the legislation would eliminate "a provision of an archaic 1845 law that could be used by state legislatures to override the popular vote," the summary continued. The second bill, the Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act, would double penalties under federal law for people "who threaten or intimidate election officials, poll watchers, voters, or candidates," the summary of the proposals said. It would also add Postal Service guidance to improve the processes for mail-in ballots, reauthorize the Election Assistance Commission for five years and make clear that electronic election records must be preserved. Bipartisan support Apart from Manchin and Collins, other members of the group include Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.; Mitt Romney, R-Utah; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Chris Coons, D-Del.' and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Some senators are sponsoring one of the two bills but not the other. "The January 6th Commission has added urgency to what we made clear in the draft proposal we released in February: there are straightforward and sorely-needed steps we can take to protect and modernize the electoral count process — steps that the election law experts across the political spectrum we worked with can support," Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said in a statement. Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Wednesday she expects to hold a hearing on the election proposals soon. “I believe it'll be before the August recess. We'd like to get it done and move on this as soon as possible," she told NBC News. It is unclear when the legislation may come to a vote in the full Senate. With a packed calendar in the coming weeks, it is likely to be after the August recess. Some senators have also suggested that it can be voted on in the lame-duck session after the midterm election. The bills would address the process of counting and certifying the vote, a bipartisan pursuit. They largely avoid the topic of voting rights and would not set federal requirements for ballot access, a cause that Senate Republicans vigorously oppose. "This is a good bill — specifically the provisions clarifying the Vice President’s limited role and increasing the threshold for objections," Sasse said in a statement. "This bill cleans up some ambiguity in the ECA that was dishonestly exploited on January 6th. For months, some progressives have tried to hijack these talks and use this as an opportunity to federalize elections, but that’s not going to fly." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who blessed the bipartisan negotiations months ago, reiterated his confidence in the working group at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 "needs to be fixed," McConnell said. "And I've been in constant touch with Senator Collins and sympathetic with what she's trying to achieve." House leaders also want to address the issue. House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told NBC News that the proposals appear to be "a meaningful step in the right direction to ensure that the peaceful transfer of power will continue to take place — uninterrupted by individuals who attempt to overthrow the U.S. government." He said he also wants to see the Jan. 6 committee's legislative recommendations, which he expects to come "shortly" in preliminary form. "Certainly their work has exposed the need for us to act in Congress to prevent the type of attempted theft that was being undertaken by Donald Trump and his cronies," he said. | |
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| 07-21-22 12:10pm - 791 days | #234 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
This is not right. A homeless man was shot and killed for threating the life of a police officer. Police have the right to defend themselves. Especially against the homeless. The homeless man was carrying a bicycle part, which he could have used to attack the police officer. So why is LA city going to have to pay cash to the homeless man's family, instead of making the cops involved pay? Something is not right. Bring back Dongle Trump: he will fix America, so if people get shot, it will be the right ones who get shot. In a different case, police shot a man who was carrying a six-inch, black metal latch actuator. The man was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive. The moral of the story: do not carry anything if you are outside your house. If you don't have a house, do not go out. ---- ---- Jury awards $2 million to family of homeless man shot and killed by LAPD LA Times Christian Martinez July 20, 2022, 10:07 PM The family of a homeless man who was shot and killed by a Los Angeles police sergeant was awarded more than $2 million Tuesday by a federal jury following a wrongful death and excessive force suit. Victor Valencia, 31, was killed Jan. 11, 2020, after LAPD Sgt. Colin Langsdale responded to the Palms neighborhood for reports of a person carrying a gun and acting erratically. Valencia was carrying a bicycle part, not a gun, and was on his way to his sister's house, the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint. Langsdale said he shot Valencia after the man began pointing the object at him. The shooting was cleared by the Los Angeles Police Commission in November 2020. But in the suit filed in federal court in March 2021, Valencia's parents and now 9-year-old son alleged that Langsdale had used excessive force resulting in Valencia's death. "An eye witness testified that the shooting did not happen the way Sgt. Langsdale described and that Mr. Valencia looked erratic and was moving his arms above his shoulder level in the air but was not pointing the object at anyone and was not threatening anyone," the law office of attorney Dale Galipo, who represented Valencia's family, wrote in a release. On Tuesday, after a five-day trial, the jury unanimously found true the allegations of excessive force, awarding the family $2,165,000. The verdict came a day after Los Angeles police shot and injured a 39-year-old man who was also reportedly holding an object police mistook for a gun. On Monday evening, police responded to Leimert Park for reports of an assault with a deadly weapon by a person with a "black, semiautomatic handgun." "Officers made contact with the suspect, who they believed was in possession of a handgun," the Los Angeles Police Department said in a release. Officers shot the man, later identified as Jermaine Petit, after he pointed the object at them while walking away, police said. Petit was taken to a hospital in serious condition and is expected to survive. A "six-inch, black metal latch actuator" was recovered at the scene, police said. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. | |
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| 07-21-22 12:21pm - 791 days | #235 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Blacks ask for the Department of Justice to investigate the death of Jayland Walker. Jayland was a 25-year-old black man who was allegedly shot at least 40 times by eight Akron police officers. I write allegedly, because it hasn't yet been proven that each of the officers actually hit the dead man with a bullet. I'm not sure why the police officers needed to shoot the black man. But if you're going to shoot somebody, I've read that police are trained to empty their weapons at least once, and if the guy is still a threat, to reload and keep firing. Police are not as efficient as Dongle Trump, who boasted that if he was involved in a shooting, he would rush in with his bare hands and stop the culprit. Bring back Dongle Trump, the man of action. ------ ------ Attorney: DOJ should investigate Jayland Walker's death Associated Press July 20, 2022, 12:58 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. AKRON, Ohio (AP) — An attorney for the family of Jayland Walker, the 25-year-old Black man killed in a hail of police gunfire last month in Ohio, on Wednesday joined the national NAACP and its Akron branch in calling for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Walker's death. Attorney Bobby DiCello made the call while questioning the integrity of the current investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which was asked by Akron officials to examine the June 27 shooting. A preliminary autopsy shows that Walker was shot at least 40 times by eight Akron police officers who fired dozens of rounds at the end of car and foot pursuit that began with an attempted traffic stop for minor equipment violations. National NAACP President Derrick Johnson in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week asked the DOJ to investigate Walker's death. A spokesperson for the Ohio Attorney General's Office issued a statement after Wednesday's news conference saying: “BCI shall remain steadfast in our commitment to independent investigations regarding officer involved shootings, and this case is no different.” An Akron spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. | |
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| 07-22-22 07:21am - 790 days | #236 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Fox News reveals the real truth: Not only is Dongle Trump the secret love-child of Adolf Hitler and his lover Eva Braun, but Dongle shares genetic material with Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. And now Fox News has shown that not only is the Federal Government corrupt, but the Justice Department is corrupt as well. They forced Dongle Trump from the Whitest House, in spite of Dongle Trump being the clear winner of the election in 2020. Republicans are rallying around Dongle, and vow to take to the streets with AK47s and 357 Magnum revolvers, and even Dirty Harry's sidearm, the fearsome 44 Magnum revolver, to put Dongle back in the Whitest House and put Sleepy Joe in jail, where he really belongs. "Lock him up," chant the Republicans, while raising their arms in salute of the Fuhrer Dongle Trump. ------ ------ Jan. 6 hearing dominates top TV networks — except one Associated Press DAVID BAUDER July 22, 2022, 3:14 AM NEW YORK (AP) — America's top television networks on Thursday turned prime time over to a gripping account of former President Donald Trump's actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — with one prominent exception. The top-rated news network, Fox News Channel, stuck with its own lineup of commentators. Sean Hannity denounced the “show trial” elsewhere on TV just as he was featured in it, with the House's Jan. 6 committee examining his tweets to Trump administration figures. Hannity aired a soundless snippet of committee members entering the hearing room as part of a lengthy monologue condemning the proceedings. That was all Fox News Channel viewers saw of the hearing. “It's really just a cheap, selectively edited political ad,” Hannity told his viewers. Meanwhile, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and MSNBC aired the second prime-time hearing, focusing on Trump's real-time response to the riot. The committee said it was the last hearing until September. “This very much sounded like a closing argument, certainly of this chapter of their investigation, and it was profound,” ABC News anchor David Muir said. About 20 million people watched the first prime-time hearing on June 9, the Nielsen Company said. Generally, reaching that big an audience in mid-July would be a long shot, as it is the least-watched television month of the year. Yet the seven daytime hearings have proven something of an oddity. Buoyed by strong word-of-mouth, the hearings grew in audience as they went along. CNN, for example, reached 1.5 million people for the second daytime hearing on June 16, and 2.6 million for the last one on June 12, Nielsen said. Fox's broadcast station in New York, which did not air last month's prime-time hearing, showed the Thursday night session. There's little interest at Fox News Channel, which televised the daytime hearings, although only up until the demarcation line of the network's popular show “The Five.” Ratings show that roughly half the network's audience flees when the hearings start, and return when they're over. That would be a much more serious problem in prime time, where Fox's audience is more than double what it is during the day. Fox News Channel's decision not to air the prime-time hearings is almost certainly a function of the demands of their audience and prime-time hosts, said Nicole Hemmer, an expert on conservative media and author of the upcoming book “Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s.” “It creates an awkward situation when a host like Tucker Carlson tells his audience that the hearings are a debacle not worth their time, and then the network preempts his show to air them,” Hemmer said. Sean Hannity told his viewers that the Jan. 6 hearing was Sean Hannity told his viewers that the Jan. 6 hearing was "really just a cheap, selectively edited political ad." (AP) Carlson found plenty of things to talk about besides the hearing Thursday, including President Joe Biden's COVID-19 diagnosis, a “meltdown” by liberals over the U.S. Supreme Court's abortion decision, the failure of drug legalization, “climate crazies” and “trans-affirming” lessons in Los Angeles schools. Hannity's lead story was the “grand finale” of the Jan. 6 committee, although he didn't show it — at least with the sound on. He brought on guests like GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, who said that if the hearings have done anything, “they've exonerated President Trump and the people supporting him.” Talk show host Mark Levin told Hannity the U.S. Justice Department is corrupt because “the Colbert 9 are roaming free.” That's a reference to federal prosecutors' decision not to bring charges against nine people associated with CBS’ “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” who were arrested in a U.S. Capitol complex building last month. While Hannity was on the air, the Jan. 6 committee showed tweets that Hannity and other Fox News personalities had sent to Trump administration officials, warning that the Capitol riot was making the president look bad. In a closing statement, Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice chair, noted that most of its case against Trump has been made by Republicans. She ridiculed the notion that the committee's findings would be much different if Republicans other than she and Rep. Adam Kinzinger were members. “Do you really think that Bill Barr is such a delicate flower that he would wilt under cross-examination?” she said. The Republicans watching Fox News Channel on Thursday night didn't hear her. | |
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| 07-22-22 07:50am - 790 days | #237 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Why doesn't the Jan. 6 commitee understand: Dongle Trump wanted to make America great again. That's why he wanted to stay in the Whitest House. Let's face it: if there's a choice between Dongle Trump, the fightenest President of the Untied States of Trumperland, and a sleazy Democrat like Sleepy Joe, who would you pick to run the country? Also, Dongle Trump has revealed secret plans that only Dongle Trump knew about, how he was protecting the country from rabid Democrats and other evil doers who were scheming evil plots. The Fake News does not understand the inner workings of Dongle Trump's mind. ---- ---- Key takeaways from Thursday's primetime Jan. 6 hearing on the Capitol attack Yahoo News Caitlin Dickson July 21, 2022, 10:29 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. Thursday’s primetime hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol shined an unflattering light on then-President Donald Trump’s reaction to the violent riot waged by his supporters. Committee members Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., walked viewers through a minute-by-minute recap of how Trump spent the hours that the riot raged, relying heavily on testimony from a variety of witnesses who were in the White House that day, including former national security adviser Matthew Pottinger and former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, both of whom testified in person on Capitol Hill. The gripping presentation focused on the 187 minutes between the end of Trump’s Jan. 6 speech at the Ellipse, south of the White House, at around 1:10 p.m., and when he finally released a videotaped statement, at 4:17 p.m., in which he grudgingly urged his supporters to leave the Capitol. A video of former President Donald Trump is played on a screen above seated members of the Jan. 6 select committee and dozens of other people at tables before them. A video of Donald Trump is played on a screen at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday. (Al Drago/Pool via AP) Kinzinger and Luria made the case that the violent attack on the Capitol was the culmination of Trump’s multistep effort to remain in power despite having lost the 2020 election, and that his failure to call off the mob intent on blocking the certification of the Electoral College votes showing Joe Biden had won was a deliberate choice. By effectively delaying the electoral vote count by several hours, Kinzinger said, “The mob was accomplishing President Trump’s purpose, so of course he did not intervene.” “On Jan. 6, when lives and our democracy hung in the balance, President Trump refused to act because of his selfish desire to stay in power,” said Luria. Using a combination of live and videotaped testimony, text messages sent by Trump allies, and phone transcripts from those demanding that Trump call off his supporters, the committee filled in the gaps on how Trump had spent that fateful afternoon on Jan. 6. Here are some of the most shocking revelations. Inaction at the Capitol Luria said the committee’s investigation found that Trump knew the Capitol was under attack within 15 minutes of leaving the stage following his rally at the Ellipse. And yet, she said, from 1:25 p.m. until shortly after 4 p.m., he remained in the White House dining room watching the siege unfold on Fox News. Witnesses who were at the White House during that time period described how advisers, allies on Capitol Hill and the president’s own children repeatedly urged Trump to make a statement condemning the violence and telling his supporters to leave the Capitol. But instead of heading to the White House briefing room to record such a message, Luria said, Trump was busy making calls to Senators, encouraging them to object to the electoral college certification. It was only after the Defense Department had mobilized the entire National Guard, elected officials had been moved to secure locations and the failure of the insurrection was apparent that “Trump finally relented” and tweeted a video at 4:17 p.m. telling the rioters to go home, Luria said. Witnesses refuted a number of Trump’s key talking points Trump has repeatedly insisted, without evidence, that prior to Jan. 6 he offered to send 20,000 National Guard troops to secure the Capitol that day but that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to accept the offer. Hours before Thursday’s hearing got underway, Trump repeated that assertion on his social media platform Truth Social. But the select committee swiftly knocked down the claim, showing clips from interviews with multiple former White House staffers, including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. Both stated definitively that they were not aware of Trump issuing orders to send the National Guard or any other law enforcement personnel to the Capitol on Jan. 6. The committee also introduced testimony from two new witnesses who confirmed some details from the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who previously testified that she was told about an alleged altercation between Trump and his Secret Service detail after the former president was told that it would not be safe for him to join his supporters at the Capitol following his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. Thursday night's witnesses, however, did not confirm details about Trump's alleged actions during the altercation. Hutchinson said she heard about the altercation, which involved Trump grabbing for the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle and lunging at Secret Service agent Robert Engel. Trump has forcefully denied the account, but on Thursday Luria revealed that the panel has since obtained “evidence from multiple sources regarding an angry exchange in the presidential SUV, including testimony we will disclose today from two witnesses who confirmed that a confrontation occurred.” One witness, who Luria described as “a former White House employee with national security responsibilities,” said they also were told by Engel and former White House deputy chief of staff Anthony Ornato that Trump was “irate” when he was told he could not go to the Capitol. The other witness, retired D.C. Metropolitan Police Sgt. Mark Robinson, was assigned to Trump’s motorcade on Jan. 6 and sat in the lead vehicle with a Secret Service agent, also known as a “T.S. agent.” In a filmed interview played at the hearing, Robinson told the committee that the T.S. agent told him that “the president was upset,” that he’d been “adamant about going to the Capitol” and that “there was a heated discussion about that.” Trump’s supporters reacted to his tweets in real time Throughout the hearing, Kinzinger and Luria wove together testimony about Trump’s inaction at the White House, the efforts by others to convince him to issue a statement condemning the rioters, and video footage of the violence unfolding at the Capitol to show how all of these aspects influenced the others. Some of the starkest examples of this were video and audio clips showing how members of the mob reacted in real time to tweets Trump sent that day, demonstrating, as Matthews said, “the impact that his words have on his supporters.” In particular, the committee showed footage of rioters reacting angrily to Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet criticizing Pence for refusing to go along with the illegal plot to block the certification of some Biden electors. Later, they played a recording of walkie-talkie communications between members of the far right group the Oath Keepers, some of whom were inside the Capitol, reading a subsequent tweet in which Trump urged the mob to “stay peaceful” and to “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement.” “He didn’t say not to do anything to the congressmen,” a person on the recording is heard saying in response to Trump’s tweet. “He didn’t ask them to stand down.” Trump’s supporters were similarly receptive when he finally did issue the video statement at 4:17 telling them to go home. In footage shot at the Capitol shortly after that tweet was sent, the rioter known as the QAnon Shaman is seen yelling: “I’m here delivering the president’s message. Donald Trump is asking us to go home,” as others in the crowd watch the president’s video statement on their phones. The committee also played a clip of testimony given last week by Stephen Ayres, an Ohio man who was charged with participating in the riot, who said that he and others at the Capitol began to disperse as soon as Trump’s video message from the Rose Garden came out. Trump refuses to stick to the script Donald Trump stands at a podium with the Presidential Seal and a microphone and points a finger downward as he makes a pained grimace of apparent frustration. This exhibit from video released by the Jan. 6 select committee shows President Donald Trump recording a video statement at the White House on Jan. 7. (House Select Committee via AP) | |
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| 07-22-22 07:52am - 790 days | #238 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
ARTICLE CONTINUES: Even after Trump finally gave in to his allies’ pleas to call off the mob and condemn the violence at the Capitol, he struggled to stick to the scripts staffers had written for him to read on camera. The committee played never-before-seen outtakes from two video messages — one filmed on Jan. 6 in the Rose Garden and a second shot on Jan. 7 in the White House. In both, Trump veered from the script, struggled to condemn those who had stormed the Capitol and continued to perpetuate his false claims of a stolen election. In a particularly telling outtake from the Jan. 7 message, Trump refuses to acknowledge that his options for staying in power have been exhausted. “This election is now over. Congress has certified the results,” Trump said before stopping. “I don’t want to say the election is over. I want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election is over, OK?” Pence’s Secret Service detail feared for their lives A slide with image of a silhouette of a person in front of a rendering of the White House reads: January 6th Committee Interview; The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives.; Voice of White House Security Detail. A slide from the video presentation during the House select committee hearing on Thursday. (House TV via Reuters Video) The committee played chilling testimony from an anonymous White House security official who described hearing “disturbing” radio communications from members of Vice President Mike Pence’s Secret Service detail while the Capitol was under siege, before Pence and his family had been moved to a secure location. “Members of the VP’s detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives,” said the official, whose voice and identity were shielded to protect his identity. “They’re screaming, saying things like, ‘Say goodbye to family.’” There will be more hearings to come Reps. Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and Elaine Luria sit at a desk with microphones and name plaques in front of flags. Rep. Liz Cheney, center, on Thursday. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Thursday’s presentation marked the eighth in the recent series of public hearings the select committee has held this summer to share the findings of its ongoing investigation into the attack on the Capitol. Though the primetime hearing had previously been billed as a “finale” of sorts, the committee’s leaders confirmed Thursday that the panel plans to reconvene again in September to share more of the findings it has continued to uncover since it began this latest round of hearings last month. “Our committee understands the gravity of this moment and the consequences for our nation,” the panel’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in her closing statement Thursday. “We have much work yet to do, and we will see you all in September.” | |
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| 07-22-22 11:45am - 790 days | #239 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
A Georgia woman who is Black died after cops say she "fell" out of a patrol car. The woman's family is suspicious. Patrol cars are supposed to be locked from the inside. So how could she have fallen out? Enquiring minds want to know: was this woman murdered by the police? Or did the police do something to cause the woman to die? There are rumors that Dongle Trump will investigate the incident: If Dongle Trump investigates, will the truth be revealed? Or covered up? Did they check if the woman had sexual relations before she died? What, exactly, happened to the woman, before she died? Unfortunately, cops don't always tell an accurate story. The story they tell about the woman kicking open a locked patrol car door seems strange. ---- ---- A Georgia woman died after she 'fell' out of a patrol car. Cruisers are supposed to be locked, an expert said. NBC Universal Tim Stelloh July 21, 2022, 6:58 PM A Georgia woman having what her family described as a mental health crisis died Thursday after authorities said she “fell out” of a patrol car last week, even though, according to a policing expert, cruisers are always supposed to be locked from the inside. Brianna Grier, 28, was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement. Grier had been in a coma since the encounter last week in Hancock County, roughly 100 miles southeast of Atlanta, her sister, Lottie Grier, said in an interview. Her ventilator was removed after a doctor told relatives that she was "brain dead," Lottie Grier said. Brianna Grier, 28, at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta after she was placed on a ventilator. (Courtesy Lottie Grier) The Grier family first spoke to Macon TV station WMAZ. In the statement, the bureau said an early investigation into the death shows that deputies arrested Grier and were taking her to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office when she "fell out of a patrol car and sustained significant injuries." The agency did not provide additional details about the circumstances of Grier's death and said the investigation into the incident, which was requested by Hancock County Sheriff Terrell Primus on July 15, is ongoing. The deputies involved in the incident have not been identified. A person who answered the phone at the sheriff’s office on Thursday declined to comment. "Something went wrong and we want answers," Brianna Grier's father, Marvin Grier, said. "Something went wrong and my daughter is gone." Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and an expert on police training, said in a text message that patrol cars are “ALWAYS supposed to be locked from the inside.” "Otherwise," he added, "prisoners would be letting themselves out all the time." Alpert said he thinks child locks are used to secure police vehicle doors. He’d never before heard of someone escaping from a cruiser, he said. Marvin Grier said his wife called authorities on the night of July 14 because their daughter, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia nearly a decade ago and was medicated for the condition but used illegal drugs to cope, was having a mental health crisis. During previous similar episodes, he said ambulances were dispatched to the family's home and she was cared for in a medical setting. Last week, two deputies came in a patrol car instead, Marvin Grier said. "She needs help," Marvin Grier recalled telling the officers. His daughter told the deputies that she'd been drinking, Marvin Grier recalled, so one of the deputies said they would detain her for intoxication until the morning, when she could get medical attention. Before their patrol car left, Marvin Grier said he watched the deputies handcuff his daughter and place her in the vehicle's back seat. They never made it to the jail, Marvin Grier said. At roughly 6 a.m. on July 15, he said an officer came to the family's home and said that Brianna "kicked the door open and jumped out of the car." She suffered a head fracture and was airlifted to Grady Memorial, her father recalled the officer saying. Authorities provided the family with no other details about what happened and they have not heard from investigators in the days since, Marvin Grier said. "Her sisters, her brothers, her babies — we need answers," Marvin Grier said. "Want to know the truth." Brianna Grier leaves behind 3-year-old twin girls, he said. | |
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| 07-22-22 01:32pm - 790 days | #240 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Steve Bannon found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress. Will Dongle Trump return to the Whitest House and issue a pardon for Steve Bannon? Or will he have to serve time in jail? Enquiring minds want to know: why didn't Dongle Trump issue pardons for himself and his children? Was that a fatal mistake on Dongle's part? ----- ----- Steve Bannon found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress Yahoo News Dylan Stableford July 22, 2022, 11:51 AM Steve Bannon, ex-White House strategist and adviser to former President Donald Trump, was found guilty by a jury Friday of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to appear before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Bannon was found guilty of two counts of criminal contempt — one for refusing to appear for a deposition before the panel and the other for refusing to produce requested documents. Each count carries a minimum potential sentence of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a fine of $100 to $1,000. The jury deliberated for a little over two hours in federal court in Washington, D.C., before returning its verdict. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols set Oct. 21 as the date for Bannon's sentencing. Bannon did not testify during the weeklong trial, and his legal team did not call any witnesses. Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Bannon thanked the jury and the court, and both he and one of his attorneys, David Schoen, indicated that they planned to appeal. His attorneys had argued that the charges against him were politically motivated and that Bannon — who was serving as an unofficial adviser to Trump at the time of the insurrection — had been engaged in good-faith negotiations with the committee over his concerns about testifying. A video of Steve Bannon is displayed on a screen above the House Select Committee. A video of Bannon is shown Thursday at a hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) “No one ignored the subpoena,” Evan Corcoran, another lawyer for Bannon, told the jury. Prosecutors had argued that he did just that. “It wasn’t optional. It wasn’t a request, and it wasn’t an invitation. It was mandatory,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Vaughn told jurors. “The defendant’s failure to comply was deliberate. It wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a mistake. It was a choice.” In October, the House voted to refer Bannon to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution after the panel unanimously recommended it. He was indicted by a federal grand jury the next month. The select committee had sought to compel him to testify about what he knew in the days and weeks leading up to the deadly siege. On Jan. 5, 2021, Bannon said on his podcast that “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.” Steve Bannon surrounded by photographers. Bannon arrives at court Friday after his trial on charges of contempt of Congress. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) “It’s going to be moving, it’s going to be quick. This is not a day for fantasy. This is a day for maniacal focus. Focus, focus, focus. We’re coming in right over the target, OK? This is the point of attack we’ve always wanted,” he said. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice chair of the committee, had said those comments indicated that Bannon had “substantial advance knowledge of the plans for Jan. 6 and is likely to have had an important role in formulating those plans.” | |
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| 07-22-22 11:17pm - 790 days | #241 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Florida police sergeant charged with battery and assault for grabbing a fellow police officer by her throat. Cops can only grab civilians by the throat. And use civilians for target practice. But a cop can't grab a fellow cop by the throat. Or use a fellow cop for target practice. Unless the cop has a helluva lawyer. Or is assisting Dongle Trump in the performance of Dongle's duties. Then the cop can do whatever Dongle Trump commands. ---- ---- Florida police sergeant seen grabbing officer by the throat is charged with battery and assault NBC Universal Tim Stelloh July 21, 2022, 10:15 PM Sunrise Police Department. A Florida police sergeant who was seen in body camera video grabbing another officer by her throat last year was charged with battery and assault on a law enforcement officer, officials said Thursday. Christopher Pullease, 47, was also charged with evidence tampering and assaulting a civilian during the Nov. 19 incident, the Broward State Attorney’s office said in a statement. Pullease, who was relieved of his supervisory duties in January, was accused of “intentionally touching or striking” the female officer against her will and assaulting her when he held pepper spray to her face, the statement said. The assault charge against the civilian, who was being arrested on what authorities described as a violent felony when the incident occurred, was prompted by Pullease holding the spray to the man’s face, the prosecutor’s office said. A probable cause affidavit obtained by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel accused Pullease of trying to “impair” his cellphone for his use in a criminal trial. In the video, which was muted and blurred by the police department to protect an internal investigation, Pullease can be seen appearing to talk to the suspect, who is handcuffed and in the back of a patrol car. The female officer can be seen approaching him and grabbing his duty belt in an apparent attempt to pull him away, according to Sunrise Police Chief Anthony Rosa. The video shows Pullease wheel around and briefly grab the officer by her throat while pushing her backward into another patrol car. He does not appear to deploy the pepper spray. In a January statement, Rosa said the sergeant, who he did not name, arrived at the scene and approached the suspect, who Rosa described as "verbally and physically resistive." Pullease “approached and engaged in a verbal altercation with the suspect in a manner that I feel was inappropriate and unprofessional," Rosa said. "This supervisor escalated the encounter instead of de-escalating an emotionally charged situation. It is our practice at the Sunrise Police Department to do everything we can to deescalate tense incidents and bring calm to chaos." Rosa also praised the female officer, noting that she was acting in accordance with department policies that call for intervention when there is an "imminent fear of engagements escalating unnecessarily." Rosa did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday and a message left on a phone number listed under Pullease's name was not immediately returned. It wasn't clear if he has a lawyer to speak on his behalf. The local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in a January statement obtained by a Florida TV station, WSVN, the union's president denounced Rosa for "publicly ridiculing" Pullease while an internal probe was underway. Pullease's status at the department wasn't immediately clear. If convicted, he faces five years in prison on the felony battery charge and five years for evidence tampering. He faces one year for the assault on an officer charge and 60 days for assault on a civilian. | |
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| 07-24-22 02:05am - 789 days | #242 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump slams Jan. 6 hearings as a hoax. Reveals that once he re-takes the Whitest House, he will show how to run a real witch hunt: the FBI, the Secret Service, the National Guard and the full might of the combined military forces of the Untied States of Trumperland will be given marching orders: use full and unconditional force to hunt down and destroy the personal enemies of Dongle J. Trump, the fightenest President of the Untied States we've ever known, greater than Washington and Lincoln and Hitler combined. "Dongle uber alles", cry Dongle's allies. "We will rise again and take you down!" -------- -------- Trump slams Jan. 6 hearings as a ‘hoax’ at Arizona campaign rally, as Pence makes rival appearance Yahoo News Nicole Darrah July 23, 2022, 7:58 AM At a rally Friday night in Arizona, former President Donald Trump railed against the panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot — and his vice president, Mike Pence, who is also contemplating a presidential run, made a rival appearance in the Grand Canyon State. Speaking in Prescott Valley in support of Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, Trump attacked the House select committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Trump said he had watched Thursday night’s hearing, which focused on what he was doing while the violent mob breached the Capitol as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. The former president called it a “hoax.” He also repudiated former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony last month, in which she detailed Trump’s apparent plan to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and tell his supporters after his “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse that he hadn’t lost the election. Donald Trump at a podium with a poster saying: Save America, President Donald J. Trump. Former President Donald Trump addresses a rally in Prescott Valley, Ariz., on Friday night. (Rebecca Noble/Reuters) Hutchinson claimed under oath that Tony Ornato, a top security official for the president, told her about an altercation on Jan. 6 in which Trump allegedly lunged at the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle, colloquially known as “the Beast,” demanding to be taken to the Capitol, and was physically restrained by a Secret Service agent, Robert Engel, when he was told he would be returning to the White House instead. According to Hutchinson, Ornato "described [Trump] as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now!'" she said. On Friday night, Trump contested Hutchinson’s testimony, saying he could not have physically done what she had claimed. The former president also denied Hutchinson’s claim that she saw a White House valet cleaning up a mess after Trump apparently smashed a plate with his lunch on it against a wall. “They have me throwing food,” Trump told the crowd. “I don’t throw food in the White House. I don’t throw food anywhere. I eat the food.” Mike Pence speaks to a crowd of supporters. Former Vice President Mike Pence talks to supporters at the University Club of Chicago in June. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images) He also railed against Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who told the members of the Jan. 6 committee that Trump pressured him, without evidence, to say the 2020 election was fraudulent. Trump called Bowers "a RINO coward who participated against the Republican Party" during the June hearing. Trump said of the House’s investigation: “Where does it stop? Where does it end? Never forget: Everything this corrupt establishment is doing to me is all about preserving their power and control over the American people, for whatever reason. They want to damage me in any form so I can no longer represent you. Footage of Trump recording a speech, subtitled: Say heinous attack on our nation. Footage of Trump recording a speech on the day after the riot is shown on a screen at the Jan. 6 committee's primetime hearing on Thursday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) “If I stayed home, took it easy, if I announced that I was not going to run any longer for political office, the persecution of Donald Trump would immediately stop,” he added. “They’re coming after me because I’m standing up for you.” Trump didn’t mention Pence on Friday night — but the two had dueling events in Arizona at which they campaigned for opposing candidates for governor. Pence, who is also contemplating running in 2024, attended two events with Karrin Taylor Robson, a development attorney who has called for moving on from the 2020 election. Next week, Trump and Pence will cross paths again in Washington, D.C. — Trump’s first visit to the nation’s capital since leaving office — where each will deliver major speeches. | |
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| 07-24-22 05:18pm - 788 days | #243 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Lindsey Graham, a Republican politican, argues that the US Constitution gives him absolute immunity for anything he does. So he can't break the law: he makes the laws. That's why we need Dongle Trump back in the Whitest House: So he can lead Republicans to glory as they make America great again. And lock up or execute scummy Democrats from Hell, such as Sleepy Joe Biden, who is trying to make problems for God-fearing Republicans. God-fearing, but not afraid of Democrats. ------ ------ Politics Lindsey Graham argues Constitution grants him 'absolute immunity' in Georgia election-interference probe, a response one former prosecutor calls 'disturbing' Charles R. Davis Jul 13, 2022, 5:03 PM Lawyers for Sen. Lindsey Graham are seeking to quash a subpoena related to the 2020 election. Graham has been asked to testify before a Georgia grand jury about calls he made to Brad Raffensperger. Graham's lawyers say the South Carolina Republican has immunity under the US Constitution. Lawyers for Sen. Lindsey Graham are arguing that the South Carolina Republican cannot be forced to testify before a Fulton County grand jury about alleged election interference, claiming he has "absolute immunity" under the US Constitution for phone calls he placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to pressure officials in Georgia to overturn President Joe Biden's victory. Graham, one of the former president's most loyal allies, was ordered earlier this month to appear before a grand jury. Others subpoenaed include Rudy Giuliani, Trump's former personal attorney. At issue are phone calls Graham is alleged to have placed in November 2020 to Raffensperger, a fellow Republican whom Trump would later pressure to "find" him the votes necessary to claim victory in the state. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal at the time, Raffensperger said that Graham had called him and suggested he throw out all mail-in ballots from counties with high rates of mismatched signatures. He refused. "We have laws in place," Raffensperger recounted saying. Graham has disputed that characterization of the phone call, insisting he only wished to know more about the state's election processes. In a filing on Wednesday with a US district court, attorneys for the senator maintained that the conversations cannot be subject to legal scrutiny and the subpoena — upheld by a Georgia state judge on Monday — should be discarded. They insist he is protected by the Constitution's speech and debate clause, which states that federal lawmakers "shall not be questioned in any other place" for their remarks during legislative sessions. Graham's phone calls, because they could potentially be used to craft new laws, fall under this "legislative sphere," the lawyers argue. In an analysis published by NBC News, Carol C. Lam, a former US Attorney, called Graham's response to the subpoena "disturbing," arguing the senator's legal response is a delay tactic that "impedes Georgia's ability to investigate possible election corruption within its borders." Kermit Roosevelt, a constitutional law expert at the University of Pennsylvania, told Insider that the argument being made by Graham's attorneys is at the very least "plausible." "The speech or debate clause, if you're just looking at the text, seems like it's about things that members of Congress say on the floor, but the court has read it more broadly," Roosevelt said. The question is whether the court will accept Graham's characterization of his intent, prima facie, or itself seek to examine the substance of his conversations before ruling on whether they were loosely "legislative" in nature. A spokesperson for the Fulton County district attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | |
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| 07-27-22 12:03pm - 785 days | #244 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Justice Department says no man is above the law. But some men are invisible to the law. Which is different. Only now is the Justice Department learning that Dongle Trump might have been involved in the Jan. 6 riots. According the Justice Department, maybe Dongle Trump was the invisible co-conspirator? Invisible to the Justice Department? Did Dongle Trump have anything to do with the Jan. 6 riots? Does the Justice Department want to know? Why is the Justice Department now asking people if Dongle Trump might have, horrors above, possibly known about the Jan. 6 riots, and maybe even had something to do with them? Justice for all. But not for the powerful, who are invisible to the Justice Department. With liberty and justice for all. With exceptions. "But in recent days, Garland has repeatedly asserted his right to investigate or prosecute anybody, including Trump, provided that is where the evidence leads." Which means the Justice Department can do what it wants. And point out how it is fair and equitable for everyone. While it can step on anyone it wants to. Or not. And it's far easier to step on the weak, than on the strong and powerful. That's why they say: "With liberty and justice for all." Sounds great. ---- ---- The New York Times Justice Department Asking Witnesses About Trump in its Jan. 6 Investigation Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush Wed, July 27, 2022 at 4:43 AM Federal prosecutors have directly asked witnesses in recent days about former President Donald Trump’s involvement in efforts to reverse his election loss, a person familiar with the testimony said Tuesday, suggesting that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation has moved into a more aggressive and politically fraught phase. Trump’s personal role in elements of the push to overturn his loss in 2020 to Joe Biden has long been established, through his public actions and statements and evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But the Justice Department has been largely silent about how and even whether it would weigh pursuing potential charges against Trump, and reluctant even to concede that his role was discussed in senior leadership meetings at the department. Asking questions about Trump in connection with an electors plot or the attack on the Capitol does not mean the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into him, a decision that would have immense political and legal ramifications. The department’s investigation into a central element of the push to keep Trump in office — the plan to name slates of electors pledged to Trump in battleground states won by Biden — now appears to be accelerating as prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington ask witnesses about Trump and members of his inner circle, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the person familiar with the testimony said. In April, before the committee convened its series of public hearings, Justice Department investigators received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump White House, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence testified to the federal grand jury in the case last week, and prosecutors have issued subpoenas and search warrants to a growing number of figures tied to Trump and the campaign to forestall his loss. A spokesperson for Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to comment, saying the Justice Department did not provide details of grand jury proceedings. The department’s questioning of witnesses about Trump and its receipt of the phone records were reported earlier by The Washington Post. If a decision were made to open a criminal investigation into Trump after he announced his intention to run in the 2024 election, as he continues to hint he might do, the department’s leadership would be required to undertake a formal consultation process, then sign a formal approval of the department’s intentions under an internal rule created by former Attorney General William Barr and endorsed by Garland. But in recent days, Garland has repeatedly asserted his right to investigate or prosecute anybody, including Trump, provided that is where the evidence leads. “The Justice Department has from the beginning been moving urgently to learn everything we can about this period, and to bring to justice everybody who was criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which is the fundamental element of our democracy,” Garland told “NBC Nightly News” in an interview broadcast Tuesday, when asked to comment on criticism that his investigation was moving too slowly. The questions about Trump focused on, among other topics, the plan he was pushing to derail congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory on Jan. 6, 2021, the person familiar with the testimony said. The two Pence aides who testified to the grand jury — Marc Short, who was his chief of staff, and Greg Jacob, who was his counsel — were present at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 4, 2021, when Trump sought to pressure Pence into embracing the plan to cite the competing slates of electors as justification to block or delay the Electoral College certification. In recent weeks, the Justice Department also seized phones from two key figures, John Eastman, the lawyer who helped develop and promote the plan to upend the Electoral College certification, and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who was at the center of the related push to send the slates of electors pledged to Trump from states Biden won. Prosecutors have also issued grand jury subpoenas to figures connected to the so-called fake electors scheme. Those who have received the subpoenas have largely been state lawmakers or Republican officials, many of whom put their names on documents attesting to the fact that they were electors for Trump from states that were won by Biden. The subpoenas, some of which have been obtained by The New York Times, show that prosecutors are interested in collecting information on a group of pro-Trump lawyers who helped to devise and carry out the plan, including Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal lawyer. There are also indications that the tense standoff between the Justice Department and congressional investigators over the transcripts of interviews conducted for the Jan. 6 committee hearings is easing. The House is set to begin handing over some of the transcripts and intends to increase the pace in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the situation. Members of the committee have said they are still considering making a criminal referral to the Justice Department in hopes of increasing the pressure on Garland to prosecute Trump. Garland shrugged off that suggestion. “I think that’s totally up to the committee,” he said in his NBC interview. “We will have the evidence that the committee has presented, and whatever evidence it gives us, I don’t think that the nature of how they style, the manner in which information is provided, is a particular significance from any legal point of view.” 2022 The New York Times Company | |
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| 07-28-22 02:48am - 785 days | #245 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump notifies CNN he will file a defamation lawsuit. CNN declares bankruptcy, gets on its knees and begs Dongle not to destroy the News service. "We were only trying to report the news," CNN cries. But Dongle remains firm: you have questioned my honor, and I must destroy you. Dongle wraps himself in the American flag, of red, white and blue. He is honorable and truthful: like General George Washington, Dongle can never tell a lie. Also, Dongle is stating that subjective belief is more important than facts. That is why Dongle deserves to be awarded billions of dollars in damages from the Untied States of Trumperland for allowing Fake News to criticize Dongle Trump, the greatest President of the Untied States of Trumperland the world has ever seen. ---- ---- Trump notifies CNN of 'intent to file' defamation lawsuit regarding his unproven election claims Yahoo News David Knowles July 27, 2022, 4:14 PM Former President Donald Trump said in a statement Wednesday that he had notified CNN he was intending to file a defamation lawsuit against the news outlet for its refusal to back his discredited claims that election fraud accounted for his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race. “I have notified CNN of my intent to file a lawsuit over their repeated defamatory statements against me,” Trump's statement said. “I will also be commencing actions against other media outlets who have defamed me and defrauded the public regarding the overwhelming evidence of fraud throughout the 2020 election.” In a letter dated July 21, 2022, and addressed to CNN's CEO Chris Licht and executive vice president and general counsel David Vigilante, lawyers for Trump cited numerous examples in which they maintain the former president was defamed. “Accordingly, I hereby demand on behalf of President Donald Trump that CNN (1) immediately take down the false and defamatory publications, (2) immediately issue a full and fair retraction of the statements identified herein in as conspicuous a manner as they were originally published, and (3) immediately cease and desist from its continued use of ‘Big Lie’ and ‘lying’ when describing President Trump’s subjective belief regarding the integrity of the 2020 election,” the letter stated. Trump’s months-long scheme to overturn his defeat to Biden has been laid bare by the House select committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Ample evidence has been put forth showing that Trump was told by staffers, administration officials and family members that fraud had not affected the final results. Testimony from Republicans close to the then president has also shown that he pursued a plan for state lawmakers to overturn the will of the voters by submitting slates of alternate electors. As the New York Times reported Tuesday, Trump campaign aides acknowledged in emails that those electors were “fake” and would be used to try to convince Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6. On Tuesday, Trump returned to Washington to deliver a campaign-style speech on crime that devolved into more unfounded claims about his election loss. The former president depicted the select committee as intentionally lying to defame him and spoil his chances of winning reelection. “They really want to damage me so I can no longer go back to work for you,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s going to happen.” But on Wednesday, ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl reported that the Republican National Committee has told Trump it will cease paying his legal bills should he announce himself as a 2024 presidential candidate. As of late February, Trump had filed 42 separate lawsuits since Election Day 2020 and lost them all. In December of last year, he did win a case in which Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers had asked a court to make the former president pay for the state’s legal fees in mounting a defense against Trump’s unsuccessful election lawsuit there. | |
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| 07-28-22 07:15am - 784 days | #246 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Kim says, for the sake of peace, he must fire nuclear missiles at the heart of Sourth Korea and the Untied States of Trumperland. It's with a heavy heart that he will do this, since his bestie buddy, Dongle Trump, makes his home in Florida. But South Korea and the Untied States of Trumperland have left Kim with no choice: Give me liberty or give me death, the battle cry of North Korea, is raging in Kim's warmly beating heart. Only Dongle Trump can save the day: will he make his way to North Korea and talk his bestie buddy out of shooting Sourth Korea and the Untied States with nuclear missiles? ----- ----- Kim threatens to use nukes amid tensions with U.S., S. Korea Associated Press HYUNG-JIN KIM July 28, 2022, 2:21 AM SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned he’s ready to use his nuclear weapons in potential military conflicts with the United States and South Korea, state media said Thursday, as he unleashed fiery rhetoric against rivals he says are pushing the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war. Kim’s speech to war veterans on the 69th anniversary of the end of the 1950-53 Korean War was apparently meant to boost internal unity in the impoverished country amid pandemic-related economic difficulties. While Kim has increasingly threatened his rivals with nuclear weapons, it’s unlikely that he would use them first against the superior militaries of the U.S. and its allies, observers say. “Our armed forces are completely prepared to respond to any crisis, and our country’s nuclear war deterrent is also ready to mobilize its absolute power dutifully, exactly and swiftly in accordance with its mission,” Kim said in Wednesday's speech, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. He accused the United States of “demonizing” North Korea to justify its hostile policies. Kim said regular U.S.-South Korea military drills that he claimed target the North highlight U.S. “double standards” and “gangster-like” aspects because it brands North Korea’s routine military activities — an apparent reference to its missile tests — as provocations or threats. Kim also alleged the new South Korean government of President Yoon Suk Yeol is led by “confrontation maniacs” and “gangsters” who have gone further than previous South Korean conservative governments. Since taking office in May, the Yoon government has moved to strengthen Seoul’s military alliance with the United States and bolster its own capacity to neutralize North Korean nuclear threats including a preemptive strike capability. “Talking about military action against our nation, which possesses absolute weapons that they fear the most, is preposterous and is very dangerous suicidal action,” Kim said. “Such a dangerous attempt will be immediately punished by our powerful strength and the Yoon Suk Yeol government and his military will be annihilated.” South Korea expressed “deep regret” over Kim’s threat and said it maintains a readiness to cope with any provocation by North Korea in “a powerful, effective manner.” In a statement read by spokesperson Kang In-sun, Yoon’s presidential national security office said South Korea will safeguard its national security and citizens’ safety based on a solid alliance with the United States. It urged North Korea to return to talks to take steps toward denuclearization. Earlier Thursday, South Korea's Defense Ministry repeated its earlier position that it's been boosting its military capacity and joint defense posture with the United States to cope with escalating North Korean nuclear threats. In April, Kim said North Korea could preemptively use nuclear weapons if threatened, saying they would “never be confined to the single mission of war deterrent.” Kim’s military has also test-launched nuclear-capable missiles that place both the U.S. mainland and South Korea within striking distance. U.S. and South Korean officials have repeatedly said in the past few months that North Korea is ready to conduct its first nuclear test in five years. Kim is seeking greater public support as his country’s economy has been battered by pandemic-related border shutdowns, U.S.-led sanctions and his own mismanagement. In May, North Korea also admitted to its first COVID-19 outbreak, though the scale of illness and death is widely disputed in a country that lacks the modern medical capacity to handle it. “Kim’s rhetoric inflates external threats to justify his militarily focused and economically struggling regime,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are in violation of international law, but Kim tries to depict his destabilizing arms buildup as a righteous effort at self-defense.” Experts say North Korea will likely intensify its threats against the U.S. and South Korea as the allies prepare to expand summertime exercises. In recent years, the South Korean and U.S. militaries have canceled or downsized some of their regular exercises due to concerns about COVID-19 and to support now-stalled U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program in return for economic and political benefits. During Wednesday’s speech, Kim said his government recently set tasks to improve its military capability more speedily to respond to military pressure campaigns by its enemies, suggesting that he intends to go ahead with an expected nuclear test. But Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said North Korea won’t likely conduct its nuclear test before China, its major ally and biggest aid benefactor, holds its Communist Party convention in the autumn. He said China worries that a North Korean nuclear test could give the United States a justification to boost its security partnerships with its allies that it could use to check Chinese influence in the region. North Korea recently said it is moving to overcome the COVID-19 outbreak amid plummeting fever cases, but experts say it’s unclear if the country can lift its strict restrictions soon because it could face a viral resurgence later this year. During Wednesday’s event, Kim, veterans and others didn’t wear masks, state media photos showed. On Thursday, North Korea reported 11 fever cases, a huge drop from the peak of about 400,000 a day in May. North Korea has rejected U.S. and South Korean offers for medical relief items. It has also said it won’t return to talks with the United States unless it first abandons its hostile polices on the North, in an apparent reference to U.S.-led sanctions and U.S.-South Korean military drills. | |
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| 08-01-22 03:00pm - 780 days | #247 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Senator Lindsey Fuckall is saying he's above the law as a Senator. No one can know what he thinks or does or says, because the law does not apply to him. God save the Queen, the Republic, and the GOP. Also, Senator Fuckall is saying there is no proof that he tried to stab Sleepy Joe Biden in the back. "Where's the blood on my dagger?", cries Senator Lindsey. "There's no blood on this dagger. I asked my Republican friends to wash it clean. So I am innocent of all crimes moral and immoral!!!!" ---- ---- Sen. Graham challenges 2020 Georgia election probe subpoena Associated Press KATE BRUMBACK August 1, 2022, 10:31 AM ATLANTA (AP) — As expected, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is challenging a subpoena to testify before a special grand jury that's investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others broke any laws when they tried to overturn Joe Biden's win in Georgia. Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, received a subpoena that was issued on July 26 and orders him to appear before the special grand jury to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers said in a court filing. Graham is seeking to have the challenge to the subpoena heard in federal court in Atlanta rather than before the Fulton County Superior Court judge who’s overseeing the special grand jury. The senator is one of the Trump allies who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants to question as part of her investigation into what she alleges was “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” Graham had said repeatedly that he would fight the subpoena once he received it, which happened last week, according to his lawyers. He has denied meddling in Georgia's election. In a court filing last month, Willis, a Democrat, wrote that Graham made at least two telephone calls to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and members of his staff in the weeks after Trump’s loss to Biden, asking about reexamining certain absentee ballots “to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.” When he made those calls, Graham “was engaged in quintessentially legislative factfinding — both to help him form election-related legislation, including in his role as then-Chair of the Judiciary Committee, and to help inform his vote to certify the election,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing on Friday. Graham's lawyers cite a provision of the U.S. Constitution that they say “provides absolute protection against inquiry into Senator Graham's legislative acts.” They also argue “sovereign immunity" prevents a local prosecutor from summoning a U.S. senator “to face a state ad hoc investigatory body.” And they assert that Willis has failed to demonstrate “the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ necessary to order a high-ranking federal official to testify.” Willis' office will respond in court and expects Graham to testify before the special grand jury, spokesperson Jeff DiSantis said. Given that Graham has been summoned to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers are seeking expedited consideration of his motion to quash. Graham had previously filed a federal court challenge in South Carolina to try to stop Willis' efforts to compel him to testify. Before a judge there could hold a hearing, he withdrew that case and agreed to file any challenges to a subpoena in the investigation in either state superior court or federal court in Georgia, according to a court filing. U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, a Georgia Republican, filed a similar challenge in federal court after he received a subpoena to testify before the special grand jury. After hearing arguments from his lawyers and from Willis' office, a federal judge last week declined to quash his subpoena. U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May sent the matter back to Fulton County Superior Court, saying that there are at least some questions that Hice may be compelled to answer. If disagreements arise over whether Hice is protected under federal law from answering certain questions, he can bring those issues back to her to settle, she said. Willis has confirmed that the investigation’s scope includes a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger during which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly described his call to Raffensperger as “perfect.” ___ Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report. | |
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| 08-01-22 08:13pm - 780 days | #248 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security seem unsure why Congress wants to know about secret messages sent by text. Does Congress have the right to read secret messages? Can Congress or the Department of Justice sue the Secret Service and Homeland Security for deleting texts that are supposed to be kept? Enquiring minds want to know: is the Secret Service and Homeland Security above the law, just like Dongle Trump and the GOP? Will Sleepy Joe Biden let the Secret Service and DHS off the hook, or have them arrested for obstruction of justice? ----- ----- DHS watchdog asked the Secret Service for all Jan. 6 texts, then retracted the request in an email NBC Universal Julia Ainsley August 1, 2022, 4:03 PM The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog agency, which in February 2021 requested all Secret Service text messages sent around Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot, withdrew the request five months later, according to an email obtained by the top Democrats on two House committees. On July 27, 2021, DHS Deputy Inspector General Thomas Kait sent an email telling Jim Crumpacker, a senior official at DHS, “Jim, please use this email as a reference to our conversation where I said we no longer request phone records and text messages from the USSS relating to the events of January 6th,” referring to the U.S. Secret Service. The email was obtained by the House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. They sent a letter to the DHS inspector general’s office Monday referring to the email and noting that in December, five months after he retracted his request for Secret Service text messages, Kait again asked the Secret Service for the texts. Reps. Maloney and Thompson have requested communications from the DHS inspector general related to the July 2021 email and also asked for Kait to make himself available to testify by Aug. 15. It was not until this July that DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari told Congress that the Secret Service emails from Jan. 6, 2021, were missing. Spokespeople at the Secret Service have said the agency wiped the messages as part of a planned phone systems migration that essentially restored all phones back to factory settings. The Washington Post reported last week that in February 2021, Inspector General Cuffari’s office decided not to collect or review phones to try to recover the missing messages. The missing text messages have now called into question not only whether the Secret Service took steps to actively obscure the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but also why Cuffari did not alert Congress about the missing text messages sooner. The DHS inspector general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | |
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| 08-02-22 12:06pm - 779 days | #249 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Democrats are paying to support their enemies. Why? ----- ----- Trump-targeted Republican blasts Dems for subsidizing challenger Reuters David Morgan August 1, 2022, 3:35 PM America First Policy Institute summit in Washington By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican targeted by Donald Trump for voting to impeach the former president in 2021, accused Democrats on Monday of subsidizing the "entire campaign" of his Trump-endorsed challenger in Tuesday's primary election. Meijer, who has been censured by two county Republican parties for opposing Trump and repudiated by a third, is locked in a close race for renomination against John Gibbs, a far-right Republican and former Trump administration official who questions Democratic President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory. "You would think that the Democrats would look at John Gibbs and see the embodiment of what they say they most fear," Meijer wrote in an opinion article that appeared on Monday in the online newsletter, Common Sense. "Instead they are funding Gibbs." Democrats are promoting Gibbs and other far-right candidates in the hopes of bettering their odds in the November midterm elections, when Republicans are widely favored to win back control of the House of Representatives. Nationwide, Democrats have spent millions on candidates who echo Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, even as party leaders say those very same candidates pose a threat to U.S. democracy. They have made similar moves in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois. Meijer accused Democrats of selling out "any pretense of principle for political expediency — at once decrying the downfall of democracy while rationalizing the use of their hard-raised dollars to prop up the supposed object of their fears." He cited two Democratic members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack - Jamie Raskin and Elaine Luria - for supporting the campaign against him. Raskin and Luria did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Meijer, one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Democrats have launched a $435,000 ad buy to promote Gibbs in the final days of the Michigan primary campaign. That sum dwarfs the $345,000 in contributions that Gibbs' campaign has received since last November, according to Federal Election Commission documents. "The Democrats are not merely attempting to boost a candidate over the finish line: They are subsidizing his entire campaign," Meijer wrote. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of the House Democrats that produced and financed the Gibbs ad, was not immediately available for comment. Meijer is not alone in his criticism of the Democratic strategy. "This decision by the DCCC to try and sink @RepMeijer — one of the few Rs to vote for impeachment — and lift his election-denying MAGA opponent in tomorrow's @GOP primary makes them an instrument of Trump's vengeance. It's wrong," tweeted David Axelrod, one-time adviser to former Democratic President Barack Obama. (Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell) | |
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| 08-02-22 12:17pm - 779 days | #250 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russia says the Untied States of Trumperland was secretly responsible to bombing Russian forces. Ex-president Dongle Trump says Sleepy Joe Biden is spending billions of US taxpayer dollars to invade the Ukraine and attack bestest buddy Vlad Putin. When will the American people wake up and remove Sleepy Joe from the Whitest House, and put Glorious Leader for Life Dongle Trump back where he truly belongs? Sleepy Joe has been having secret meeting with Dongle Trump to resolve the conflict: only when Vlad Putin comes to the table will there be a chance the war will end: but the Secret Service has a plan to assassinate Sleepy Joe and put their man Dongle Trump in charge. The Dems are holding secret talks with the GOP to transfer power back to the man who will make America great again. ---- ---- Reuters UPDATE 1-Russia says United States is directly involved in Ukraine war Tue, August 2, 2022 at 5:19 AM (Recasts) LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday said that the United States, the world's top military power, was directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine because U.S. spies were approving and coordinating Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian forces. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. Russia's defence ministry, headed by a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine's deputy head of military intelligence, had admitted to the Telegraph newspaper that Washington coordinates HIMARS missile strikes. "All this undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine," the defence ministry said. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants Ukraine to defeat Russia and has supplied billions of dollars of arms to Kyiv but U.S. officials do not want a direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian soldiers. Russia said the Biden administration was responsible for missile attacks on civilian targets in areas controlled by Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine. "It is the Biden administration that is directly responsible for all Kiev-approved rocket attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in populated areas of Donbas and other regions, which have resulted in mass deaths of civilians," the defence ministry said. Russia and the West frame the conflict in Ukraine very differently. Putin calls it a "special military operation" aimed at preventing what he says is a Western attempt to use Ukraine to threaten Russia and at protecting Russian speakers from persecution from dangerous nationalists in Ukraine. The 69-year-old Kremlin chief increasingly casts the conflict as an existential battle with the West whose outcome will reshape the global political order. Kyiv and its Western backers say Putin's claims are without foundation and that there is no justification for waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state whose borders Russia recognised. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who sometimes holidays with Putin in the Russian wilderness, said the operation in Ukraine was going to plan with Russian and Russian-backed forces pushing back Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region. "After taking control of the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic, the Donetsk People's Republic is being liberated as planned," Shoigu told top generals. He said the settlements of Hryhorivka, Berestove, Stryapivka, Pokrovske, Semyhirya and Novoluhanske had been taken recently, including the largest thermal power plant in Europe. Neither Russia nor Ukraine discloses its losses. U.S. intelligence estimates that some 15,000 Russians have been killed so far in Ukraine - equal to the total Soviet death toll during Moscow's occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-1989. Ukrainian losses are probably a little less than that, U.S. intelligence believes, according to U.S. estimates. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has given detailed estimates of its own losses. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Nick Macfie) | |
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