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LKLK (0)
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| 04-27-22 10:53am - 971 days | #30 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Republicans supporting Putin invading Ukraine. First Donald Trump, our glorious President for Life of the Untied States of Trumperland, says Putin is a genius for invading Ukraine. Now Rand Paul says that if Russia invaded Ukraine, it was only trying to take back land that belonged to Russia. Rand Paul is not saying it was right to invade Ukraine. But he is saying Ukraine was part of Russia. So maybe Russia has the right to invade Ukraine. You see the difference? A former National Security Council staffer says, based on Rand Paul comments, that Britain is now justified in attacking the Untied States of Trumperland. This is why we need a strong President: to ward off Russia (and England) from attacking the US. Bring back Donald Trump, and we can sleep peacefully in our beds, knowing that a strong President will keep us safe. ------- ------- 'Ridiculous': Rand Paul's comments on Russia's invasion of Ukraine blasted as echoing Putin's propaganda USA TODAY April 26, 2022, 4:10 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. Sen. Rand Paul got flak Tuesday for his comments on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with some people criticizing him for echoing one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's talking points. During an exchange with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Paul pointed out that Russia's attacks, in the recent past, have been on countries that were once part of the Soviet Union. Putin has publicly dismissed Ukraine's right to function as a sovereign nation separate from Russia. The Kentucky Republican's comments came during a Senate hearing with Blinken, during which Paul raised concerns about U.S. displays of support for Ukraine potentially joining the NATO military alliance, including during former President George W. Bush and President Joe Biden's administrations. He asked Blinken: "Knowing full well that Ukraine was unlikely to ever join NATO since it had already been 14 years since they said they were going to become members, why was it so important last fall — before this invasion — to continue agitating for Ukraine's admission to NATO?" More: Sen. Rand Paul backs new Emmett Till Antilynching Act, after holding up the old one Blinken responded: "It's a question of standing up for the basic principle, that we strongly adhere to, that there should be and will be an open-door policy when it comes to NATO membership." Paul, who repeatedly has opposed U.S. military involvement in other countries during his political career, questioned the decision to push for "something that we knew our adversary (Russia) absolutely hated and said was a red line." "Now, there is no justification to the invasion. I'm not saying that. But there are reasons for the invasion," said Paul, who later added he's "proud of how well the Ukrainians have fought" and is supportive of their cause. Sen. Rand Paul. Sen. Rand Paul. When Blinken noted Russia has, in the recent past, attacked countries that weren't members of NATO — specifically Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova — Paul countered with: "You could also argue the countries they've attacked were part of Russia, or part of the Soviet Union, rather." Blinken said he disagreed with that proposition, adding: "It is the fundamental right of these countries to decide their own future and their own destiny." Simil: Rand Paul delayed the historic Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson vote, and people were not happy "I'm not saying it's not," Paul responded. "But I'm saying that the countries that have been attacked, Georgia and Ukraine, were part of the Soviet Union..." Blinken jumped in: "That does not give Russia the right to attack them..." "No one's saying it does," Paul interjected. Blinken continued: " …When everything came to a head, it is abundantly clear, in President Putin's own words, that this was never about Ukraine being potentially part of NATO, and it was always about his belief that Ukraine does not deserve to be a sovereign, independent country." Related: Only one lawmaker voted against all recent legislation aimed at Russia. He's from Kentucky Blowback was swift on Paul's comments Paul's exchange with Blinken was quickly met with disapproval online, including in a critical Rolling Stone article about his comments and tweets by figures like Alexander Vindman, a former National Security Council staffer whose testimony was a key part of former President Donald Trump's first impeachment. "Paul implies that Russia is justified in attacking Ukraine because, UKR was once part of the USSR. By that logic Britain is justified in attacking the U.S. and colonial powers their former holdings. What century does he live in?" Vindman tweeted Tuesday afternoon. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., shared a video of Paul's exchange with Blinken and commented: "Rand Paul truly is ridiculous." Charles Booker, a well-known Kentucky Democrat who hopes to defeat Paul in the fall election, also criticized the senator's statements Tuesday and asked for campaign donations to help boot him out of office. "Rand Paul just attempted to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He is actively pushing Putin’s propaganda in the Senate, and I will remove him from office in November," Booker tweeted. Paul's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Morgan Watkins is The Courier Journal's chief political reporter. Contact her at mwatkins@courierjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter: @morganwatkins26. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul criticized over Russian invasion comments | |
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| 04-27-22 06:43am - 971 days | #29 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Republicans fighting to prevent election fraud. Donald Trump was the clear winner of the 2020 election. He won the right to be president of the Untied States. But scummy Democrats stole the election and put Sleepy Joe Biden in the White House. Can we have a rigorous judicial review of the election votes, and show people that Trump is the one and true President of the Untied States? Vote for Trump, the leader who will clean the swamp in Washington. ----- ----- Mark Meadows takes center stage in the Jan. 6 investigation Yahoo News Caitlin Dickson April 26, 2022, 4:38 PM A trove of text messages sent and received by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is shedding new light on efforts by former President Donald Trump’s inner circle, confidants and Republicans in Congress to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. CNN reported Monday that it had obtained 2,319 text messages that Meadows had provided to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The text messages, which were sent or received between Election Day 2020 and Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, include exchanges with administration and campaign officials, Trump’s family, Fox News hosts and more than 40 current or former Republican lawmakers, among others. They place Meadows at the center of a campaign to promote baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election and to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s electoral victory. Included in the texts are numerous exchanges that took place on Jan. 6 as the riot carried out by Trump’s supporters was broadcast on television screens nationwide. In frantic messages, a number of Republicans implored Meadows to compel the president to do something about the violence while others insisted that the rioters were not actually Trump supporters but members of antifa. "It's really bad up here on the hill,” read one message sent by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., on Jan. 6. “They have breached the Capitol.” “POTUS is engaging,” Meadows replied. The texts reported by CNN also show that Meadows was in contact with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Election Day, apparently giving him marching orders on what to tell his audience. “Stress every vote matters. Get out and vote,” Meadows texted Hannity. “Yes sir,” Hannity replied. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows stands with crossed arms. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on April 20. (Jeffrey Collins/AP) On Nov. 19 and Dec. 5, Meadows reportedly sent messages to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump had tried to pressure into overturning his state’s election results. He also responded to texts from Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and an attendee of the Jan. 6 rally, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the most prominent promoters of the election conspiracy theories. The texts included discussions about whether then-Vice President Mike Pence would stick with Trump and throw out election results that the president claimed were illegitimate. On Jan. 5, Meadows received a text from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. "On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence,” Jordan wrote. The next morning, Meadows texted Jordan, "I have pushed for this. Not sure it is going to happen." There are also a number of messages from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., including one from Jan. 17 in which she appears to endorse the idea of Trump declaring martial law rather than allow a transition of power to Biden. Greene tells Meadows that she had been in contact with some fellow representatives who “are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall [sic] law,” adding that “They [Democrats] stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.” Greene is currently facing a lawsuit in Georgia that could leave her name off the ballot this fall for her role in the events of Jan. 6. The CNN report revealing the texts to and from Meadows followed the release of texts earlier this month showing Meadows discussing potential legal actions with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, aimed at overturning the election results. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows speaks on his phone while standing outside. Meadows speaks on his phone as he waits for President Donald Trump to depart from the White House on Oct. 30, 2020. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) The House Jan. 6 committee has accused Meadows of continuing to withhold crucial information about his role in the events leading up to, during and after Jan. 6. According to a court filing released by the committee on Friday, in addition to the 2,319 text messages, which were handed over in December, Meadows’s attorney provided the panel with a privilege log “showing that Mr. Meadows was withholding over 1,000 text messages from his personal cell phone based on claims of executive, marital, and attorney-client privileges.” After initially agreeing to cooperate with the panel last fall, Meadows reversed course in December, refusing to appear for a deposition and filing a lawsuit to block the committee’s subpoenas. In response, the select committee voted to refer him for criminal contempt of Congress. Though the referral was passed by the House of Representatives in December, the Justice Department has not yet said whether it will pursue criminal charges. In its recent filing with the Department of Justice, the select committee requested a summary judgment rejecting Meadows’s claims of privilege, noting that President Biden has chosen to waive executive privilege for records relevant to the investigation, including those specifically requested from Meadows. Trump’s attempts to block Biden from waiving privilege have been blocked by a U.S. District Court judge, a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court, the filing notes. The recent request for summary judgment notes that the select committee’s investigation “has progressed significantly” since it first issued a subpoena to Meadows in September and highlights previously undisclosed details obtained from interviews and depositions with “dozens of witnesses who interacted directly with Mr. Meadows, either in the White House or in connection with the Trump campaign to overturn the 2020 election.” In one such detail, Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson told congressional investigators that the chief of staff had been warned about the potential for violence by Trump supporters at the Capitol ahead of Jan. 6. In a statement issued with the filing on Friday, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the Jan. 6 committee's chairman, and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the committee’s vice chair, urged the court to “reject Mark Meadows’s baseless claims and put an end to his obstruction of our investigation.” “Mr. Meadows is hiding behind broad claims of executive privilege even though much of the information we’re seeking couldn’t possibly be covered by privilege and courts have rejected similar claims because the committee’s interest in getting to the truth is so compelling,” Thompson and Cheney said in the statement. “It’s essential that the American people fully understand Mr. Meadows’s role in events before, on, and after January 6th. His attempt to use the courts to cover up that information must come to an end.” | |
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| 04-27-22 06:34am - 971 days | #28 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Marjorie Taylor Greene thanks God that computers can help her with memory issues. Greene can't remember what happened last year, when there were riots in Washington DC. But help is on the way. Computer records can show what Greene did before and during the riots. They can prove whether she fought to keep Donald Trump in power, and to keep Sleepy Joe Biden, a hated Democrat, out of the White House. Vote for Trump, the fightenest President of the Untied States. And stick with Greene. She might be carrying a loaded handgun, so don't argue with this woman. ----- ----- Text messages from Greene put new focus on martial law testimony NBC Universal Zoë Richards and Charlie Gile and Blayne Alexander April 26, 2022, 9:14 AM New text messages from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene surrounding the 2020 election are drawing attention to recent court testimony in which the Georgia Republican said she did not recall any involvement in efforts to keep former President Donald Trump in office. When asked during a hearing Friday if she had advocated for martial law to keep President Joe Biden from taking office, Greene said she could not recall. But a new tranche of text messages obtained by CNN shows Greene broached the idea with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Ron Fein, who is leading a legal challenge to Greene’s candidacy in Georgia over allegations she helped facilitate the Jan. 6 riot, told NBC News on Monday that the text messages undermine her credibility and testimony in the case. “Marjorie Taylor Greene testified under oath that she could not remember telling Trump or his chief of staff to declare martial law to try to keep Trump in power, but her own texts reveal that she did exactly that,” Fein said in a statement. “Anyone who ‘can’t remember’ whether they urged the White House Chief of Staff to talk to the President of the United States about declaring martial law can’t be trusted when they claim they ‘can’t remember’ their own engagement in insurrection,” he added. Greene's lawyer and office did not immediately return requests for comment. In a text message to Meadows on Jan. 17, 2021, Greene told Meadows that some GOP lawmakers were saying Trump should call for martial law. “In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law. I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!” she wrote. NBC News has not been able to independently confirm all of the text communications, which appear to reveal attempts by the Trump White House and its allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that go well beyond what was previously known. Greene testified under oath for nearly four hours as a witness during Friday's hearing and was asked whether she had advocated for martial law prior to Biden’s inauguration. “I don’t recall. I don’t recall,” Greene said when pressed about conversations and social media posts surrounding the election and Jan. 6. Free Speech for People, an election and campaign finance reform organization led by Fein, filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of a group of Georgia voters aiming to remove Greene from the ballot due to her alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack. Attorneys on both sides in the case have until Thursday to submit final briefs to the court, meaning the new text messages might be cited by plaintiffs. The judge said he plans to finalize his recommendation “about a week later.” That recommendation will then go to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who will decide whether Greene remains on the ballot for the state’s May 24 primary. | |
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| 04-26-22 06:20pm - 971 days | #27 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Florida governor signs bill creating election police unit. Will the new police unit have the power to declare votes by Democrats illegal? Or just have the voters arrested for public indecency? Republicans are fair and honorable. They want to make America great again. To do so, they need to clean Florida and other states in the Untied States of dirty Democrats and other undesirables. DeSantis signed the bill, at a sports bar, because he wanted to celebrate with a few drinks after passing such a wonderful law. ---- ---- Florida governor signs bill creating election police unit Associated Press ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE April 26, 2022, 6:45 AM TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Monday to create a police force dedicated to pursuing voter fraud and other election crimes, embracing a top priority of Republicans after former President Donald Trump's false claims that his reelection was stolen. The new law comes after the Republican governor made voting legislation a focus this year, pushing the Republican-controlled statehouse to create the policing unit as states reevaluate their own election systems in the wake of Trump's unfounded allegations. DeSantis, who is running for reelection and is widely considered to be a potential 2024 presidential candidate, has both praised the last election as smooth and suggested more rules were needed to deter fraud, underscoring Trump's lingering influence on Republican policymaking. Critics have deemed the law politically motivated and unnecessary, arguing that local prosecutors can handle election crimes. At a bill signing ceremony Monday at a sports bar in Spring Hill, Florida, DeSantis justified the need for the new law enforcement unit and suggested that existing law enforcement may not be equipped or willing to thoroughly investigate fraud cases. “Some of them may not care as much about the election stuff. I think it's been mixed at how those reactions are going to be. So we just want to make sure whatever laws are on the books, that those laws are enforced," he said. Voter fraud is rare, typically occurs in isolated instances and is generally detected. An Associated Press investigation of the 2020 presidential election found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in the six states where Trump and his allies disputed his loss to President Biden. Republicans nationwide have stressed the need to restore public confidence in elections and have passed several voting laws in the past two years aimed at placing new rules around mail and early voting methods that were popular in 2020. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The law creates an Office of Election Crimes and Security under the Florida Department of State to review fraud allegations and conduct preliminary investigations. DeSantis is required to appoint a group of special officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who would be tasked with pursuing the election law violations. Existing state law allowed the governor to appoint officers to investigate violations of election law but did not require him to do so. The law also increases penalties for the collection of completed ballots by a third party, often referred to as ballot harvesting, to a felony. It raises fines for certain election law violations and requires that election supervisors perform voter list maintenance on a more frequent basis. Democrats, the minority party in the state Legislature, have criticized the bill as a way for DeSantis to appeal to Republican voters who believe the 2020 election results were fraudulent, while the governor flirts with a presidential run of his own. “DeSantis’ so-called election reform legislation is a continued attack by the Republican Party to generate public distrust in the integrity of our elections. The bill is unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer funds," said Rep. Tracie Davis, a Democrat. In late March, a federal judge struck down portions of a sweeping election law passed last year in a blistering ruling that alleged the state's Republican-dominated government was suppressing Black voters, and ordered that attempts to write similar new laws in the next decade must have court approval. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker overturned a provision of last year's law limiting when people could use a drop box to submit their ballot, along with a section prohibiting anyone from engaging with people waiting to vote. He also blocked a section that placed new rules on groups that register voters, including one requiring that people working to register voters submit their names and permanent addresses to the state. The DeSantis administration is working to reverse Walker's ruling. | |
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| 04-26-22 06:10pm - 971 days | #26 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
How Hollywood reveals the truth about Washington. Bill Hader reveals his young daughter will be a power in Washington. She already knows how to lie convincingly. Which is more than most Republicans can do. ------- ------- Chris Pratt's awkward introduction to Bill Hader thanks to a hilarious prank Yahoo TV George Back April 26, 2022, 12:11 AM Barry star Bill Hader dropped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday to promote Season 3 of his HBO series. While he was there, he also shared a hilarious story about his daughter tricking him into meeting Chris Pratt. Hader and his daughters were eating dinner when he noticed Pratt and his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, sitting down. “I go, ‘Guys, don't freak out, but Gardens and Galaxy,’” Hader recalled. “My daughters are like, ‘Oh, my God!’ The 9-year-old, who was 8 at the time, was like, ‘I know his son.’ And I go, ‘Really?’ She's like, ‘Yes, I know his son. Can I go over there and say hi?’ I'm like, ‘He's eating, just leave him alone, please.’” However, after they finished dinner, the former Saturday Night Live star’s daughters convinced him to drop by Pratt’s table. “So I walk over, I go, ‘Hey, Chris. Sorry, but my daughter knows your son,” Hader recalled. “And my daughter goes, ‘I don't know his son! You wanted to meet Chris Pratt!” While Kimmel and his audience found the trick to be hilarious, Hader was understandably embarrassed, but he admitted to also being proud. “I wanted to strangle her, but I was also never more proud of my kid in my life,” Hader admitted, “I go, ‘Why did you do that?’ And she was like, ‘I don't know.’ And I was like, ‘You're gonna make me so much money.” Jimmy Kimmel Live airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on ABC. | |
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| 04-26-22 05:43pm - 971 days | #25 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Putin says Valieva's skating 'perfection' could not be achieved with doping Reuters April 26, 2022, 9:26 AM (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva's performances could not have been achieved with the help of any banned substances. Valieva, who turned 16 on Tuesday, failed a doping test at the Russian national championships last December but the result was only revealed on Feb. 8, a day after she had already helped the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) win the team event at the Beijing Games. The case cast a shadow on Russians' participation at the Games as they already faced increased scrutiny over separate doping sanctions that saw them compete without their flag and national anthem. "Through her work, she brought the sport to the level of a real form of art," Putin said Valieva at a televised awards ceremony at the Kremlin for medallists from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. "Such perfection cannot be achieved dishonestly with the help of additional substances, manipulations. We very well know that these additional substances are not needed in figure skating." Russian President Putin meets with Olympians in Moscow Russian President Putin meets with Olympians in Moscow Valieva, favourite to win Olympic gold, was cleared to compete in the women's single event in Beijing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but stumbled to fourth place with an error-laden free skate. She became the first woman to land a quadruple jump at the Olympics during the team event. Valieva's case instigated questions over whether the minimum age for competitors in figure skating, currently 15, needs to be raised to protect minors. Putin said Russian and Belarusian Paralympians, removed from the Beijing Paralympic Games after Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, was a case of discrimination based on nationality. "The suspension of athletes from Russia and Belarus not only directly violated the fundamental principles of sport but their most basic human rights were... openly, cynically violated," Putin said at a ceremony with Olympians and Paralympians at the Kremlin. Putin also criticised the International Swimming Federation (FINA) for handing Russian Olympic gold medallist Evgeny Rylov a nine-month suspension for attending a rally backing Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine, calling the move "completely absurd." Many international sports federations have barred both Russian and Belarusian athletes from taking part in international events over Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Christian Radnedge) | |
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| 04-26-22 05:39pm - 971 days | #24 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Joe Biden has a heart of gold. He is issuing pardons to convicted people. Is he considering offering a pardon to Donald Trump to cover any and all possible crimes that Trump may have committed? Biden and Trump are allies, because they have both held the position of President of the Untied States. So Biden could come to the rescue of Trump, and offer a free pardon to Trump. And Trump, if he reclaims the White House in the next presidential election, could, if he chose, grant a pardon to Joe Biden's son, who will soon be the target of a Republican witch hunt. ----- ----- Biden pardons former Secret Service agent and 2 others Associated Press AAMER MADHANI April 26, 2022, 4:33 AM WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has granted the first three pardons of his term, providing clemency to a Kennedy-era Secret Service agent convicted of federal bribery charges that he tried to sell a copy of an agency file and to two people who were convicted on drug-related charges but went on to become pillars in their communities. The Democratic president also commuted the sentences of 75 others for nonviolent, drug-related convictions. The White House announced the clemencies Tuesday as it launched a series of job training and reentry programs for those in prison or recently released. Many of those who received commutations have been serving their sentences on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several were serving lengthy sentences and would have received lesser terms had they been convicted today for the same offenses as a result of the 2018 bipartisan sentencing reform ushered into law by the Trump administration. “America is a nation of laws and second chances, redemption, and rehabilitation,” Biden said in a statement announcing the clemencies. “Elected officials on both sides of the aisle, faith leaders, civil rights advocates, and law enforcement leaders agree that our criminal justice system can and should reflect these core values that enable safer and stronger communities.” Those granted pardons are: — Abraham Bolden Sr., 86, the first Black Secret Service agent to serve on a presidential detail. In 1964, Bolden, who served on President John F. Kennedy's detail, faced federal bribery charges that he attempted to sell a copy of a Secret Service file. His first trial ended in a hung jury. Following his conviction in a second trial, key witnesses admitted lying at the prosecutor's request. Bolden, of Chicago, was denied a retrial and served several years in federal prison. Bolden has maintained his innocence and wrote a book in which he argued he was targeted for speaking out against racist and unprofessional behavior in the Secret Service. — Betty Jo Bogans, 51, was convicted in 1998 of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine in Texas after attempting to transport drugs for her boyfriend and his accomplice. Bogans, a single mother with no prior record, received a seven-year sentence. In the years since her release from prison, Bogans has held consistent employment, even while undergoing cancer treatment, and has raised a son. — Dexter Jackson , 52, of Athens, Georgia, was convicted in 2002 for using his pool hall to facilitate the trafficking of marijuana. Jackson pleaded guilty and acknowledged he allowed his business to be used by marijuana dealers. After Jackson was released from prison, he converted his business into a cellphone repair service that employs local high school students through a program that provides young adults with work experience. Jackson has built and renovated homes in his community, which has a shortage of affordable housing. Civil rights and criminal justice reform groups have pushed the White House to commute sentences and work harder to reduce disparities in the criminal justice system. Biden’s grants of clemency also come as the administration has faced congressional scrutiny over misconduct and the treatment of inmates in the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons, which is responsible for inmates serving sentences of home confinement. Biden, as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, helped shepherd through the 1994 crime bill that many criminal justice experts say contributed to harsh sentences and mass incarceration of Black people. During his 2020 White House run, Biden vowed to reduce the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. and called for nonviolent drug offenders to be diverted to drug courts and treatment. He also has pushed for better training for law enforcement and called for criminal justice system changes to address disparities that have led to minorities and the poor making up a disproportionate share of the nation's incarcerated population. Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, granted 143 pardons and clemency to 237 during his four years in office. Trump sought the advice of prison reform advocate Alice Johnson, a Black woman whose life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense he commuted in 2018. He was also lobbied by celebrity Kim Kardashian as well as advisers inside the White House, including daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as he weighed applications for clemency. The Republican used his pardon authority to help several political friends and allies, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Republican operative Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of Ivanka Trump. Among Trump's final acts as president was pardoning his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and Al Pirro, the husband of Fox News host and Trump ally Jeanine Pirro. Prosecutors alleged that Bannon, who had yet to stand trial when he was pardoned, had duped thousands of donors who believed their money would be used to fulfill Trump’s chief campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border. Instead, Bannon allegedly diverted more than $1 million, paying a salary to one campaign official and personal expenses for himself. Pirro was convicted in 2000 on tax charges. With the slate of pardons and commutations announced Tuesday, Biden has issued more grants of clemency than any of the previous five presidents at this point in their terms, according to the White House. In addition to the grants of clemency, Biden announced several new initiatives that are meant to help formerly incarcerated people gain employment — an issue that his administration is driving home as key to lowering crime rates and preventing recidivism. The Labor Department is directing $140 million toward programs that offer job training, pre-apprenticeship programs, digital literacy training and pre-release and post-release career counseling and more for youth and incarcerated adults. The $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed by Congress last year includes a trio of grant programs that the administration says promote hiring of formerly incarcerated individuals. And the Labor and Justice Departments announced on Tuesday a collaborative plan to provide $145 million over the next year on job skills training as well as individualized employment and reentry plans for people serving time in the Bureau of Prisons. Biden said the new initiatives are vital to helping the more than 600,000 people released from prison each year get on stable ground. "Helping those who served their time return to their families and become contributing members of their communities is one of the most effective ways to reduce recidivism and decrease crime," Biden said. ___ Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report. | |
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| 04-26-22 05:26pm - 971 days | #23 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
ARTICLE CONTINUES: “Confronted with what seemed like evidence of a huge disaster, Popov did what a long line of senior officers and politicians had done before and after him. He did nothing,” the historian Peter Truscott wrote in his book about the Kursk. The Northern Fleet did not declare an emergency until that evening, nearly 12 hours after the Kursk had gone missing. Putin had left for Sochi, the Black Sea resort beloved by his Soviet predecessors, on the 12th. Only the next morning did his defense minister call with the bad news. Only on the 14th did the Northern Fleet admit that something had gone wrong on the Kursk, grossly underplaying the severity of the crisis and refusing to say who was on board. By then, dark rumors were already circulating among submariners’ families. A priest leads a service during a memorial ceremony for those who died in the Kursk submarine disaster A priest leads a service for those who died in the Kursk submarine disaster on the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, Aug. 12, 2020. (Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images) It would take days for Russian authorities to admit that the submarine had sunk, and that virtually nothing was known about any survivors, in large part because initial Russian rescue attempts had been so hapless. Putin remained in Sochi, while the press in Moscow assailed him for his inattention to the crisis. “He was in a stupor,” a Kremlin source would tell the journalist Catherine Belton. “He didn’t know how to deal with it, and therefore he avoided dealing with it.” Norway and the U.K. offered their own deep-sea experts and equipment, as did the United States. Putin and his admirals refused their offers, not wanting to admit how inferior their own rescue equipment was. They also held on to Soviet-era notions of secrecy, fearing that if Western divers were allowed access to the Kursk, they would steal its military secrets. At the same time, grief and rage scored Russian media. “The reputation of the Russian leadership is lying on the bottom of the Barents Sea,” read a headline in one Moscow newspaper. “Lies and fear are the features of Russian authority. Russia has been persecuting and punishing its people for so long that by now it has simply forgotten how to save their lives,” said the newspaper Izvestia, which had been a reliable Kremlin mouthpiece during the Soviet years. “All this reminds us of Chernobyl,” the journalist Zinaida Lobanovna wrote in Komsomolskaya Pravda, referencing the 1986 nuclear disaster that was partly responsible for the Soviet Union’s downfall. The destroyed fourth power block of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl a few days after one of its a reactors blew up The destroyed fourth power block of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl a few days after one of its a reactors blew up on April 26, 1986. It is considered the worst nuclear accident in history. (Vladimir Repik/AFP via Getty Images) Putin recognized that more than military incompetence or public anger, it was negative coverage that could doom his young presidency. “President Putin learned to appreciate the media’s power to shape public opinion and that the stinging criticism he received could only be checked by controlling the press,” military scholar Zoltan Barany has written. By the time Putin arrived at the Kursk base on the remote Kola Peninsula, on August 20, it had already been more than a week since the Kursk sank. He didn’t have any new explanations, but he did have a new story — and new scapegoats. “One witness at the closed meeting said Mr. Putin referred three times to the media’s treatment of the crisis, and raged at tycoons who had allegedly robbed the nation and were now manipulating public opinion,” went one report from the town hall, which was closed to the press but made the newspapers anyway. “The government had not been guilty of deceit and incompetence during the crisis, Mr. Putin told the families. The media had created such an impression.” Later, Putin preposterously fumed that the grieving mothers he encountered were actually local prostitutes hired by the oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who had been close to Yeltsin and who ran the immensely influential ORT television network. Berezovsky was one of the two oligarchs Putin blamed for how the Kursk was covered. The other was Vladimir Gusinsky, who ran the Media-Most empire. “They stole money, they bought the media and they’re manipulating public opinion,” Putin said of the two oligarchs, in a message intended less for the grieving families than for the power elites hundreds of miles away in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Many of the other oligarchs were also Jews; they had suddenly come to power in a country with a long history of antisemitism. Fugitive Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky, center Fugitive Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky, center, leaves leaves Greece's largest penitentiary Korydallos prison on the outskirts of Athens, August 2003. (Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images) Some had an obvious interest in politics, like industrialist Mikhail Khodorkovsky; others only in media or industry. Their backgrounds or ambitions notwithstanding, they represented the excesses and possibilities of the Yeltsin era. That era was now coming to an end. Probably the single most arresting episode from the entire Kursk crisis was that of a grieving mother shouting at officials who kept offering explanations, apologies and assurances, each more obfuscatory than the next. “This is a disgrace!” the mother can be seen and heard shouting in surreptitiously recorded video, her cries overflowing with pain. As she continues to berate the Moscow minister before her, a woman approaches from behind, plunging a syringe full of sedatives into the mother’s back. “The incident was broadcast extensively yesterday, to the acute embarrassment of President Vladimir Putin's government,” a Guardian report noted. Several top military officials tried to resign, but Putin prevented them from doing so. “He was no longer entitled to seethe at the people who had destroyed Soviet military might and imperial pride,” the journalist Masha Gessen would write later. “By dint of becoming president, to a great number of his compatriots he had now become one of those people.” A little less than a month after the Kursk sank, Putin traveled to New York for his first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. While in New York, he sat for an interview with Larry King, then the host of a popular CNN news program. “Tell me,” King asked, “what happened with the submarine?” Russians have never forgotten the haunting, puzzling smile that crossed Putin’s face, or the two words he offered in response: “It sank.” Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Larry King Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Larry King before a taping of his show, Sept. 8, 2000. (via Reuters) The admission was as puzzling as it was frank. The “crumbling edifice of a former superpower” was now his to deal with, Gessen wrote, and there was a certain political audacity to admitting as much. Families of the Kursk victims received unusually generous compensation packages, angering some families of soldiers killed in Chechnya, as well as some soldiers still fighting there. “If you count the boys who died here, the entire nation should be mourning for a year without stopping. But no one cares for us, nor pays us honor when we die. The commanders think that it’s our job to die here," a 20-year-old sergeant said. At the same time, Putin moved quickly to reverse the freedoms of the Yeltsin years, which threatened to topple his embattled administration. Accountability and frankness could only take him so far. “A recurrence of self-censorship among Russian journalists is proving to be perhaps the most destructive consequence of the events of the past 12 months, and one that will be extremely difficult to overcome,” warned two Russia observers in a New York Times op-ed in January 2002. Two years later, the assassination of journalist Anna Politkovskaya marked a dangerous new era for anyone in Russia who sought to expose the truth. The new mood allowed the Kremlin to control coverage of crises like the 2004 siege of a school in Beslan, as well as abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya and virtually unchecked corruption on the part of Moscow and St. Petersburg elites. Khodorkovsky, the outspoken oligarch, went to prison in 2005 on fabricated charges of financial malfeasance. Trying to expose the Kremlin’s own corruption, the tax attorney Sergei Magnitsky died after being abused in prison, where he’d be sent on charges as fictitious as those that had been used to convict Khodorkovsky. The grave of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in Moscow The grave of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in Moscow. (Andrey Smirnov/AFP via Getty Images) By the time Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014, his control of the media was almost complete, feeding the Kremlin’s grievances and illusions to millions. And as Russia amassed troops on the Ukrainian border in 2021, Admiral Popov, now retired, resurfaced to claim that the Kursk had in fact been sunk by a NATO craft. That wasn’t true, and Russian authorities had always known as much. In fact, back in 2001, they had been frank — however fleetingly — in their assessment of their own official incompetence. But in 2022, things were different: There was no one around to correct the lie. | |
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| 04-26-22 05:24pm - 971 days | #22 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Before the Moskva, there was the Kursk: The sunken submarine that helped Putin consolidate power over Russia Yahoo News Alexander Nazaryan April 26, 2022, 2:00 AM WASHINGTON — Twenty-two years ago, a Russian nuclear submarine sank after being rocked by two explosions during a torpedo test launch gone awry. There were 118 sailors on board the Kursk; most of them died at once. But a few survived, sequestering in a rear compartment that had not been destroyed. For longtime observers of Vladimir Putin’s rise, it was impossible not to think of the Kursk when the Moskva, the flagship missile cruiser of the Black Sea Fleet, sank on April 14. The two maritime disasters serve as bookends of sorts for the two decades of Russia under Putin’s rule. The first took place shortly after he assumed the presidency, when dreams of a democratic Russia were battered but not yet dead. The second, the victim of his invasion of Ukraine, comes at a time when Russia is an international pariah and Putin faces the deepest crisis of his reign. “Putin’s presidency started with Kursk; here’s to it ending with Moskva,” wrote Ivar Dale, a Norwegian expert in Russian affairs, on Twitter. Russian supporters wave flags as they welcome missile cruiser Moskva. Russian supporters welcome the missile cruiser Moskva, a flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, in 2008. (Vasily Batanov/AFP via Getty Images) The Kursk taught Putin as much as it taught Russia, giving the young and inexperienced president a tragically clear view of what he had inherited — and of what it would take to maintain power in a crumbling empire that for 10 years had been careening between freedom and chaos. “Everything that has long since been typical of Putin was demonstrated after the sinking of the Kursk,” investigative journalist David Satter, who was banned from Russia for his reporting on Putin’s rise to power, told Yahoo News. “The xenophobia, mendacity and casual assumption that the lives of people without power have no value.” Above all, the Kursk disaster taught Putin that a free press had no place in the new Russia, for it could only expose how little had changed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union — and how what had changed was mostly for the worse. There could be freedom or order in the new Russia, he decided, but there could not be both. “The entire process of undermining democracy in Russia, in many regards, began with this,” the attorney Boris Kuznetsov, who represented some of the Kursk families and later had to flee Russia, said in 2015. Until the catastrophe, Russia had been on a trajectory encouraged by the West, which saw value in Russia as an unexplored market yearning for investment. The optimism persisted well into the 1990s, even as it was becoming clear that disorder and revanchism were more persistent than Harvard-trained economists had supposed would be the case. The Russian submarine Kursk The Russian submarine Kursk at its base in Vidyayevo. (AFP via Getty Images) “Russia has a democracy — imperfect, perhaps, but not now seriously threatened — and a free press in which Moscovsky Komsomolets can print biting political cartoons on its front page and Izvestia amuses its readers nominating an oligarch of the year,” Lawrence Summers, then the deputy treasury secretary, said in early 1999, referencing two of Russia’s most famous Soviet-era newspapers. Of all the changes to come in the years that would follow, the decline of a free press would prove perhaps the most consequential. After the Kursk, Putin worked assiduously to muzzle the country’s independent media, a campaign that came to its natural conclusion when he invaded Ukraine earlier this year. As the Ukrainians held on in the face of February’s initial assault and pro-Kremlin media sought explanations of why the Russian tricolor wasn’t yet flying atop Kyiv’s spires, Putin moved to quickly shutter his country’s last remaining networks and newspapers, the few still interested in telling the unvarnished truth. “The Russian media is dead,” a local Russian journalist told Committee to Protect Journalists executive director Robert Mahoney last month. Putin was remarkably new to Moscow, and national politics, when the Kursk went down. He spent the last years of the Cold War as a midlevel KGB bureaucrat in East Germany. After the collapse of the USSR, he became the deputy mayor of his native St. Petersburg, only to lose that job when his reformist boss Anatoly Sobchak was defeated in a 1996 reelection contest. Later that year he went to Moscow, assigned to “manage” the transfer of formerly Soviet property assets. He ascended quickly from there to become prime minister in 1999 and president in 2000 — all without ever having won a single election. Russian President Vladimir Putin Russian President Vladimir Putin at a recent concert in Moscow marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images) Putin had not served in the military, but the poor condition of the armed forces was no secret. President Boris Yeltsin had cut the military budget to only 5% of what it had been during the last year of the Soviet Union, when Red Square parades — troops, rocket launchers, tanks — disguised profound social ills but nevertheless intimidated the rest of the world with their sheer size. “Not since June 1941 has the Russian military stood as perilously close to ruin as it does now,” a military analyst for the United States wrote in 1994. Yeltsin had come to power as a reformer, but his liberalizing project made a few oligarchs rich while impoverishing ordinary Russians and turning a superpower into a laughingstock. Long a heavy drinker, Yeltsin was barely functioning by the time he appointed Putin his prime minister and successor. Consolidating control over the Kremlin even while Yeltsin technically remained his superior, Putin oversaw Russia’s response to a series of apartment bombings in 1999 that many experts believe were carried out by Moscow’s own security services, perhaps at Putin’s own direction. The attacks were used to justify an invasion of Chechnya, a small, majority-Muslim province that had tried to break away from Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union a decade before. Afraid that other autonomous republics would follow suit, Yeltsin invaded Chechnya in 1994, expecting an easy victory. But the Chechen rebels exploited Russian military disorganization and corruption, much as Ukrainian fighters have in recent weeks. After a disastrous attempt to take the Chechen capital city of Grozny — allegedly ordered during a bout of drinking — Russia withdrew in 1996, having effectively been defeated. A Chechen woman passes by a tank of Russian federal troops on the main street of a village south of Grozny A Chechen woman near a tank manned by Russian troops on the street of a village south of Grozny, February 2000. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) Putin was determined to win back Chechnya, and allowed his generals to do whatever they needed to do as long as they emerged victorious. “Mr. Putin is benefiting from the licensed brutality in Chechnya,” the Guardian noted in February 1999, quoting a top Russian commander’s unambiguous warning of mutiny to the Kremlin: “Russia’s officer corps just can’t take another slap in the face. There are even some who think that such a turn of events would put Russia on the brink of civil war.” Putin sanctioned the heavy bombing of Grozny without regard for civilian casualties. On March 20, 2000, as the then-acting president was about to face his first election, Putin landed in a fighter jet in Grozny to proclaim victory. Yeltsin had failed to take Grozny in two years. Putin did it in less than six months. On August 10 of that year, the Russian navy commenced exercises in the Barents Sea, a body of water south of the Arctic Ocean. The exercises, called Summer-X, involved more than 30 craft, including four submarines and the flagship of the storied Northern Fleet, Pyotr Velkhi (Peter the Great). Western intelligence services watched Summer-X with “high anticipation,” journalist Ramsey Flynn wrote, as “a key test of an emerging do-more-with-less defense philosophy of Russia’s little-known new leader.” The Kursk went down shortly before noon on Aug. 12, likely because of a hydrogen peroxide leak during the launch of a test torpedo that caused a pair of explosions. After the second, much larger explosion, it came to rest in about 350 feet of water. A Russian woman adjusts a wreath at a monument in Moscow to those who died in the Kursk submarine disaster A Russian woman adjusts a wreath at a monument in Moscow to those who died in the Kursk submarine disaster. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images) Western intelligence services had picked up strange seismic activity that they realized was something gone wrong in the Summer-X exercises. They quickly reached out to their Russian counterparts, only to be rebuffed. The Northern Fleet’s confidence was deeply misguided. “The Russians did not have the ability to reach the sub to conduct any type of rescue/extraction operations,” a subsequent U.S. intelligence report concluded. That same report said it took the Northern Fleet three-and-a-half hours to realize that something had happened to the Kursk. Vyacheslav Popov, the top Russian admiral aboard the Pyotr Velkhi, seemed to show little concern for the submarine’s fate, even as it was becoming increasingly clear that something had gone wrong. If a Western military would have responded with an all-hands-on-deck rescue, the Russian armed forces had never recovered from the trauma of Stalin’s brutal purges of the officer ranks during the 1930s. Secrecy and silence had been crucial to survival in that era — and they were still, even in a supposedly new age of freedom. | |
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| 04-26-22 05:19pm - 971 days | #21 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
“Marjorie Taylor Greene testified under oath that she could not remember telling Trump or his chief of staff to declare martial law to try to keep Trump in power, but her own texts reveal that she did exactly that,” Fein said in a statement. “Anyone who ‘can’t remember’ whether they urged the White House Chief of Staff to talk to the President of the United States about declaring martial law can’t be trusted when they claim they ‘can’t remember’ their own engagement in insurrection,” he added. --------- --------- Text messages from Greene put new focus on martial law testimony NBC Universal Zoë Richards and Charlie Gile and Blayne Alexander April 26, 2022, 6:14 AM New text messages from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene surrounding the 2020 election are drawing attention to recent court testimony in which the Georgia Republican said she did not recall any involvement in efforts to keep former President Donald Trump in office. When asked during a hearing Friday if she had advocated for martial law to keep President Joe Biden from taking office, Greene said she could not recall. But a new tranche of text messages obtained by CNN shows Greene broached the idea with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Ron Fein, who is leading a legal challenge to Greene’s candidacy in Georgia over allegations she helped facilitate the Jan. 6 riot, told NBC News on Monday that the text messages undermine her credibility and testimony in the case. “Marjorie Taylor Greene testified under oath that she could not remember telling Trump or his chief of staff to declare martial law to try to keep Trump in power, but her own texts reveal that she did exactly that,” Fein said in a statement. “Anyone who ‘can’t remember’ whether they urged the White House Chief of Staff to talk to the President of the United States about declaring martial law can’t be trusted when they claim they ‘can’t remember’ their own engagement in insurrection,” he added. Greene's lawyer and office did not immediately return requests for comment. In a text message to Meadows on Jan. 17, 2021, Greene told Meadows that some GOP lawmakers were saying Trump should call for martial law. “In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law. I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!” she wrote. NBC News has not been able to independently confirm all of the text communications, which appear to reveal attempts by the Trump White House and its allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that go well beyond what was previously known. Greene testified under oath for nearly four hours as a witness during Friday's hearing and was asked whether she had advocated for martial law prior to Biden’s inauguration. “I don’t recall. I don’t recall,” Greene said when pressed about conversations and social media posts surrounding the election and Jan. 6. Free Speech for People, an election and campaign finance reform organization led by Fein, filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of a group of Georgia voters aiming to remove Greene from the ballot due to her alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack. Attorneys on both sides in the case have until Thursday to submit final briefs to the court, meaning the new text messages might be cited by plaintiffs. The judge said he plans to finalize his recommendation “about a week later.” That recommendation will then go to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who will decide whether Greene remains on the ballot for the state’s May 24 primary. | |
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| 04-26-22 05:13pm - 971 days | #20 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Republicans believe in free speech and the right to be armed. That is why a US congressman, Madison Cawthorn, was carrying a loaded 9mm gun when he tried to board an airplane. But not to worry: as a congressman, he was issued a citation, instead of being arrested. It's important to be important: you get into less problems that way. Also, this is the second time he has been stopped with a firearm. I guess he was thinking that as a congressman, he could bypass airport security. Or maybe he thought that if there was any trouble, he could pull out his gun and solve the trouble, because he is a congress, and they are supposed to be helpful. Also, as a congressman, Madison Cawthorn believes he has the right to drive a car with a revoked license. As a congressman, since he is important, he is facing two speeding citations. Congressman need to speed to save time, so those cops should have let him slide by. Vote for Trump, As president, Trump will keep all Republicans in line. ----- ----- Rep. Madison Cawthorn cited for having a gun at Charlotte airport NBC Universal Rebecca Shabad and Zoë Richards and Scott Wong April 26, 2022, 2:53 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. WASHINGTON — Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., was cited Tuesday for having a loaded 9mm handgun at a TSA checkpoint at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the second time he has been stopped with a firearm at an airport since taking office last year. The incident occurred just before 9 a.m., when Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said it was notified that Transportation Security Administration agents had found a firearm, ammunition and a magazine in Cawthorn's belongings at a security checkpoint, according to a police report. Cawthorn was issued a citation in lieu of an arrest for possession of a dangerous weapon on city property, a misdemeanor charge. The airport is owned and operated by the City of Charlotte and has several postings stating “no dangerous weapons allowed,” police said in their report. They added in a statement that Cawthorn was cooperative and told officers that the gun belonged to him. A TSA spokesperson said the penalty for violating rules surrounding firearms is up to $13,900. It was not immediately clear if the agency will pursue a fine against Cawthorn. The spokesperson told NBC News that while it doesn't discuss the details of each case, "in almost every incident we issue one," with a review and potential penalty likely in the coming weeks. Authorities last year stopped Cawthorn from carrying a loaded 9mm handgun onto a flight out of Asheville, North Carolina. The TSA says civil penalties are often higher for "repeat violations." After Cawthorn was released Tuesday, officers took possession of the firearm, a standard procedure, police said. A citation instead of arrest in also normal procedure, the department said, "unless there are other associated felony charges or extenuating circumstances." NBC News has reached out to Cawthorn's office for comment. The misdemeanor charge is Cawthorn's second in the past two months. In March, he was charged with driving with a revoked license and faces two pending citations for speeding. He has a May 6 court date for the license charge, a misdemeanor. Cawthorn, 26, uses a wheelchair because he was seriously injured in a 2014 car accident while riding as a passenger in the car of a friend who fell asleep at the wheel, according to his 2019 federal court filing against the auto insurance company. The North Carolina Republican recently caused an uproar when he claimed on a podcast that his congressional colleagues were using drugs and inviting him to sex parties. On the podcast, Cawthorn discussed “the sexual perversion that goes on in Washington” and said some of his older colleagues had invited him to a “sexual get-together.” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., on Tuesday questioned Cawthorn's maturity after his recent run-ins with the law. "Speeding tickets have happened and driving without a license has happened," Tillis said when asked about Cawthorn's past encounters with law enforcement. "These things just speak to judgement. Judgement or maturity." Last month, Tillis endorsed Cawthorn’s primary challenger, state Sen. Chuck Edwards. "We’ve got to have somebody who’s demonstrating judgment and temperament and a willingness to work together for the betterment of North Carolinians," Tillis said Tuesday, adding that right now Cawthorn is "not at that table." | |
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| 04-25-22 04:52pm - 972 days | #19 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
California man arrested for threats against a dictionary maker. A man who didn't like the way Merriam-Webster defined the word "female" was arrested for making threats against the dictionary maker. This is not right. People have the right of free speech. Donald Trump himself said 'I Could ... Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters'. So why are the FBI going after this California man? Why didn't they go after Trump? Is Trump above the law? Yes, as far as the FBI is concerned, Trump is above the law. The FBI is corrupt. Clean the swamp in Washington. Clean out the FBI. Put in the CIA. ----- ----- Calif. man arrested, charged with threats against Merriam-Webster for gender-inclusive definitions NBC Universal Kalhan Rosenblatt April 24, 2022, 6:30 AM A California man was arrested and charged with making threats against Merriam-Webster Inc. for the company's inclusive language around gender, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts. Jeremy David Hanson, 34, of Rossmoor, California, was arrested and charged with one count of interstate communication of threats to commit violence, according to a press release. He has been released ahead of a court date on Friday. Hanson is accused of leaving threatening comments on Merriam-Webster's website, as well as sending threatening messages via the company's "contact us" feature. The comments left by Hanson were made in October, authorities said. On Oct. 2, he used the username "@anonYmous" to comment on Merriam-Webster's dictionary entry for the term "female," authorities said. “It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda. There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot," he allegedly wrote. It is alleged that in a message sent to Merriam-Webster via the "contact us" function, Hanson wrote the company had altered "the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality." "Your headquarters should be shot up and bombed. ... You evil Marxists should all be killed. It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive," he allegedly wrote. He later allegedly sent another threatening message, saying he would “bomb your offices for lying.” In addition to the word "female," messages to the company were also sent in relation to its entries for “girl” and “woman.” Because of the threats, Merriam-Webster shut down its Springfield, Massachusetts, and New York City offices for five business days. Hanson could face up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. NBC News was not immediately able to contact Hanson for comment. The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division, Joseph R. Bonavolonta, said that everyone has the right to their opinions but that Hanson made repeated threats against the company, which is not a protected right. "We are always going to pursue individuals who try to intimidate and isolate members of our community by inciting violent, hateful acts," Bonavolonta said in a statement. | |
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| 04-25-22 04:33pm - 972 days | #18 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Donald Trump is a man with a heart of gold. He keeps saying the investigations into his business empire is a witch hunt. That he is innocent of any crimes. However, if the Republicans are able to win Congress, Republicans will go after Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden. This is because Republicans want to keep America pure, and free of crime. If Hunter Biden is a criminal, he deserves to be in jail. Unlike Donald Trump: Trump was President, therefore he is above the law. Any charges against Trump will be dismissed, because Trump will re-take the White House and put all Democrats and evil people in jail, where they belong. And if that includes Joe Biden, or any of Joe Biden's relatives, well, with a heavy heart, Donald Trump will honor his pledge of office, and put Joe Biden in prison. ----- ----- Hunter Biden is prime target if Republicans win Congress Associated Press NOMAAN MERCHANT April 25, 2022, 8:26 AM WASHINGTON (AP) — Intelligence officials had gathered to brief select members of Congress on future threats to U.S. elections when a key lawmaker in the room, No. 3 House Republican Elise Stefanik of New York, tried to move the discussion to a new topic: Hunter Biden’s laptop. Stefanik, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, asked the officials during the April 1 briefing whether they had any evidence of Russian involvement in the release of Biden’s laptop to the news media in the fall of 2020 — a possibility floated by high-ranking former government officials in the weeks before the presidential election. Intelligence officials told Stefanik the question would be better answered by law enforcement. Stefanik’s query, shared with The Associated Press by a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified meeting, reflects a widespread sentiment in the GOP that questions about the financial dealings of President Biden’s son remain unanswered. And they say they intend to do something about it. As Republicans prepare for a possible return to power amid rising hopes of winning the House and the Senate in the November elections, they are laying the groundwork to make Hunter Biden and his business dealings a central target of their investigative and oversight efforts. Republican lawmakers and staff have discussed analyzing specific messages and financial transactions found on the laptop and have also discussed issuing congressional subpoenas to foreign entities involved in paying Hunter Biden, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The conversations have been in the early stages but have included talks of bringing on Republican lawyers and former Justice Department officials to help lead the investigations, the people said. The White House in turn is preparing to defend the Democratic president from any allegations of wrongdoing and make the case that Republicans are driven by opportunism. Democrats are likely to point out how Republicans did not seek investigations into President Donald Trump's own business pursuits in Russia and China or into the foreign dealings of his children and son-in-law while they held key campaign or White House roles. It all raises the possibility of a messy, politically explosive showdown between a GOP-controlled Congress and the White House, one that could delve deeply into the affairs of the president’s family and shape the contours of the 2024 race for the White House. Hunter Biden’s taxes and foreign business work are already under federal investigation, with a grand jury in Delaware hearing testimony in recent months. While he never held a position on the presidential campaign or in the White House, Hunter Biden's membership on the board of a Ukrainian energy company and his efforts to strike deals in China have long raised questions about whether he traded on his father’s public service, including reported references in his emails to the “big guy.” President Biden has said he's never spoken to his son about his foreign business. And there are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president in any way. The White House declined to comment, and a lawyer for Hunter Biden did not respond to an email. Republican leaders see Hunter Biden as a unifying force that can bring together different factions of the GOP and potentially satiate those calling for more dramatic action. Some members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus have said the first order of business for a Republican majority should be an impeachment trial of Joe Biden in retaliation for the two impeachments of Trump. There’s also increasing discussion among Republicans about urging the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel, said people familiar with the matter. “Hunter Biden’s fair game because I believe Hunter Biden is a national security risk,” said Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who is in line to take over the House Oversight Committee if Republicans win the House. “Hopefully, when I get the gavel, we’ll take it a step further.” In preparation, Comer's oversight staff has already begun to make document requests and archived information related to the president’s son. The New York Post first reported in October 2020 that it had received from Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, a copy of a hard drive of a laptop that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved. The story was greeted with skepticism due to questions about the laptop's origins, including Giuliani's involvement, and because top officials in the Trump administration had already warned that Russia was working to denigrate Joe Biden ahead of the November election. The Kremlin had also interfered in the 2016 race by hacking Democratic emails that were subsequently leaked. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee now want to probe the origins of a widely shared letter from 50 former intelligence officials released a week after the New York Post story. The letter claimed the laptop carried "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” and suggested that “the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue.” Joe Biden in the second presidential debate, responding to Trump’s reference to the “laptop from hell,” said “there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant.” That statement went further than the letter, though it was immediately and widely reported as having labeled the laptop as disinformation. Trump and many Republicans accused Biden of invoking Russia to avoid scrutiny about his son. No evidence has emerged since of any Russian connections to the laptop or the emails. A declassified U.S. intelligence assessment of the 2020 election alleged that Russian leader Vladimir Putin authorized multiple efforts in support of Trump. Russian state media amplified “disparaging content” about Biden “including stories centered on his son,” the assessment said, which also alleges Putin had “purview” over the activities of a Ukrainian lawmaker who met with Giuliani. Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, called allegations that the Russians were behind the laptop “absurd.” Stefanik in a statement said “any alleged attempt by the intelligence agencies or intelligence community leadership to portray the facts surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop as misinformation needs to be investigated and prosecuted.” Meanwhile, GOP Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who in 2020 issued a report on Hunter Biden and his work on behalf of Ukraine gas company Burisma, recently made a presentation on the Senate floor laying out allegations they say the media have ignored but the Justice Department and Congress need to investigate. “The Biden administration has been totally unresponsive to our oversight requests,” Grassley said. For now, the Biden administration and many top Democrats are not commenting publicly on Hunter Biden. But the White House has already reassigned communications staff to prepare to respond to GOP investigations of Hunter Biden and other likely targets, including the origins of the coronavirus and the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Democrats are expected to argue that Hunter Biden is ultimately a distraction to most voters concerned about domestic issues. The current House Oversight chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, previewed that argument in a statement responding to Comer, her Republican counterpart. Said Maloney: "I’d hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be more focused on delivering for the American people than on phony outrage.” | |
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| 04-25-22 04:17pm - 972 days | #17 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Trump: man of action. Man of many words. Trump insists he has no plans to rejoin Twitter. Twitter is old news. Old structure. Trump has embraced the newest, bestest, fairest platform to reach out to his supporters: Trump will stay on TRUTH. So Twitter will be in danger of fading away. No longer relevant. And Elon Musk, who is apparently buying Twitter, will be left empty-handed, without the support of Trump. Make America great again. Vote for Trump. And make America white. Where White Lives Matter. ---- ---- Trump insists he has no plans to rejoin Twitter even if Elon Musk reinstates his account Yahoo News Dylan Stableford April 25, 2022, 4:18 PM Former President Donald Trump said Monday he would have no interest in rejoining Twitter even if his account were reinstated by Elon Musk, insisting that he plans instead to stick with his fledgling social media network, Truth Social. “I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trump told Fox News in a statement that was issued shortly before Musk’s $44 billion buyout offer for Twitter was accepted unanimously by the company’s board. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH,” Trump’s statement read. Musk, the outspoken billionaire chief executive of Tesla, has said he plans to take Twitter private and minimize the policing of its content. Trump was permanently suspended by Twitter, as well as by Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, for what the companies described as his role in inciting violence during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. His Twitter account, which had more than 88 million followers, was initially suspended for 12 hours during the riot after he condemned then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was in the process of certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the new CEO of Twitter. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Chris Seward/AP, Mike Blake/Reuters) “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them, we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said in a tweet announcing the permanent ban. After leaving office, Trump announced plans to create his own social media platform, Truth Social, which saw a turbulent launch last month. Trump himself is not yet on the platform, which has struggled to attract users. The former president told Fox that he will formally join “over the next seven days, as planned.” As a candidate, Trump used Twitter as a cudgel to help propel him to the presidency. Shortly after his victory in the 2016 presidential election, he said he wasn’t sure how much he’d use Twitter once he got to the White House. “I’m going to be very restrained, if I use it at all,” Trump told the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes” days after the 2016 election. But his use of Twitter only seemed to intensify while in office, with Trump using the social media platform to spar with critics, float conspiracies and provoke foreign adversaries. | |
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| 04-25-22 10:21am - 973 days | #16 | |
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Republicans attacking Democrats that are soft on crime. And Republicans are attacking Republicans that are soft on crime. Vote for Trump, who will make America great again. And donate to the fund that will pay Trump's lawyers for civil and criminal charges. ----- ----- 'Soft on crime' attacks target Republicans who favor changes Associated Press SARA BURNETT and SEAN MURPHY April 25, 2022, 7:39 AM OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — With violent crime increasing in many parts of the U.S., Republicans see a winning strategy in portraying Democrats as soft on crime ahead of this year's elections. In ads, campaign appearances and interviews, the GOP has ripped liberal policies and blamed Democratic lawmakers from the White House to city councils for the violence. But in Oklahoma, where Gov. Kevin Stitt is being targeted for mass commutations and a crime that involved cannibalism, the attacks are different: Stitt is a Republican. In one ad, a woman's voice says Stitt commuted the prison sentence of a man who later "brutally murdered his neighbor, then tried to feed her organs to his family." The ad, paid for by a group called Conservative Voice of America, concludes, “Oklahomans deserve a governor who cracks down on violent criminals, not one who lets them go.” Democrats have borne the brunt of the political blame for the increase in homicides and other violent crime in recent years. In some cases that's meant backpedaling on major criminal justice overhauls or insisting they don't want to defund police departments, as some activists have advocated. But now the attacks on some fellow Republicans are intensifying a split within the GOP between hard-liners and those conservatives who have shifted to support alternatives to prisons, largely as a way to save money. Groups that advocate various types of criminal justice reform worry the attacks could jeopardize meaningful changes that have occurred, many in heavily Republican states, such as Oklahoma, which has one of the highest incarceration rates, and Texas. "We had been seeing sort of growing bipartisan consensus on reforms," said Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. But that's gotten tougher because of rising crime and politics. “There’s still some of those old holdouts who just are ‘lock them up, throw away the key’ types," Ring said. "They’ve always been there, and I think that they have used the increase in crime to argue for a return to that posture by the party.” Brett Tolman, executive director of the conservative criminal justice advocacy group Right on Crime, said “the accusation of being weak on crime gets thrown around very quickly," causing “a lot of hesitation" in Congress. The former U.S. attorney said he now has to work with people mostly behind the scenes. Republicans who support the changes say they can reduce crime as well as costs to taxpayers. When Stitt approved the 2019 mass commutation of more than 450 inmates in a single day, he said the release would save Oklahoma an estimated $11.9 million over the cost of keeping them behind bars. The commutations primarily benefited those convicted of drug possession or low-level property crimes. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, says his state saved billions of dollars by investing in alternative sentencing and closing prisons. He's now defending Stitt, who's facing an avalanche of attack ads as he seeks a second term as Oklahoma governor. “I see the Texas reforms have proven tough on crime but soft on the taxpayer, as any conservative policy should be,” Perry wrote in a newspaper column defending Stitt. The attack ads targeting Stitt were paid for by dark money groups, which don't have to make their donors public. They criticize Stitt for signing off on the parole of a man now accused of three killings, including those of a 4-year-old girl and a neighbor whose heart he cut out and tried to feed to relatives, according to authorities. Donelle Harder, a spokesperson for Stitt’s reelection campaign, said it’s not clear who is funding the groups. “The undisclosed, special interest groups are not conservatives, and they are not being honest about their intentions,” Harder said. “Gov. Stitt’s commitment to lead as a conservative political outsider is clearly upsetting a small few.” Trebor Worthen, a GOP political consultant who is running one of the dark money groups, Sooner State Leadership PAC, said it is dedicated to public safety and has raised $10 million. Worthen declined to identify specific donors. “We are funded by business and community leaders who care deeply about our future and wish to exercise their First Amendment rights to advocate for policy changes that Oklahoma needs and deserves," Worthen said. The issue also has surfaced in the GOP primary for governor in Nevada. Former Sen. Dean Heller has criticized Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, saying he wants to defund the police. Lombardo told The Associated Press and other media outlets that he has no problem with his department losing funding if the money is used in another area that would benefit law enforcement. “Who goes on NPR and says they want to defund the police?” Heller told a Nevada TV station during an interview, comparing Lombardo with progressive Democrats who often draw conservative ire, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “AOC, the Squad, and Sheriff Lombardo. They're the ones that say that.” In Illinois, Democrats who control state government hurriedly worked this spring to provide more funding to law enforcement after passing a major criminal justice overhaul last year that set strict standards for police behavior and eliminated cash bail beginning next year. Republicans have blasted the criminal justice legislation. Among the most vocal critics is GOP candidate for governor Richard Irvin, a former prosecutor and defense attorney who is now mayor of Aurora, a Chicago suburb. Irvin, who faces several Republicans in the GOP primary, often touts his prosecutorial background as he blasts Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The Democratic Governors Association and Irvin's GOP rivals have questioned his tough-on-crime credentials, however. In an ad, the DGA criticized Irvin's work as a defense attorney, and fellow Republicans have attacked Irvin, who is Black, for expressing support for Black Lives Matter. A spokesperson for Irvin dismissed the attacks. Eleni Desmertzis said Pritzker is “running scared" and facing "a former criminal prosecutor, tough-on-crime-mayor and strong supporter of law enforcement who has proven he’s not afraid to stand up for all lives in Illinois.” ___ Burnett reported from Chicago. | |
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| 04-25-22 10:15am - 973 days | #15 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Hold the presses. Stop the world. A New York judge has held Donald J. Trump in contempt. How can Trump, a God-fearing man, be held in contempt? Read the article, and decide whether you want to secede from the Union of Untied States in defense of Trump. ----- ----- New York judge holds Trump in contempt for failing to comply with subpoena Reuters Luc Cohen and Karen Freifeld April 25, 2022, 8:57 AM FILE PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump speaks in Sarasota By Luc Cohen and Karen Freifeld (Reuters) - A New York judge on Monday held former President Donald Trump in contempt of court for not producing documents subpoenaed in the state attorney general's civil probe of his business practices, and ordered Trump to be fined $10,000 per day until he complies. Trump lost a bid to quash a subpoena from state Attorney General Letitia James, then failed to produce all the documents by a court-ordered March 3 deadline, later extended to March 31 at his lawyers' request. Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that a contempt finding was appropriate because of what the judge called "repeated failures" to hand over materials and that it was not clear Trump had conducted a complete search for responsive documents. "Mr. Trump … I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously. I hereby hold you in civil contempt," the judge said, although Trump himself was not in the courtroom. James is investigating whether the Trump Organization, the former president's New York City-based family company, misstated the values of its real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax deductions. James has said her probe had found "significant evidence" suggesting that for more than a decade the company's financial statements "relied on misleading asset valuations and other misrepresentations to secure economic benefits." The attorney general has questioned how the Trump Organization valued the Trump brand, as well as properties including golf clubs in New York and Scotland and Trump's own penthouse apartment in Midtown Manhattan's Trump Tower. Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump and the company, said at the hearing that James' investigation was a "fishing expedition" and that the Trump Organization was "right on schedule" with its production of documents. "This is a political crusade," Habba said. "The attorney general's investigation has seemingly become aimless." Trump, a Republican, denies wrongdoing and has called the investigation politically motivated. James is a Democrat. (Reporting by Luc Cohen and Karen Freifeld; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller) | |
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| 04-25-22 07:04am - 973 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
‘American Gigolo’ Showrunner David Hollander Fired After Misconduct Investigation Showtime and Paramount Television Studios have reportedly cut ties with "Ray Donovan" showrunner Hollander following allegations of misconduct. Samantha Bergeson 18 mins ago Executive producer David Hollander arrives at Showtime's "Ray Donovan" Season 4 FYC Event held at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles CA on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. (Photo By Sthanlee B. Mirador) *** Please Use Credit from Credit Field ***(Sipa via AP Images) Longtime Showtime showrunner David Hollander has officially been let go from his new series “American Gigolo” following allegations of misconduct. Deadline reported that the developer, director, executive producer, and showrunner parted ways with the “American Gigolo” TV adaptation for Showtime, which is produced by Paramount Television Studios. “David Hollander is no longer on the drama series ‘American Gigolo’ and Paramount Television Studios no longer has a producing relationship with him,” a spokesperson told Deadline in a statement. The outlet also stated that multiple sources close to production claimed Hollander’s firing was after an investigation into allegations of misconduct that allegedly were not related to sexual harassment. It is believed that co-executive producer David Bar Katz, who also worked with Hollander on Showtime’s “Ray Donovan,” will take over as “American Gigolo” showrunner. “American Gigolo” stars Jon Bernthal as Julian Kaye, a male escort who was arrested for murder. Set 15 years after Kaye’s trial and subsequent prison sentence, the series finds its lead struggling to solve what really happened and why he was set up. Kaye also tries to reconnect with his former flame Michelle, played by Gretchen Mol. The series is based on Paul Schrader’s 1980 film starring Richard Gere. Rosie O’Donnell, Lizzie Brocheré, Wayne Brady, and Leland Orser also star. Hollander wrote and directed the pilot for the new series, which is produced by Paramount TV Studios with Jerry Bruckheimer Television. The 10-episode series has filmed seven episodes thus far before Hollander was let go. Hollander most notably executive produced and served as showrunner for long-running Showtime drama “Ray Donovan,” during which Hollander earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing and landed a WGA Award for Best New Series. He also co-wrote and directed the “Ray Donovan” movie after the series’ cancellation last year. Hollander’s previous TV shows include “Heartland” and “The Guardian,” which he both executive produced and directed multiple episodes of. “American Gigolo” star Bernthal recently told GQ that he was surprised to be cast in the lead role for the upcoming series. “I do not believe that I possess any kind of natural sex appeal,” Bernthal said. “I’ve always looked at myself as this weird-looking guy.” The “We Own This City” star continued, “It’s crazy to me, but it scares me — and that’s why I’m gonna see it through.” | |
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| 04-25-22 05:05am - 973 days | #14 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Meet the real topgun pilots: All skill. Zero special effects. Note: only stunt doubles can fly these planes. Do not attempt to duplicate the moves the movies show in real life. Flying can be hazardous to your health. Donald J. Trump, the fightenest President of the Untied States, will put on an aerial show this weekend. He will shoot down Russian F-666 and F-69 Stratospheric Supersonic Fighters in a daring display of skill and courage. Watch Trump avenge the stolen election that kept him out of the White House. Vote for Trump, and make America Free, White, and the Land of the Brave! Donate to Trump's legal team, which is fighting to keep Trump out of jail. Remember, the price of freedom is built on the blood, sweat and tears of patriots. | |
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| 04-24-22 10:02am - 974 days | #13 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Democrats tremble when Donald Trump appears. The Democrats are cowards, who refuse to worship Donald Trump, God's appointed ambassador on Earth. God selected Trump Himself, and that's why Trump was made President of the Untied States of Trumperland. But Democrats from Hell, the region down below where all sinners go, will go back down after Trump returns to the White House. Democrats are cowards. They hid under desks when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021. Republicans, on the other hand, welcomed the peaceful supporters of Trump, calling them patriots who were fighting a rigged election, and that Biden would only become president over the dead bodies of all loyal Republicans. God save the Republic! God save the Republican party! -------- -------- Warren: 'Kevin McCarthy is a liar and a traitor' Yahoo News Colin Campbell April 24, 2022, 7:49 AM Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., had tough words on Sunday for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is in hot water after the release of new audio of him suggesting that then-President Donald Trump should resign after the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol. "Kevin McCarthy is a liar and a traitor," Warren said on CNN's "State of the Union." Warren continued: "This is outrageous. And that is really the illness that pervades the Republican leadership right now. They say one thing to the American public and something else in private." McCarthy and his office initially denied a New York Times report that he had vented about Trump after Jan. 6, when a mob of the president's supporters assaulted the Capitol in an attempt to stop then-President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College certification. “I’ve had it with this guy,” McCarthy told a group of GOP leaders, according to the Times. McCarthy called the report “totally false and wrong,” and his spokesman said the lawmaker “never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.” But then the Times released audio of McCarthy saying exactly that: In a Jan. 10 recording, McCarthy says he would tell Trump that the House would impeach him and "it would be my recommendation you should resign." In a Jan. 11 recording, McCarthy said Trump acknowledged partial responsibility for the attack on Congress, which followed a Washington, D.C., rally in which the then president falsely claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that his supporters should "fight like hell." “I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened?” McCarthy says on the tape. ”Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he’d need to acknowledge that.” ANAHEIM, CA - APRIL 23: Rep. Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader in the United States House of Representatives speaks at the California Republican Party convention at Anaheim Marriott in Anaheim, CA on April 23, 2022 in Anaheim, CA. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) McCarthy hopes to be House speaker if Republicans take the House in the November midterm elections, and he almost surely would need Trump's support to corral the GOP caucus behind him. Accordingly, he hurried to contain the damage with Trump after the recordings were released. The Associated Press reported that, in the aftermath of the Times reports, McCarthy had a “positive” Thursday phone call with Trump, who told the GOP leader: “I’m not mad at you.” In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Trump did claim it was "false" that he accepted some responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack. “He made a call. I heard the call. I didn’t like the call," Trump told the Journal of the audio recordings. But Trump said it was a "compliment" that McCarthy and other GOP leaders who criticized him after Jan. 6 later said that they would still support him. “They realized they were wrong and supported me,” Trump said. Warren, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, argued Sunday that McCarthy's flip-flop shows a broader trend among Republicans in Congress. "They understand that it is wrong, what happened, an attempt to overthrow our government," said Warren, whose interview was mostly focused on arguing that her party should pass bold economic legislation before the November elections. "Shame on Kevin McCarthy," Warren added. The House continues to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, with a timetable that is also under pressure by the November elections that could see Republicans take Congress and quash the probe. In a Friday night court filing, the House committee investigating the attack alleged that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was warned that the Jan. 6 rally could turn violent, but pushed forward with it anyway. | |
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| 04-24-22 07:48am - 974 days | #12 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russia unveils powerful new weapon named the Trump missile. The nuclear missile was named after Putin's great ally in his fight with Ukraine, Donald J. Trump. The missile is able to explode in different directions, with amazing accuracy, hitting foes of Russia with devastating effect. Donald J. Trump says he his honored by the missile's name, and considers Putin one of his closest friends. ------- ------- Russian officer: Missile to carry several hypersonic weapons Associated Press April 24, 2022, 6:59 AM MOSCOW (AP) — A new Russian intercontinental ballistic missile is capable of carrying several hypersonic weapons, a senior Russian military officer said Sunday. Col. Gen. Sergei Karakayev, the commander of the Russian military's Strategic Missile Forces, said in televised remarks that the new Sarmat ICBM is designed to carry several Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the Sarmat was test-fired for the first time Wednesday from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and its practice warheads have successfully reached mock targets on the Kura firing range on the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. The test launch came amid soaring tensions between Moscow and the West over the Russian military action in Ukraine and underlines the Kremlin’s emphasis on the country’s nuclear forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the Sarmat launch as a major achievement, claiming that the new missile has no foreign equivalent and is capable of penetrating any prospective missile defense. “This really unique weapon will strengthen the combat potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats and make those, who in the heat of frantic aggressive rhetoric try to threaten our country, think twice,” Putin said Wednesday. The Sarmat is a heavy missile that has been under development for several years to replace the Soviet-made Voyevoda, which was code-named Satan by the West and forms the core of Russia’s nuclear deterrent. The military has said that the Avangard is capable of flying 27 times faster than the speed of sound and making sharp maneuvers on its way to target to dodge the enemy’s missile shield. In anticipation of the deployment of the Sarmat, the new hypersonic vehicle has been fitted to the existing Soviet-built ICBMs, and the first unit armed with the Avangard entered duty in December 2019. The director and the designer-in-chief of the Makeyev missile-maker that developed the Sarmat, Vladimir Degtyar, said in televised remarks that its range allows it to fly along any trajectory across north or south poles to hit any target around the world. | |
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| 04-24-22 04:53am - 974 days | #11 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Republicans have lied about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the fightenest, bravest, most honest president of the US we've ever seen. So if a Republican says Trump is not God's annointed son on Earth, that Republican should be shot for treason. Republicans who have criticized Trump. Shame on them. They should be dragged through the streets of Washington, and dumped into a sewer, where they should be left to rot. ------- ------- The New York Times McCarthy's Lie Puts GOP Hypocrisy on Trump on Display Annie Karni Sat, April 23, 2022, 7:21 AM House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 28, 2022. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 28, 2022. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times) WASHINGTON — Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s denial of disparaging comments he made about President Donald Trump after the Capitol attack Jan. 6, 2021, exposed a widely known but seldom seen phenomenon in Washington: the hypocrisy of Republicans who have privately scorned Trump while publicly defending him. McCarthy, R-Calif., who is campaigning to be speaker of the House if his party wins the majority in November, had dismissed as “totally false and wrong” a report that he had told fellow GOP leaders he would urge Trump to resign from office after the riot. But an audio recording of the conversation revealed McCarthy’s denial to be a lie. For McCarthy, the immediate political problem was not being caught in a lie. In the Republican Party, which has coalesced around Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, falsehoods have become routine and even accepted. The greater danger for McCarthy on Friday had been the truth — that, with the disclosure of his negative comments about Trump, he might invite the ire of the former president, who maintains a stranglehold on his party and on a powerful faction of extremist House members who already pose the greatest risk to his political future. But by Friday evening, it appeared the danger would not materialize, as Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that their relationship remained good. “I think it’s all a big compliment, frankly,” Trump told the Journal, referring to McCarthy and other Republicans who criticized him immediately after the Capitol attack but then relented. “They realized they were wrong and supported me.” For a Republican leader who has prostrated himself before Trump in ways large and small — including famously sorting through a package of Starbursts to present him with only his favorite red and pink candies — the lie was McCarthy's latest show of loyalty. Some of Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill have long criticized the former president and his family members behind closed doors, venting about his erratic policy decisions and tweets while expressing their total fealty in public. The release of the audio of McCarthy’s comments was a rare moment when the duplicity was on display. McCarthy spent Friday morning working the phones, calling members of his conference to gauge their level of concern about the recording. A source familiar with the conversations said his team had also been asking rank-and-file members to post tweets supporting McCarthy for speaker. “Republicans are going to take back the majority in November and when we do, Kevin McCarthy will be our Speaker,” Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, tweeted Friday. Advisers to Trump said that the two had spoken Thursday morning, after the story became public, and had what they called “a good conversation.” Another person familiar with the talks said that the two spoke again Thursday night, after the audio was released showing that McCarthy’s denial had been a lie, and that Trump had not appeared to be rattled by the statements. McCarthy’s prime concern Friday, according to a person familiar with the situation, was about Republicans he thought would be upset by his private criticism of Trump — not those who might be alarmed by the fact that he had been exposed as a liar in denying it. As if to underline the point, McCarthy repeated the falsehood Friday, telling reporters in Ridgecrest, California, “I never thought that he should resign.” There were few expressions of outrage from Republican members of Congress about their leader — one who would be in line to succeed the president if he achieves his aspiration of being speaker of the House — having been caught in a falsehood. They appeared to be following the lead of Trump. The former president “probably realizes this is all being driven by the left and the mainstream media,” said Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump, noting that it would work in McCarthy’s favor that the recording was first aired on an MSNBC broadcast hosted by Rachel Maddow, a frequent target of the right. “The speaker battle will happen after we win back the majority.” McCarthy’s private expressions of outrage most likely did not come as any surprise to Trump, who was irate when the congressman criticized him immediately after the Capitol assault in an unusually sharp House floor speech, saying he “bears responsibility” for the riot and proposing that he be censured. But McCarthy soon changed his tune after visiting the former president at his resort in Palm Beach, Florida. He walked back his condemnations, ultimately fought the creation of an inquiry and led an effort to purge Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from her House leadership post for speaking out against Trump. Some Republican lawmakers privately downplayed the significance of the taped conversation. They noted that McCarthy was not known as a truth-teller or someone who has been deeply loyal to Trump. Rather, he has built his reputation as a political operator whose approach is to fall in line with where a majority of his conference is heading. The recording, those members said, merely revealed McCarthy for the person his conference knew him to be. And for now, there was no obvious alternative to challenge him in a race for speaker. But McCarthy is also up against powerful political enemies who hold sway with the extremists in his conference. On Friday morning, Steve Bannon, a former top White House adviser, said on his popular podcast that it was a “cardinal sin” to deny comments that were then aired on tape. In his quest to become speaker, McCarthy has long engaged in painful contortions to please the disparate factions of his conference — all of whose support he will need to become the most powerful Republican in Washington. That has often meant going out of his way not to antagonize Trump or his staunchest allies in Congress. He has dodged reporters in the hallways of the Capitol asking him about a Republican National Committee resolution that suggested that Jan. 6 was “legitimate political discourse” and censured members of his conference for participating in the House investigation of the attack. He has refrained from punishing far-right Republicans who have attended white supremacist rallies or released videos promoting violence against Democrats, instead saying that he has had stern, private conversations with them about their behavior. McCarthy’s office did not respond to requests for comment Friday about the tape. He is scheduled to travel Monday with a group of House Republicans to the southwestern border in Texas, where he is expected to hold a news conference and is likely to be pressed to publicly respond to the taped conversation. In Trump’s circles, McCarthy is already viewed with skepticism and little trust. The relationship between the two men, aides to Trump said, was cordial but not particularly close. The former president is closer with House members like Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, both of whom he speaks to regularly and views as loyalists. McCarthy, in contrast, often relies on his aide Brian Jack, a former White House political director, as an intermediary who has a solid relationship with the former president. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a critic of McCarthy’s who has pushed for Trump to become speaker, was the first to denounce his comments. “While I was rallying in Wyoming against Liz Cheney … Kevin McCarthy was defending Liz Cheney among House Republicans,” Gaetz posted on Twitter on Friday, noting that McCarthy “should have trusted my instincts, not your own.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a vocal critic of Trump, tweeted that McCarthy should be “ashamed” of his lie. “Republicans, your leaders think you are dumb,” Kinzinger wrote. “Let’s be done with them.”  2022 The New York Times Company | |
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| 04-24-22 04:14am - 974 days | #10 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Trump says he's rather be a dictator than a dummie. That's why he feels entitled to be president of the US. Sleepy Joe Biden is a dummy. Don't you want a winner to be president? A man who will make America great again? ----- ----- Trump says he'd rather be 'a dictator' than 'a dumb person' after bragging about the cognitive test he took in 2018 Jake Lahut Fri, April 22, 2022, 8:12 AM Former President Donald Trump mused about embracing being portrayed as a dictator. Trump made the remarks at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla. on Thursday night. "Which would you rather be, a dumb person or a dictator? Perhaps a dictator would be better," he said. Former President Donald Trump on Thursday joked about being depicted as "a dictator" by the press, which he assumed was the result of the cognitive test he has repeatedly bragged about passing in 2018. "Which would you rather be, a dumb person or a dictator?" Trump said Thursday night at the Heritage Foundation's annual leadership conference in Florida at the Ritz-Carlton resort on Amelia Island. "Perhaps a dictator would be better," he continued. "I don't want to be a dumb person." —Acyn (@Acyn) April 21, 2022 In the same speech, Trump said he was surprised nobody ever found out that he told the president of a NATO country in a closed door meeting that the US would not come to their protection if they didn't increase their defense spending. Experts on authoritarianism have warned that Trump not only frequently praises strongmen dictators on the world stage, but also exhibits authoritarian tendencies of his own, culminating in the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill. In the former president's assessment, the dictator chatter only began because he did so well on a cognitive test he took in 2018. "First they said, 'Not too smart,'" Trump said earlier in his speech. "Well that all went away, and I said, 'Doc Ronny [Jackson], I gotta take a test.' He said, "You know the problem is, sir, this is essentially a public place.' One of the great hospitals of the world, right? You have a series of doctors sitting there and all, and if you do badly, the word's gonna get out ... And I did it in front of a panel, and we aced it. And the one person said, 'That's the first time I've ever seen anyone ace it.' So all of that stuff stopped ... but then they made me a dictator instead." The test Trump took is called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, designed to detect signs of dementia. It was also the source of his viral "person, woman, man, camera, TV" remarks from July 2020. Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 04-22-22 04:53pm - 975 days | #9 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Give me liberty or give me death. But don't put me in jail, or make me pay any fines. As a Congresswoman, I'm allowed to speak my mind. And if I speak treason, well, forget about it: because I have, if it means going to jail or paying fines. America the Great, the Whitest, Purest Country on Earth. Vote for Trump. ---- ---- Marjorie Taylor Greene confronted with past statements regarding violence in court hearing Yahoo News Jon Ward April 22, 2022, 2:08 PM Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., faced questioning under oath Friday in a Georgia elections court from lawyers who say she violated the Constitution by aiding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and should therefore be disqualified from running for reelection. After the hearing, Judge Charles Beaudrot will issue a decision with his findings to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has the final authority to determine whether Greene is qualified to appear on a ballot, though his decision can be appealed in state court. The Georgia primary is on May 24. Raffensperger himself faces a tough primary challenge from another Republican who has parroted former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Lawyers for plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit against Greene on behalf of voters in her district attempted to establish that her statements in the days and years leading up to Jan. 6 incited and aided the violent assault on the Capitol. The attorneys sought to prove that she violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which has a clause forbidding any lawmaker from having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [Constitution], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” Greene, who had attempted to evade the hearing through legal filings seeking to quash the lawsuit against her, testified for more than three hours in a state administrative court hearing in Atlanta. Her attorney, James Bopp, argued that the congresswoman had to have “engaged” in insurrection and not simply “aided” it in order to be found in violation of the Constitution. He also said that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection, but rather a riot and mob violence. The plaintiffs’ attorneys, Ron Fein and Andrew Celli, presented Greene with a series of statements she made that they said demonstrated a pattern of advocating for violence in the two years leading up to her election in 2020. They also questioned her about her knowledge of the potential for violence on Jan. 6, and statements she made spreading lies about a rigged election and urging Trump supporters to stop the transfer of power. Celli’s cross-examination began with comments by Greene in 2019, when she said that treason is “a crime punishable by death” and that “Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.” She also liked a comment on Facebook that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove Pelosi from office. Not long after that, during a trip to Washington, D.C., in February 2019, Greene said on Facebook Live that Pelosi would “suffer death or she’ll be in prison” because of her “treason.” Greene, for her part, spent most of her time on the stand, under oath, telling the lawyers that she did not remember or recall making such statements. When shown video evidence of her past comments, she tried to downplay her remarks, argued that a video might have been edited or incomplete, or claimed that her social media postings might have been made by members of her staff. Ahead of that trip to D.C., Greene — who would launch her candidacy for Congress a few months later — called on others to come with her on Feb. 23, 2019, to pressure lawmakers to fund a border wall. “If we have a sea of people shut down the streets, if we shut down everything. If we flood the Capitol building, flood all of the government buildings. Go inside. These are public buildings. We own them,” she said. Celli and lawyers for the plaintiffs listed these comments to demonstrate that Greene had called in the past for people to attempt to intimidate government officials by going into government buildings with the threat of violence. “We can do it peacefully. We can. I hope we don’t have to do it the other way. I hope not. But we should feel like we will if we have to,” Greene said. “Because we are the American people." “If you show up in big numbers on Feb. 23, oh I promise you, I promise you, they’ll be struck with fear on the inside,” she said. Bopp said Greene’s language was nothing more than “hyperbole that is commonly used.” James Bopp, attorney for Marjorie Taylor Greene. During questioning, Greene said she did not know if she had liked the comment about a bullet to Pelosi’s head. “I have had many people manage my social media account,” she said. “I have no idea who liked that comment.” Celli then moved on to comments made by Greene after the 2020 election. He spent a long time discussing the context behind her comments the day before the insurrection that referenced the American Revolution. “This is our 1776 moment,” Greene said on Jan. 5 during an interview with Newsmax, a right-wing TV station. “What was done in 1776 was to stop a tyrannical government with guns?” Celli asked Greene. She agreed: “Sure.” But she added, “I’ve always said I’m against violence.” Greene claimed her reference to 1776 was a comment only about objecting to the certification of the election results in Congress. But Celli asked her about another comment. He asked if she had said that “the peaceful transfer of power” should not be allowed. “I don’t recall,” Greene said. In response, Celli said, “Let’s go to the videotape.” He played a video of her entire comment. “You can’t allow it to just transfer power peacefully like Joe Biden wants and allow him to become our president, because he did not win this election,” she had said. Greene’s only defense was that this was “a partial statement.” The congresswoman also said she was “a victim of the riot that day” because she was afraid for her safety. | |
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| 04-21-22 07:43pm - 976 days | #8 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Donald Trump ordered to pay $1.3 million to a White House aide. It can be expensive to be the object of Trump's lawsuits. ----- ----- Trump campaign ordered to pay $1.3 million to Omarosa Manigault Newman HuffPost April 21, 2022, 1:18 PM Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was ordered to pay $1.3 million in legal fees Tuesday to former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman after he accused her of breaking a nondisclosure agreement with a tell-all book. A court arbitrator ordered the massive award after Trump unsuccessfully sued the former “Apprentice” star over her 2018 book, “Unhinged,” which came out a year after her firing from the White House. Trump contested that a nondisclosure agreement she signed while working for his campaign in 2016 prohibited her from disclosing “confidential information.” A court arbitrator on Tuesday ordered the presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump to pay Omarosa Manigault Newman $1.3 million to cover her legal fees over a lawsuit that was filed over a tell-all book she published. (Photo: Paul Morigi via Getty Images) A court arbitrator on Tuesday ordered the presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump to pay Omarosa Manigault Newman $1.3 million to cover her legal fees over a lawsuit that was filed over a tell-all book she published. (Photo: Paul Morigi via Getty Images) Arbitrator T. Andrew Brown said the agreement was too vague to be enforced, however, and last September ruled that Trump would have to pay Manigault Newman’s legal fees. That total on Tuesday came out to $1,310,873. “We will remove golden toilets if we have to to collect the $1.3 million, plus interest,” her attorney, John Phillips, tweeted Wednesday while celebrating the arbitrator’s decision. Manigault Newman also celebrated the award on Twitter while calling it a “David vs. Goliath” moment. Trump and his campaign did not immediately comment on the order. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. | |
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| 04-19-22 06:05am - 979 days | #7 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Donald J. Trump urges police and concerned citizens to carry 357 Magnum Revolvers to eradicate Democrats and other Evil Scum and to make America Great Again. Vote for Donald J. Trump, the fighthenest, fittest President of the Untied States of Trumperland we've ever seen. ---- ---- National Censorship battles’ new frontier: Your public library Conservatives are teaming with politicians to remove books and gut library boards Image without a caption By Annie Gowen April 17, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT LLANO, Tex. — In early November, an email dropped into the inbox of Judge Ron Cunningham, the silver-haired head chair of the governing body of Llano County in Texas’s picturesque Hill Country. The subject line read “Pornographic Filth at the Llano Public Libraries.” “It came to my attention a few weeks ago that pornographic filth has been discovered at the Llano library,” wrote Bonnie Wallace, a 54-year-old local church volunteer. “I’m not advocating for any book to be censored but to be RELOCATED to the ADULT section. … It is the only way I can think of to prohibit censorship of books I do agree with, mainly the Bible, if more radicals come to town and want to use the fact that we censored these books against us.” Wallace had attached an Excel spreadsheet of about 60 books she found objectionable, including those about transgender teens, sex education and race, including such notable works as “Between the World and Me,” by author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, an exploration of the country’s history written as a letter to his adolescent son. Not long after, the county’s chief librarian sent the list to Suzette Baker, head of one of the library’s three branches. “She told me to look at pulling the books off the shelf and possibly putting them behind the counter. I told them that was censorship,” Baker said. Wallace’s list was the opening salvo in a censorship battle that is unlikely to end well for proponents of free speech in this county of 21,000 nestled in rolling hills of mesquite trees and cactus northwest of Austin. Leaders have taken works as seemingly innocuous as the popular children’s picture book “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak off the shelves, closed library board meetings to the public and named Wallace the vice chair of a new library board stacked with conservative appointees — some of whom did not even have library cards. With these actions, Llano joins a growing number of communities across America where conservatives have mounted challenges to books and other content related to race, sex, gender and other subjects they deem inappropriate. A movement that started in schools has rapidly expanded to public libraries, accounting for 37 percent of book challenges last year, according to the American Library Association. Conservative activists in several states, including Texas, Montana and Louisiana have joined forces with like-minded officials to dissolve libraries’ governing bodies, rewrite or delete censorship protections, and remove books outside of official challenge procedures. “The danger is that we start to have information and books that only address one viewpoint that are okayed by just one certain group,” said Mary Woodward, president-elect of the Texas Library Association. “We lose that diversity of thought and diversity of ideas libraries are known for — and only represent one viewpoint that is the loudest,” said Woodward, noting that there have been an estimated 17 challenges leveled at public libraries in Texas recently and that she expects many more. Leila Green Little, a parent and board member of the Llano County Library System Foundation, said her anti-censorship group obtained dozens of emails from country officials that reveal the outsize influence a small but vocal group of conservative Christian and tea party activists wielded over the county commissioners to reshape the library system to their own ideals. In one of the emails, which were obtained through a public records request and shared with The Washington Post, Cunningham seemed to question whether public libraries were even necessary. “The board also needs to recognize that the county is not mandated by law to provide a public library,” Cunningham wrote to Wallace in January. He declined to comment for this story but said in a statement that the county was aware of citizen concerns and “is committed to providing excellent public library services to our patrons consistent with community expectations and standards, as well as operating within compliance of Texas and Federal statutes.” Dissent over removing books Cunningham, a two-term judge who was once part of the security detail for then-Gov. George W. Bush, acted quickly on the complaints. He strode into the main library a few weeks later and took two books off the shelves — Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen” — because some parents had objected to the main character in the story, a little boy, appearing nude — and “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health,” a sex education book for parents and children ages 10 and up, that includes color illustrations of the human body and sex acts. He also ordered librarians to pause buying new material and to pull “any books with photos of naked or sexual conduct regardless if they are animated or actual photos,” emails reviewed by The Washington Post showed. Advertisement Texas school districts were already ablaze with book challenges in October, when state Rep. Matt Krause (R), chair of the General Investigating Committee, asked school districts for information on his own list of 850 books, most of them gender- and race-themed, that “might make children feel discomfort, guilt or anguish.” Gov. Greg Abbott (R) jumped into the fray, calling for an investigation of “pornography” in school libraries. One school district removed more than 100 books, although most were reviewed and returned. Schools nationwide are quietly removing books from their shelves EveryLibrary, a national political action committee for libraries that tracks such challenges, said it has seen “dozens of new attacks” on libraries, their governing bodies and policies since the first of the year — in Texas as well as ongoing cases in Montana and Louisiana. In some cases, the challengers are being assisted by growing national networks such as the parental rights group Moms for Liberty or spurred on by conservative public policy organizations like Heritage Action for America, the ALA has said. 'Parental rights' is the new rallying cry for conservative moms group At the county’s main library in Llano, director Amber Milum said in an interview that she had already taken it upon herself to put some books away in a file cabinet in her office as early as August, including two popular read-aloud picture books aimed at amusing kids: “I Need a New Butt!” and “Freddie the Farting Snowman.” The moves circumvented the library’s established practices on objectionable content — including a challenge form to be reviewed by librarians. Isolating or removing books because of subjective or “personal opinions” — finding the content offensive or distasteful, for example — could open up a library to a First Amendment challenge, experts said. Advertisement “We didn’t fill out a form, everyone just came in and talked to me personally,” Milum said. “I took notes on everything that everybody was saying, and that’s how it happened.” Meanwhile, Baker, head librarian at the library branch in the unincorporated community of Kingsland, about 23 miles from Llano, continued to push back. An Army veteran whose grandfather fought in World War II and who has a son in Afghanistan, said she is a firm believer in the Bill of Rights. “I don’t think we should give in. If we give them even an inch, they will think they can do whatever they want,” she wrote in an email to Milum. Then in December, the commissioners voted to suspend the county’s e-book system, OverDrive, because, they said, it lacked sufficient parental controls, which also cut off access for the elderly, people with disabilities or those otherwise unable to visit a physical library. Officials say they plan on replacing the system. They also shuttered the libraries for three days just before Christmas to review and reorganize the teen and children’s collections. “God has been so good to us … please continue to pray for the librarians and that their eyes would be open to the truth,” Rochelle Wells, a new member of the library board, wrote in an email. “They are closing the library for 3 days which are to be entirely devoted to removing books that contain pornographic content.” Green Little said not much is known about what administrators did during the time the libraries were closed. The book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” a work about systemic racism by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Isabel Wilkerson, has mysteriously vanished, and the fate of several other works remains unknown, she said. “When I heard books were being taken out of the library, that was a big-time problem for me,” she said. “For others it was the fact that the county was not operating transparently. A small group of private citizens had an inordinate amount of control over county workings.” More books are banned than ever before Green Little, a mother of two who lives with her family on an 1800s-era cattle ranch outside of town, said it was not easy to take a stand in conservative Llano County, where nearly 80 percent of the majority-White population voted for President Donald Trump in 2020. A Confederate flag still flies at the Civil War memorial. | |
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| 04-19-22 05:19am - 979 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Evil Playgrounds. A newer site on the Adult Prime network. Only 43 videos so far. | |
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| 04-19-22 04:33am - 979 days | #6 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Alex Jones' InforWars files for bankruptcy. This is a genius move. This will shield the assets from critics who want to take money from Alex Jones, who has claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax. Did the US government create a fake crime, where actors put on a show that was treated as a real event by the Fake News that Donald J. Trump uncovered? Did Donald J. Trump show the nation that the US government, before he took charge, was trying to bring down America with fake news???? Bring back Donald J. Trump, and we can be great again. ----- ----- Alex Jones' InfoWars files for bankruptcy in U.S. court Reuters April 18, 2022, 12:05 PM (Reuters) -Far-right wing website InfoWars on Sunday filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in the face of multiple defamation lawsuits. Chapter 11 bankruptcy procedures put a hold on all civil litigation matters and allow companies to prepare turnaround plans while remaining operational. Alex Jones, founder of InfoWars, was found liable for damages in a trio of lawsuits last year filed after he falsely claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax. Jones claimed the shooting, in which 20 children and six school employees were shot dead at the school in Newtown, Connecticut, was fabricated by gun-control advocates and mainstream media. Sandy Hook families in late March rejected Jones' offer to settle their defamation lawsuit and reopened the case. Jones had offered to pay $120,000 to each of the 13 plaintiffs to settle the case. Each of the plaintiffs turned down the settlement offer in court documents, saying, "The so-called offer is a transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath with his deceitful, profit-driven campaign against the plaintiffs and the memory of their loved ones lost at Sandy Hook." According to Sunday's court filings, InfoWars listed its estimated assets in the range of $0-$50,000 and estimated liabilities in the range of $1 million to $10 million. Jones, a vocal supporter of former U.S. President Donald Trump, was previously subpoenaed by the House of Representatives committee probing the January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. (Reporting by Rachna Dhanrajani, Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Hugh Lawson) | |
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| 04-19-22 04:22am - 979 days | #5 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
John Oliver fails to endorse Dr. Oz. This shows a lack of solidarity for TV personalities. Donald J. Trump has endorsed Dr. Oz. So why can't John Oliver? ---- ---- John Oliver rips Dr. Oz’s 'sh*t show' Senate campaign: 'Hard to pick a low point' Yahoo TV Stephen Proctor April 18, 2022, 12:12 AM On Last Week Tonight With John Oliver Sunday, Oliver took aim at Dr. Mehmet Oz and his U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania. Oz was a surprising entry into the Republican primary, and was reportedly met with mockery among Pennsylvania Republicans. With Oz now in full campaign mode, Oliver joined in on that mockery. “Trump has endorsed Dr. Oz, and we’ve talked about Dr. Oz’s daytime snake oil carnival in detail before,” Oliver said. “So I didn’t think his campaign could surprise me, but it has, because it’s been a sh*t show.” Oz has been posting videos of himself at the grocery store, and pumping gas in order to take shots at President Biden over the prices. But in the past, he has posted videos of his lavish lifestyle, and is reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars, so Oliver isn’t buying Oz’s indignation. To prove his point, Oliver showed a video Oz posted of himself wakeboarding in Italy. “That is Dr. Oz wake surfing with the caption ‘surfin’ through #Italy’ to the song 'My Life Be Like.' And the truth is, that is what his life be like because he’s f**king rich, which means he gets to do stuff like that,” Oliver said. “But what he doesn’t get to do though, is stand in front of gas pumps and pretend like he’s personally affected by those numbers.” As stated above, Oz’s entry into the race was not initially well-received by some, and former President Donald Trump’s endorsement received backlash. Oz has tried to win over Republican voters with gun-rights and anti-abortion posts, but Oliver believes the TV doctor’s videos could be his downfall despite his having spent countless hours in front of cameras. “Maybe that shift to the right and the Trump endorsement will help him win, but if that happens, it’ll be pretty remarkable,” Oliver said. “Because for a man who’s made a career out of talking into a camera, it is amazing how bad he’s been at doing that during this campaign. It’s honestly hard to pick a low point.” Last Week Tonight With John Oliver airs Sundays at 11 p.m. on HBO. | |
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| 04-19-22 04:13am - 979 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
BLM (Black Lives Matter) leaders are facing questions about where the funds they've collected have gone. Some people will question if the money collected has been spent wisely. So people need to have faith in their leaders. This is why black people need to put a man in charge who has honor, and a proven record of reliability: Put Donald J. Trump in charge of the BLM group: a man with proven business skills, a man who will know how to best use those funds to lead the group wisely. Donald J. Trump, the man who will make America great again. With whiteness for all. Amen. ------ ------ BLM leaders dismiss questions over use of donations NBC Universal Char Adams April 12, 2022, 11:57 AM Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are dismissing allegations that they mismanaged millions of dollars after a scathing New York Magazine report revealed that they had purchased a $6 million home in Southern California with donated funds. Patrisse Cullors, co-founder and former executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, and Melina Abdullah, co-founder of BLM Los Angeles and co-director of BLM Grassroots, spoke to reporters Monday during a closed roundtable discussion, dismissing recent articles about the organization’s finances as media attacks and “misinformation and disinformation,” and claiming that any lack of transparency about the multimillion dollar property was out of concern for the leaders’ safety. “Almost immediately upon closing, the attacks on me, and BLM, which also means Melina and others, escalated,” Cullors said, adding that she stayed at the home for four nights while the FBI investigated a death threat against her. “So we did use the campus as a haven, as a safe place. That derailed an announcement strategy. Conditions changed, and that’s it.” Cullors was named executive director of the global network foundation in July 2020 and left the organization last spring. The discussion came a week after the New York Magazine report by Sean Campbell renewed questions about the organization’s use of donations. The report revealed that the group secretly bought the 6,500-square-foot house in October 2020 as a hub and headquarters for its members to create content promoting social justice. The report only fueled questions about the organization’s finances, just a year after the foundation revealed a detailed look at its funds for the first time. The Associated Press reported then that the foundation said it had taken in just over $90 million in 2020 and committed $21.7 million in grant funding to both official and unofficial BLM chapters, along with 30 other Black-led grassroots organizations. The foundation put its operating budget at $8.4 million. The BLM Movement was born in 2013, after George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin; the global network was created shortly after and, today, has more than 40 chapters around the world, according to the BLM LA website. The movement has worked to advocate for victims of police violence and educate the public about systemic issues plaguing Black communities. Along with questions about the remainder of the $90 million, leaders from local chapters who said they’ve received little to no funding from the organization said they’ve wondered where money raised before 2020 has gone. Cullors said the organization did not receive much money until 2020 and denied any claims to the contrary. “It just isn’t true. Our largest donor base, previous to me resigning, was always small dollar donors,” Cullors said. “It’s just not true that millions were poured in. At most, our budget was at $1.4” million. Chelsea Fuller, a spokesperson for Cullors and Abdullah, told reporters that current leaders of the foundation declined to be part of the discussion on Monday. A spokesperson for the organization said that “the Foundation intends to do its own media in the near future” and directed NBC News to a statement the group shared Monday on Twitter. The statement highlights that the foundation has donated some $3 million to families affected by Covid and more than $25 million to “Black-led front-line” organizations around the world. “We are embracing this moment as an opportunity for accountability, healing, truth-telling, and transparency,” the statement reads. “We understand the necessity of working intentionally to rebuild trust so we can continue forging a new path that sustains Black people for generations.” NBCBLK previously reported on the tension between the national organization and its local chapters. In an attempt to disperse some of the 2020 funds, the foundation launched BLM Grassroots, a $6.5 million fund in which local chapters could apply for grants of up to $500,000. Local organizers said then that they had no knowledge that such a fund was being created, and that they were not asked for input about the appointment of Cullors as executive director of the network. This, they said then, was just another example of the organization’s lack of transparency. “This is not a new conversation we’re having. It’s one that keeps coming up,” Ariel Lipscomb, an organizer with BLM Denver, said in 2020. “We’ve consistently asked for accountability. We’ve consistently asked for transparency. We’ve consistently asked for shared power and for the actions of BLMGNF to reflect the work that we do.” The renowned scholar, writer and activist Angela Davis joined the discussion Monday and admitted that she was “not aware of all of the details” regarding allegations of mismanaged funds. Still, she equated the latest controversy with “attacks to discredit the movement” that have historically plagued Black movements. | |
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| 04-19-22 04:00am - 979 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
People file suit to disqualify Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for Congress. Is this legal? Can you stop a crazy person for running for Congress? Just because they are crazy, or want to riot and bring down a US president, can you stop them from running for Congress? Congress people have the right to lie, because it's covered by the Constitution under the right of political free speech. And Greene demands the right to carry a handgun in Washington DC, as part of the right to defend herself against enemies both foreign and domestic. So why can't she run for Congress? ------ ------ Judge: Georgia voters can challenge Greene's reelection run Associated Press April 19, 2022, 5:32 AM ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ruled that a group of Georgia voters can proceed with legal efforts seeking to disqualify U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from running for reelection to Congress, citing her role in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. The challenge filed last month with the Georgia secretary of state’s office alleges that Greene, a Republican, helped facilitate the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. That violates a rarely cited provision of the 14th Amendment and makes her ineligible to run for reelection, according to the challenge. The amendment says no one can serve in Congress “who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress . . . to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.” Ratified shortly after the Civil War, it was meant in part to keep representatives who had fought for the Confederacy from returning to Congress. Greene, 47, filed a lawsuit earlier this month asking a judge to declare that the law that the voters are using to challenge her eligibility is itself unconstitutional and to prohibit state officials from enforcing it. Judge Amy Totenberg, in a 73-page ruling, denied Greene’s request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order. Totenberg, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia by President Barack Obama, wrote that Greene had failed to meet the “burden of persuasion” in her request for injunctive relief. Georgia law says any voter who is eligible to vote for a candidate may challenge that candidate’s qualifications by filing a written complaint within two weeks after the deadline for qualifying. The secretary of state must then notify the candidate of the challenge and request a hearing before an administrative law judge. After holding a hearing, the administrative law judge presents findings to the secretary of state, who then must determine whether the candidate is qualified. Free Speech for People, a national election and campaign finance reform group, filed the challenge March 24 on behalf of the group of voters. Greene said in her lawsuit that she “vigorously denies that she ‘aided and engaged in insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power.” | |
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| 04-17-22 08:25am - 981 days | #2 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Mark Wahlberg's Beverly Park mega-mansion lists for $87.5 million LA Times April 12, 2022, 7:42 AM Mark Wahlberg’s mega-mansion — an amenity-loaded compound complete with a golf course, skate park and grotto — just surfaced for sale at $87.5 million in Beverly Park. If the movie star gets his price (or anything close), it’ll be the second-biggest home sale in Southern California so far this year. The current crown belongs to The One, which was auctioned off for $141 million in March. There’s a reason the mansion carries such a big price tag. At 30,500 square feet, it’s the seventh-largest house currently on the market in Los Angeles County — and while many of the top spots are occupied by boxy, modern spec mansions, Wahlberg’s place stands on its own as a European-style showplace that mixes Old World style with an abundance of modern amenities. Set on more than six acres, the estate is in Beverly Park, a star-studded neighborhood that regularly sees sales north of $30 million. In February, Sylvester Stallone sold his home there to Adele for $58 million. 10 Photos Mark Wahlberg’s mega-mansion See Gallery Wahlberg, who’s starring in the biographical drama “Father Stu,” bought the property for $8.25 million in 2009 and commissioned mega-mansion architect Richard Landry to build the home. Landry finished it five years later, fitting 12 bedrooms, 20 bathrooms and a myriad of lavish living spaces into the two-story floor plan. A motor court with a fountain approaches the column-lined exterior, and inside, dual staircases set a stately tone in the grand entry. Other highlights include a two-story wood-paneled library, double-island kitchen, movie theater, wine cellar, multiple bars and massive gym. Terraces line the second story, overlooking a park-like backyard with gardens, lawns, a grotto-style swimming pool, skate park and five-hole golf course with sand traps. Wahlberg, a Massachusetts native, also added a basketball court emblazoned with the Boston Celtics logo. Wahlberg grew to stardom as a member of the hip-hop group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch before transitioning to acting with notable credits in “Boogie Nights,” “Planet of the Apes” and “The Other Guys.” The 50-year-old has received two Oscar nominations: one for “The Departed” and one for “The Fighter.” Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate agency holds the listing. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. | |
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| 04-17-22 07:58am - 981 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
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Buried beneath a mass of corruption and lies, a dirty secret is exposed: Donald J. Trump is Hitler's secret love child. That is why Trump is such a magnet to all Neo-Nazi party loyalists. Trump is the hidden icon of Nazi Germany. And the right-hand man of Vlad Putin in America. Who else could have risen from obscurity and become the fightenest, most bravest, most heroic President of the Untied States of Trumperland? God's annointed messenger on Earth? Who will make America great again? Vote for Trump!!! He will make us whole, and bring down Joe Biden and other scummy Democrats who are trying to destroy our White America!!! | |
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| 04-16-22 12:37pm - 981 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Metart $5 for the first month. Sexart $5 for the first month. Here are the best Easter deals: Brazzers ($9.99)  Reality Kings ($9.99) Digital Playground ($9.99) Mofos ($9.99) Adult Time ($9.95) Evil Angel ($7.95) TeamSkeet ($9.95) | |
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| 04-16-22 12:33pm - 981 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Easter is here, and porn sites are offering discounts. Rabbits reviews (sister site of PU) has some deals listed. https://www.rabbitsreviews.com/easter-po...ly-Theme-Description And there are plenty of other deals, if you look around. | |
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| 04-16-22 12:20pm - 981 days | #12 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russia has learned the secret US war plans: The US will send infected birds into Russia, spreading disease and killing millions of innocent Russian citizens. Forced to act, Russia declares war on the evil Joe Biden, and will send weapons of mass destruction into the US. The only hope is that Donald Trump re-takes the White House with foreign aid, to stop the war spreading through-out the world. Can Biden be put down, and Republicans, the party of Abe Lincoln, re-take the White House? ---- ---- Russian war disinformation — from the Bucha massacre to the sinking of the Moskva battleship — keeps growing Yahoo News Zach Dorfman April 15, 2022, 2:10 PM From the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and throughout the conflict, Moscow has pursued a strategy of aggressive public dissembling, prevarication and disinformation aimed at creating an alternative reality to explain how events have unfolded on the ground. In Russia itself, the rules for even talking about Ukraine have become Orwellian, with citizens now facing lengthy potential prison sentences for simply stating that their country is at war, let alone expressing opposition to it. (The Kremlin-approved term for the conflict is “special military operation,” not war.) While Ukraine has also focused on using social media to showcase its military victories in the conflict and to spread the hortatory powers of its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the information war fought by Kyiv has been largely reflective of that which can actually be documented. In contrast, Russian state media and top Russian officials have repeatedly propagated an entirely false reality in which Moscow, not Kyiv, is faced with an existential military threat; where Ukrainians, not Russians, are committing horrific war crimes against Ukrainian civilians; where Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis; and where Russia’s war aims are proceeding entirely according to plan. Here are some of the most flagrant falsehoods advanced by Moscow about Russia’s attack on Ukraine: The massive buildup of troops on Ukraine’s border preceding the invasion was for 'training exercises' Beginning last summer, a spike in Russian military personnel and equipment amassing on Ukraine’s border set off alarm bells in Western capitals. Russia repeatedly and strenuously denied that the buildup was for anything other than routine military exercises. Moscow even continued denying its aim to invade Ukraine after troops it had sent to Belarus for joint military drills did not return to Russia after the drills' conclusion. As roughly 200,000 Russian troops swelled on Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern borders, and an invasion appeared imminent, Russian officials called U.S. warnings about an attack “absurd” and “hysterical” just a few short weeks before Moscow’s aggression sparked the biggest land war in Europe since World War II. Russia’s invasion is operating on schedule and according to plan Moscow has repeatedly claimed that its “special military operation” in Ukraine is proceeding as planned. But this is demonstrably false. Russia’s original plan was to make a lightning strike on the capital, Kyiv, capture or kill Ukrainian leadership and force Ukrainian legislators to vote in a pro-Russia puppet government. But that plan disintegrated amid fierce Ukrainian resistance, including a critical victory at an airport near Kyiv that foiled Russian troops from establishing a beachhead near the capital. Buoyed by these early victories, Ukrainians have managed to beat back Russia’s assault on Kyiv and other major cities such as Kharkiv, preventing Moscow’s forces, so far, from taking those major population centers. Further undercutting the claim that the war is proceeding to plan, up to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed so far, according to NATO estimates, including over half a dozen generals. Ukraine has also claimed responsibility, via rocket attack, for sinking Russia’s Moskva cruiser, the flagship vessel of Russia’s Black Sea fleet and the largest military ship sunk since World War II. (Russia has said the vessel sank because of a storm after catching fire.) Russia, having pulled its troops back entirely from Kyiv and its environs, has refocused its assault on Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Moscow now claims that carving that region out of Ukraine to create an independent statelet — in reality a Russia puppet regime — was always its primary war aim. But this is a wholesale rewriting of very recent history in which Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that the central goal was the “de-Nazification” of the whole of Ukraine. The Ukrainian government is run by neo-Nazis Members of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion in Kharkiv Members of the Ukrainian Azov Battalion in Kharkiv. (Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images) Putin’s attempts to link Ukraine with Nazism have also proved a stretch. Russia has claimed that the Ukrainian government is an outlaw state run by neo-Nazi extremists. In fact, Zelensky is Jewish and won election in 2019 as a moderate. And though Ukraine has struggled with corruption, its government is squarely mainstream in nature — and, in fact, far less right-wing than some European states like Hungary. Russia’s reference to “neo-Nazis” seems to spring from the activities of the Azov Battalian, a Ukrainian militant group with neo-fascist leanings that was integrated into Ukraine’s national guard in 2014. But Azov affiliates make up a tiny percentage of Ukraine’s total military forces, and Azov’s own leadership has sought to distance the organization from its more overtly neo-fascist past. Moreover, Russia’s purported “de-Nazification” objectives ring particularly hollow since Russia has employed its own neo-fascist paramilitary operatives to fight in Ukraine, including the Wagner Group, which is closely connected to the Russian government, and the Russian Imperial Movement, which the U.S. designated a terrorist group in 2020. The massacre in Bucha was staged (and if it's not, Ukraine is to blame) French forensic investigators French forensic investigators oversee workers carrying a body bag exhumed from a mass grave in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images) After Russian troops retreated from the Kyiv region, Ukrainian forces fanned out across the city’s suburbs, which had seen some of the heaviest fighting of the war. What the Ukrainians discovered shocked them as well as much of the world: widespread evidence of war crimes and atrocities committed by Russian forces. Russian forces in Bucha appeared to have wantonly executed people it knew to be civilians, including women and children, and forced women into sex slavery. Russia immediately offered a series of contradictory explanations for the scenes in Bucha: that Russian troops had left the town before the killings began (which was false); that the killings were staged (false); and that if the killings were real, the massacre was a “false flag” by the Ukrainians (also false). In fact, the transference of blame to Ukraine for Russia’s own heinous actions has been a hallmark of the war. Russia also claimed that its attack on the Kramatorsk train station, which killed over 50 civilians trying to flee violence in Ukraine’s east, was committed by the Ukrainians themselves. And Russia has a long history of attempting to commit false flag operations to misattribute blame for the war. In the run-up to the invasion, these included plans for a staged, or even real, chemical attack perpetrated by Russia in eastern Ukraine that U.S. officials warned was going to be made to look like the work of Kyiv’s forces, in order to provide Moscow with a casus belli. Moscow has also claimed, without any evidence, that the U.S. is planning on using an army of infected birds to send bioweapons into Russia. U.S. officials have continued to worry that Russia will employ chemical weapons and blame their use on Ukraine. | |
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| 04-14-22 04:59pm - 983 days | #5 | |
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LKLK (0)
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Russia admits Black Sea flagship sinks after Ukraine claims missile strike Yahoo News Niamh Cavanagh April 14, 2022, 6:23 AM LONDON — Russian officials said their flagship Black Sea vessel sank in what Ukrainian officials claimed was a missile strike against the warship Moskva. Defense Ministry officials in Moscow said on Thursday that the Moskva, a warship leading the country’s naval assault against Ukraine, sank while being towed to port during a storm. Moscow initially said a "fire" set off some of its weapons and that “ammunition exploded on board" as a result. Officials said the crew, believed to include around 500 sailors, were safely evacuated from the burning ship. The ministry said the fire is now under investigation. However, the governor of Odesa claimed the damage was a result of a Ukrainian missile strike on Wednesday. "It has been confirmed that the missile cruiser Moskva today went exactly where it was sent by our border guards on Snake Island!” the governor, Maksym Marchenko, said in a post on Telegram. “Neptune missiles protecting the Black Sea have caused significant damage to this Russian ship.” The Neptune is a Ukrainian-made anti-ship weapon that came into operation just last year, and its design is based on the Soviet Kh-35 cruise missile. The launchers are mounted on trucks and can hit targets up to roughly 175 miles away, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Neither Russia's nor Ukraine’s claims have been independently verified. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said early Thursday that the U.S. cannot confirm Ukraine's claims of hitting the ship but did say it was a “big blow to Russia.” A satellite image of the Moskva in port. A satellite image shows the Moskva in Port Sevastopol in Crimea. (Satellite image 2022 Maxar Technologies via AP)Alessio Patalano, a professor of war and strategy at King's College London, told CNN that losing the flagship vessel would be a "massive blow" for Russian forces. "Ships operate away from public attention, and their activities are rarely the subject of news,” he said. “But they are large floating pieces of national territory, and when you lose one, a flagship no less, the political and symbolic message — in addition to the military loss — stands out precisely because of it.” Two Ukrainian sources confirmed to Sky News that the 13,780-ton warship had been hit by missiles launched by Ukraine. "She is on fire," one of the sources said of the warship. "The level of damage is being clarified. … She is about 25 nautical miles from Snake Island." A satellite image of Snake Island and a Russian ship. A satellite image shows an overview of Snake Island and Russian Ropucha ship. (Satellite image 2022 Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters)The Moskva is the ship that tried to attack Snake Island in February on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. The warship approached the island in the Black Sea and ordered 13 Ukrainian soldiers to surrender. However, the Ukrainian soldiers told the Moskva to “go f*** yourself.” After the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the soldiers “died heroically but did not give up.” It was later reported by the country’s navy that they had been captured alive by Russia. According to the Ukrainian Parliament, the soldiers were later released in a prisoner swap. Ukrainian service member Roman Gribov shakes hands with the head of Cherkasy Regional Military Administration Ihor Taburets. Ukrainian service member Roman Gribov, who was captured by Russian troops on Snake Island on Feb. 24 and swapped for Russian POWs, receives an award from military official Ihor Taburets in Cherkasy, Ukraine. (Press service of the Cherkasy Regional Military Administration/Handout via Reuters) The warship has led the naval assault on Ukraine, making it an important military target. Moskva has been a naval power in the Black Sea since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. It carries a number of anti-submarine and mine-torpedo weapons and holds over a dozen Vulkan anti-ship missiles. If the Moskva is lost, it will be the second Russian warship to be destroyed by the Ukrainian military. On March 25, officials from Ukraine said they had struck a landing ship, named by Ukrainian forces as the Saratov, at the port of Berdyansk the day before. Videos from social media showed fires raging and smoke billowing from the docks, which had been occupied by Russian forces. | |
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| 04-14-22 11:24am - 984 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russia warns it might be forced to use nuclear missiles if people want to fight Russia. Does Russia have the legal right to fire nuclear missiles at Sweden and Finland? And what about the USA? Hasn't the USA been sending weapons to Ukraine, to keep the war going? Why can't Russia invade the USA, and put someone friendly to Russia in power? Someone like Donald Trump, the bestest buddy of Putin? Can Trump stop Russia from invading the USA? How much money will Trump make, if he brokers a deal with Putin to keep America safe from nuclear missiles? Russia might be forced to bomb Finland and Sweden, to protect Russian citizens who live near Finland and Sweden. Much against the wishes of Russian people, who love freedom and Swedes and Finnish people. --- --- Russia warns of Baltic nuclear deployment if NATO admits Sweden and Finland Reuters April 14, 2022, 2:11 AM LONDON (Reuters) - One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest allies warned NATO on Thursday that if Sweden and Finland joined the U.S.-led military alliance then Russia would have to bolster its defences in the region, including by deploying nuclear weapons. Finland, which shares a 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia, and Sweden are mulling whether or not to join the NATO alliance. Finland will make a decision in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Wednesday. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said that should Sweden and Finland join NATO then Russia would have to strengthen its land, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea to restore military balance. Medvedev also explicitly raised the nuclear threat by saying that there could be no more talk of a "nuclear free" Baltic - where Russia has its Kaliningrad exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attend a meeting with members of the government in Moscow, Russia January 15, 2020. Sputnik/Alexey Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin attend a meeting with members of the government in Moscow. "There can be no more talk of any nuclear–free status for the Baltic - the balance must be restored," said Medvedev, who was president from 2008-2012. "Until today, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to," Medvedev said. "If our hand is forced well... take note it wasn't us who proposed this," he added. Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States. Putin says the "special military operation" in Ukraine is necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Moscow had to defend against the persecution of Russian-speaking people by Ukraine. Ukraine says it is fighting against an imperial-style land grab and that Putin's claims of genocide are nonsense. | |
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| 04-14-22 11:14am - 984 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Man charged in January 2001 Washington riot explains he was trying to protect President Trump. The man's lawyer sought subpoenas to call Trump and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as witnesses, but U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton rejected that request. Why isn't Trump willing to testify on behalf of a man who fought for Trump? Is Trump a coward, who will leave men in the field, without backup or support when they are in need? Enquiring minds want to know: What is Trump thinking, when men who support Trump are put in jail? That this nation was built on blood and sacrifice, that others must die before Trump wins back the Presidency that Joe Biden stole? ------ ------ Capitol riot defendant: I was following Trump's instructions Associated Press JACQUES BILLEAUD April 13, 2022, 4:34 PM WASHINGTON (AP) — An Ohio man charged with storming the U.S. Capitol and stealing a coat rack testified Wednesday that he joined thousands of protesters in ransacking the building last year on what he thought were orders from the president, Donald Trump. Dustin Byron Thompson, 38, of Columbus, Ohio, said he took to websites and the internet after being laid off from his exterminator job in March 2020 and in his pandemic doldrums fell under Trump’s sway as he bought into conspiracy theories and “went down the rabbit hole on the internet.” On trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, Thompson testified that the claim that the election was stolen seemed credible to him because it was coming from the president. His defense team is the first to argue that Trump and those connected to him were responsible for the actions of the mob that day. “It seems like everyone was attacking him (Trump). He needed someone to stand up for him, and I was trying to do that,” Thompson said. Under questioning by the prosecution, Thompson acknowledged that he ignored signs he shouldn’t be at the Capitol — broken glass, alarms, chemical irritants in the air — and said he stole the coat rack to keep others from using it as a weapon. He also said he witnessed fierce fighting between police and rioters outside the building, and later ran away from officers. He said he realized weeks later that what he had done was wrong and now feels shame for his actions. Thompson’s jury trial is the third among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions. The first two ended with jurors convicting both defendants on all counts. Thompson's defense team is the first to argue that Trump and those connected to him were responsible for the actions of the mob that day. "If the president is giving you almost an order to do something, I felt obligated to do that,” Thompson testified. Thompson’s lawyer sought subpoenas to call Trump and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as witnesses, but U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton rejected that request. Jurors on Wednesday began listening to recordings of speeches that Trump and Giuliani delivered at a rally before the riot. They were expected to finish listening to recordings Thursday morning and begin deliberations later in the day. Thompson’s wife, Sarah Thompson, testified that she voted for Democrat Joe Biden, as well as Democratic presidential nominees Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. She said her husband’s views were more moderate then but shifted during the Trump years as he started encountering conspiracy theories. She said she did not share his views but helped arrange his travel to Washington for the “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House because he had a right to protest and she enjoyed having a quiet house. Much of the prosecution's case was built around testimony from several Capitol Police officers placing Thompson at the scene, wearing a bulletproof vest that he said he found, and carrying a coat rack he took from the Senate Parliamentarian’s Office. More than 770 people have been charged with federal crimes arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Over 250 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Thompson is the fifth person to be tried on riot-related charges. On Monday, a jury convicted a former Virginia police officer, Thomas Robertson, of storming the Capitol with another off-duty officer to obstruct Congress from certifying Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Last month, a jury convicted a Texas man, Guy Reffitt, of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun. A judge hearing testimony without a jury decided cases against two other Capitol riot defendants at separate bench trials. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden acquitted one of them of all charges and partially acquitted the other. Thompson is charged with six counts: obstructing Congress' joint session to certify the Electoral College vote, theft of government property, entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. A co-defendant, Robert Lyon, 27, pleaded guilty in March to theft of government property and disorderly conduct. Both counts are misdemeanors punishable by a maximum of one year imprisonment. Walton is scheduled to sentence Lyon on June 3. | |
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| 04-14-22 11:01am - 984 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Bill Browder says Putin and his associates have stolen a tillion dollars from the Russian people. That's why Trump admires Putin: Trump wants the right to steal more money, just like Putin. And the power to have Trump's critics and detractors put in jail. Power to the people, Trump blares. ---- ---- Putin nemesis Bill Browder reveals the 'real money' funding Kremlin's war Yahoo News Alexander Nazaryan April 14, 2022, 2:00 AM NEW YORK — A trillion dollars: That’s how much money famed investor Bill Browder believes Vladimir Putin and Russian oligarchs have stolen from the Russian people since the fall of the Soviet Union. “And that was money that was supposed to be spent on health care and education, roads and services,” Browder said at a Manhattan event to celebrate the publication of his second book, “Freezing Order,” which chronicles how he became a Putin nemesis as a result of his attempts to expose Kremlin corruption. Those efforts led to the death of Browder’s attorney Sergei Magnitsky, who was tortured in a Russian prison and whose name is affixed to sanctions bills passed by Congress. Learning of Magnitsky’s death was “the most heartbreaking, traumatic, and devastating moment of my life,” Browder writes — and a sign of how committed Putin was willing to pursuing perceived enemies of the state. The grandson of American communist leader Earl Browder, Bill Browder had made billions through Hermitage Capital Management, the fund he started in 1996, during the chaotic period of full-contact Russian capitalism. As Browder heightened scrutiny of some of the companies he invested in — most notably, energy giant Gazprom — he ran afoul of a Kremlin that, under Putin, has declared such questions off limits, as they would go to the very heart of the kleptocracy that had ruled Russia since the nation’s industry was sold off and plundered in the early 1990s. “Everyone tries to think about Russia as a sovereign state and Putin as a leader acting in national interest,” Browder said to Yahoo News, describing that outlook as a fundamental misunderstanding. “You think you can apply political science to Russia. You need to apply criminal science. You need to be a criminologist to understand Russia. People don’t go into government to serve the country. They go into government to steal money.” Browder was banned from entering Russia in 2005 and has since watched a series of American presidents try to improve relations with the Kremlin. He now lives in London, a city favored by the oligarchs he despises. “We basically said, ‘It's OK. We want your money. We want your oil,’” Browder told Yahoo News in an interview at the Century Club ahead of Tuesday’s book release party. Today it is uncontroversial to call Putin a war criminal. But the man bombing Kharkiv is the same one who leveled the Chechen capital, Grozny, in 2000, invaded Georgia in 2008 and seized Ukrainian territory for the first time in 2014. “When I walked into the offices of government ministers in Europe, or the United States, back in the early days talking about sanctioning Russia — it’s like I walked in with a giant turd on my head,” Browder said. Today, Browder is known less as an investor than as a human rights campaigner and Putin critic. Tuesday’s party thus included an eclectic mix: the professional basketball player Enes Kanter Freedom, former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, private equity giant Stephen Schwarzman and National Review journalist Jay Nordlinger, who in 2017 highlighted the refusal of federal authorities to allow Browder into the U.S. The decision was reversed. Browder is especially withering when it comes to the Western attorneys, bankers and publicists who help Putin’s oligarchs hide their ill-gotten gains, sue investigative journalists into submission and burnish their blood-spattered records with favorable coverage. There could be only one motive for Western firms to do business with the Kremlin, Browder believes. “They’re just a bunch of greedy bastards that are trying to make as much money as possible,” he said, alluding to the legal travails of British journalist Catherine Belton, who was sued for reporting on Kremlin corruption. “They don’t care who they’re working for.” Last week, Browder testified in Washington during a hearing on the Enablers Act, which would tighten already existing rules around money laundering, in effect providing more government scrutiny into the secretive movement of funds from countries like China and Russia. “If we make banks report dirty money but allow law, real estate and accounting firms to look the other way, that creates a loophole that crooks and kleptocrats can sail a yacht through,” Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., said last fall when introducing the legislation. While it targets any institution or individual abetting money laundering, the measure has assumed a new urgency since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Browder has additionally called for foreign accomplices of Russia to be deprived of entry into the United States, a proposal clearly aimed at Kremlin allies residing in the British capital, which has earned the unflattering nickname “Londongrad.” He bemoans the notion that high-profile seizures of oligarchs’ yachts give the impression of fatal blows, when they are really just minor difficulties or men worth billions. “The real money is held in highly complex trusts and structures,” Browder said, in offshore havens like Jersey and the Cayman Islands. Sanctions are one way to fight Putin. Weapons are another. “The Ukrainians say they need a no fly-zone,” he pointed out, rejecting the idea that such a move would immediately lead to nuclear war. “At what point,” he wondered, “do you finally stand up to Russia?” And much as he would like to see Putin defeated, he hopes to return to Russia one day when it is a free country, one that doesn’t threaten him with prison or murder. “It’s fascinating. It’s interesting. It’s unforgettable. It’s horrible,” Browder told Yahoo News. “It’s nasty, brutish. It’s got everything. If Putin wasn’t in power, and there was a democratic government, I would love to go back there.” | |
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| 04-14-22 10:48am - 984 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
His PAC has given $500,000 to attack Georgia's Brian Kemp. Kemp did not support Trump's bid to overturn Joe Biden's election as president. So Trump wants someone else as governor of Georgia. Trump called Kemp a “turncoat,” a “coward” and “a complete and total disaster” at a rally in Commerce, Georgia, last month. Trump wants money. But he also wants power. To be seen as King of the Untied States of Trumperland. As the true King of the Untied States of Trumperland, think of how he could make America great again. And steal even more money, legally, to make him even richer. God bless Trump, the most courageous, bravest, richest President we've ever had. ----- ----- Trump PAC gives $500,000 to attack Georgia's Brian Kemp Associated Press JEFF AMY April 14, 2022, 6:41 AM ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s political action committee has given $500,000 to a group that is running attack ads in Georgia against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The spending appears aimed at boosting former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, whom Trump has endorsed in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but the ad never mentions Perdue by name. It’s the first major outlay from Trump’s Save America PAC, underlining Trump’s continuing obsession with beating Kemp. Trump views Kemp as disloyal for refusing to help overturn his defeat in the state’s 2020 presidential election. The ad criticizes Kemp for not doing enough to combat voter fraud, citing discredited claims that a Georgia law enforcement agency examined and dismissed. The Save America PAC entered the year with $120 million in cash. But until now, the former president has been reluctant to spend that money beyond small contributions to candidates and money spent on rallies he is now holding almost every week. Federal campaign records show the donation went to a group called Get Georgia Right PAC in March, as first reported by Politico. The ad began airing earlier this month, according to Kantar Media. The Associated Press also obtained a copy of a text message the group sent urging people to watch the ad. The spending comes at a time that Perdue is trailing in the polls and is being outspent by Kemp. Perdue, who's worth $50 million, has suggested he could kick in some of his own money. “We’re going to make sure this thing is well funded,” Perdue told reporters in March. “We’re going to get our message out.” Kemp remains dismissive of Trump, with spokesperson Cody Hall attacking Perdue about remarks the challenger made Tuesday criticizing Kemp's stewardship of the state police. “David Perdue is going to need a lot more than $500,000 to distract from his unhinged rant attacking the Georgia State Patrol," Hall said. A Perdue loss in Georgia in the state's May 24 primary could be particularly embarrassing for Trump, who recruited Perdue to challenge Kemp and pressed another Republican — Vernon Jones — to exit the governor's race and run for Congress instead. Trump has also endorsed an extensive slate of other Republicans in Georgia running for statewide and congressional offices. Trump called Kemp a “turncoat,” a “coward” and “a complete and total disaster” at a rally in Commerce, Georgia, last month. But the former president was noncommittal in an April 6 interview with conservative radio host John Fredericks about whether he would do an additional rally for Perdue. He told Fredericks that it's “not easy to beat a sitting governor, just remember that," adding that "it's a close race and we'll see what happens.” Perdue has parroted Trump's lies in his own attacks against Kemp, declaring at the Commerce rally that “our elections in 2020 were absolutely stolen.” | |
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| 04-13-22 07:21am - 985 days | #11 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
This is not right. A GOP attorney general has been impeached for killing a pedestrian. Don't these people realize that pedestrians are fair game? That if an attorney general, who is almost certainly a lawyer, decides to decrease the state population by popping one of its citizens, the attorney general, the top cop of his district, has the legal and moral right to do what's right and proper? Especially if he's a Republican. Also, the attorney general was fined $1,000 for the incident. That's more than enough to make the attorney general sorry he killed the bastard. ----- ----- South Dakota legislators impeach GOP attorney general over fatal 2020 crash NBC Universal Zoë Richards April 12, 2022, 4:14 PM The South Dakota House voted Tuesday to impeach state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg for his involvement in a fatal 2020 crash that has prompted state lawmakers to seek the removal of their fellow Republican from office. In a 36-31 vote, Ravnsborg was charged with committing crimes or misdemeanors in office that caused the death of a pedestrian. He was also charged with committing actions that "failed to meet the standard of the Office of the Attorney General" after the collision, including during its reporting and the resulting investigation. Republicans were almost evenly split, with 28 voting in favor and 31 voting against. Eight Democrats voted for impeachment. As a result, Ravnsborg was suspended from his official duties ahead of a Senate trial, which could lead to his permanent removal from office if a two-thirds majority votes to convict him. The House held its vote even though a GOP-controlled House committee found that Ravnsborg's actions did not warrant impeachment. Republican state Rep. Will Mortenson, who filed the two articles of impeachment, said Tuesday's vote would create a precedent. 'Our top law enforcement officer has misled law enforcement' "Never before in our state's history has it been that a state official criminally ended the life of one of our citizens and refused to resign from that post," Mortenson said on the House floor Tuesday. "I believe impeachment should be reserved only for grave and exceptional circumstances, and I believe this is one." “Our top law enforcement officer has misled law enforcement during the investigation of those crimes,” Mortenson said. In a statement after the vote, Ravnsborg said, "I respect the process but I look forward to the Senate trial where I believe I will be vindicated." Ravnsborg pleaded no contest to a pair of traffic misdemeanors linked to the incident, which he first reported as a collision with an animal. He said he did not realize he had hit a person until the next day, when he returned to the scene and found the body of pedestrian Joseph Boever, 55. A judge fined Ravnsborg $500 for each misdemeanor. He was not ordered to serve any jail time. Late last month, Republican Gov. Kristi Noem dialed up the pressure on legislators to impeach Ravnsborg, repeating her calls for him to be removed from office. Noem applauded the House after Tuesday's vote. "Today, the House of Representatives did the right thing for the people of South Dakota and for Joe Boever’s family," she wrote on Twitter. | |
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| 04-12-22 08:45pm - 985 days | #10 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Are Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump making nice to each other? Will Trump take McConnell to Russia to help Putin win his war with Ukraine? Will the Republicans invade Ukraine with Russian military forces, to help Putin remain in power in Russia, if Putin vows to support Trump in the 2024 election? ----- ----- A tamer Trump? McConnell confident GOP can retake Senate with 'restrained' former president USA TODAY April 12, 2022, 2:00 AM LOUISVILLE, Kentucky - If Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is worried about former President Donald Trump meddling in the 2022 midterm elections, he hid it well beneath his notorious stoicism in a recent USA TODAY interview. Many political observers argue Trump cost the GOP its Senate majority leading up to the January 2021 runoff races in Georgia when he regularly made false assertions about the state's election integrity that reportedly hurt turnout among conservative voters. Asked if the former president could once again jeopardize the GOP chances in retaking the chamber this year, the Kentucky Republican now sees a much tamer Trump. "So far this cycle, he's been rather restrained in his nominations," McConnell told USA TODAY in a one-on-one interview. "So I don't see it as a problem. Obviously, it's important to him to win and so he's been rather cautious with his primary endorsements in most of our races, and I think that's because he doesn't want to show up with somebody who doesn't actually prevail in the primary." The Senate has a 50-50 split with Democrats owning the tie-break vote from Vice President Kamala Harris, which means Republicans need to flip just one seat in the fall midterms to win control of the chamber. McConnell exudes confidence at the possibility of being Senate majority leader next year and believes the current environment and midterm election history are leaning in the GOP's favor. "Obviously, the atmosphere could not be better," he said. "I think it is (an) overwhelming likelihood the wind will be at our back, and that's obviously very important." "But," the GOP leader warned, "you have to have candidates who can win." Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, left, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., talk on the escalator as senators gather for a briefing on the war in Ukraine, in Washington, Wednesday, March 30, 2022. Most of the races political forecasters say are leaning or toss-up states, however, are in Democratic-held seats. Democrats aren't helped by President Joe Biden, whose job approval ratings have plunged to among the lowest level of his presidency around 40 percent, according to an NBC News poll released March 27. Other surveys find Americans continue to have high levels of anxiety over a 40-year high in inflation and record spikes in gas prices. Why candidates matter to McConnell McConnell's optimism does have a catch, however. In the past he has seen possible majorities slip through his hands when Republicans were favored. The GOP leader specifically remembered failed attempts to seize the Senate majority in 2010 and 2012, and cites primaries that elevated poor contenders, such as Christie O'Donnell in Delaware; Richard Mourdock in Indiana; Sharron Angle in Nevada and the late Todd Akin in Missouri. Learn more: The field for Kentucky's primary election is set. Here are 5 takeaways and races to watch Those losses, and others, kept control of the Senate out of McConnell's hands until 2014, which had major consequences during former President Barack Obama's last term and through the Trump presidency. "So we have to make sure that we nominate electable candidates," McConnell said. "And so far, I think, in our primaries it looks like that's going to be the case." That's why McConnell and his allies made aggressive efforts to woo popular Republicans governors, such as Maryland's Larry Hogan and Arizona's Doug Ducey, to run for their respective Senate races. Those potential candidates spurned McConnell's advances, however. Who has the better 2022 map? Of the 35 Senate seats up for reelection this year, Republicans hold 21, but organizations that forecast elections point out the more competitive races are in Democratic hands. Sabato's Crystal Ball, at the UVa Center for Politics, for instance, rates four Senate contests as toss-ups Of those, three – Arizona, Georgia and Nevada – currently belong to the Democrats. Over at The Cook Political Report, there are five toss-up Senate races listed for this fall, and the report rates the same three Democratic seats as competitive. Georgia 2022: Georgia redistricting forces voters into tough choice between two Democratic incumbents But Republicans have retirements putting them on defense in the important battlegrounds of Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Democrats have especially found themselves fighting negative perceptions about the economy. A poll released by Navigator Research in February, for instance, found 37 percent of Americans believed more jobs had been lost since 2021. Yet under Biden, the U.S. unemployment has been cut from 6.4 percent when he took office to 3.6 percent this month after adding another 431,000 jobs in March. State of elections: More election workers plan to leave jobs before 2024 election amid threats, conspiracies, new report finds Even McConnell acknowledges there is an opportunity for Democrats to seize the narrative and hold the Senate. "What I mean by that is the Senate, unlike the House, every one of our races that are in play this year are states that could go either way in November," McConnell said. "In other words, they're competitive in the general election." McConnell: Don't say dumb things Earlier this year, McConnell told reporters he would get involved in primaries if it looked like Republicans were "on the verge of nominating somebody who is unelectable." The Senate Leadership Fund, a McConnell-aligned super PAC, has the resources to do such. It boasted at the beginning of the year how it had raked in $94.4 million along with its allied nonprofit advocacy group One Nation during last year's fundraising. McConnell told USA TODAY what makes someone a "winnable" candidate in November depends on each state and the polling data. "It depends on not doing and saying foolish things that disqualify you," McConnell said. "And frankly, I don't think it has to do with President Trump. I don't personally care whether they are Trump supporters or Trump opponents." Much has been written, however, about the McConnell-Trump rift leading up to the 2022 contests. The two haven't been on good terms since the Kentucky Republican publicly blamed the former president for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Since then, Trump has repeatedly called for McConnell to be replaced as the Senate GOP leader and regularly derides him as the "old crow" in public statements. 2022 midterm elections:The most interesting Senate races to watch, from Georgia, to Pennsylvania and Florida McConnell has tried to avoid taking any direct jabs at Trump – although his campaign's Twitter accounted changed its profile picture to a bottle of Old Crow whiskey in jest. On the political front, however, the two either were or remain at odds in a handful of GOP contests, such as in Alaska, where Trump-backed candidate Kelly Tshibaka is challenging incumbent Lisa Murkowski. "As Alaska’s next U.S. Senator, I will not support Mitch McConnell as leader," Tshibaka said in a tweet last December, adding how the GOP leader has "repeatedly bailed out Joe Biden, giving him gifts of Senate votes." As Alaska’s next U.S. Senator, I will not support Mitch McConnell as leader. Check out my interview on Steve Bannon’s War Room where I discuss how McConnell & Liberal Lisa Murkowski have enabled Biden & the Democrats to push through their Anti-American, Radical Socialist agenda. pic.twitter.com/tkuDdnyRiV — Kelly Tshibaka – Text KELLY to 20903 (@KellyForAlaska) December 13, 2021 McConnell's super PAC has thrown its support behind Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump of Jan. 6-related impeachment charges. But Alaska is considered a safe Republican Senate seat in 2022, which most forecasters say Democrats have no chance of winning. Speculation of lingering animosity between McConnell and Trump seems to also be dying down as Trump-aligned contenders have either faced withering controversies or the two sides have seemingly reconciled. Both men, for instance, are supporting former NFL star Herschel Walker in his bid to be Georgia's next senator. "Thank you Leader McConnell for your endorsement," Walker said in a tweet last October. "As I have said from the beginning, I am laser focused on bringing people together to win this seat back for Georgia and for America." Thank you Leader McConnell for your endorsement. As I have said from the beginning, I am laser focused on bringing people together to win this seat back for GEORGIA and for America. #UnitedWeStand#DividedWeFallpic.twitter.com/0wJiuxss3W — Herschel Walker (@HerschelWalker) October 27, 2021 Alabama, another state viewed as a safe GOP seat this November, saw Trump rescind his endorsement of Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, a Senate hopeful who spoke at the Jan. 6 rally. Brooks had proudly pledged he would help "fire McConnell" as majority leader if elected, and released a statement blaming the GOP leader for Trump's decision to pull his backing. McConnell chuckled when asked about the fallout. "(Brooks) is the only one who has brought me up," McConnell said. "All the rest of them have passed on the opportunity to make me an issue in the race." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: McConnell says GOP can retake Senate with tamed Trump in 2022 | |
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| 04-12-22 06:03am - 986 days | #9 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Woman accused of murder allowed to walk free. Details of why the woman was being held are kept under wraps. Under state law, investigations being conducted are immune to public disclosure. This is to protect the investigation, and the police, from public scrutiny. What the woman did, and why she did it, are not details that have to be released, until the police will allow such details to be known. But first, the police must determine what was done. To aid in public safety. ------- ------- Murder charge over self-induced abortion dismissed in Texas Associated Press JAMIE STENGLE April 11, 2022, 7:49 PM DALLAS (AP) — A Texas judge formally dismissing a murder charge Monday against a 26-year-old woman over a self-induced abortion did not quiet outrage or questions surrounding the case, including why prosecutors ever brought it to a grand jury. A woman who ends her own pregnancy cannot be charged with a crime under Texas law. Officials in rural Starr County, along the U.S.-Mexico border, have not released details about why they decided to pursue a case against Lizelle Herrera after being contacted by a hospital. “There should have been no reason for a report to have been made. There should have been no reason for a criminal investigation to take place," said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice. News of Herrera’s arrest on Thursday raised alarms for abortion rights advocates, and sparked people to gather in protest outside the jail where she was being held on $500,00 bond. Her March 30 indictment alleges she “intentionally and knowingly” caused the death of “an individual ... by a self-induced abortion” in early January. Authorities have not described what exactly Herrera allegedly did, and it wasn’t clear if she was accused of giving herself an abortion or assisting in someone else’s self-induced abortion. An attorney for Herrera, who was released from jail Saturday after posting bond, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press. Starr County District Attorney Gocha Allen Ramirez said in a Sunday statement that he would file the motion to dismiss the charge, saying, "it is clear that Ms. Herrera cannot and should not be prosecuted for the allegation against her.” But he did not explain why the case was presented to a grand jury, nor did he reply Monday to an email from AP seeking additional information. A woman who answered the phone at his office said Sunday's statement was “the only thing he's going to say on the subject” and and hung up before identifying herself. “These were choices that did not have to be made because losing a pregnancy or ending a pregnancy or self-managing an abortion is not a crime in the state of Texas," Diaz-Tello said. Texas last year passed a law known as Senate Bill 8, or SB8, that bans abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. The law leaves enforcement to private citizens who can sue doctors or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion. Another new Texas law prohibits doctors and clinics from prescribing abortion-inducing medications after seven weeks and prohibits the delivery of the pills by mail. Neither law authorizes any action against the woman who ends her pregnancy, Diaz-Tello said. “The problem is though when you have this heightened situation of suspicion and fear and the chilling effect that this all creates, that is going to make it much more likely that health care providers are going to improperly err on the side of reporting — err on the side of violating their patient’s confidentiality and bringing in law enforcement,” Diaz-Tello said. Diaz-Tello said actions taken by the hospital and law enforcement in this case could lead women to be fearful of seeking health care after an abortion. Joanna Grossman, professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law in Dallas, said SB8 could be “indirectly playing a lot of roles here.”online to get abortion pills, she said. Also, she said, the law sends a message "that there’s just a war on abortion.” “It certainly changed access but it’s also I think just changed the whole context in which people evaluate abortion care,” Grossman said. | |
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| 04-12-22 05:50am - 986 days | #8 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Kenedi Anderson was forced to drop out of the American Idol race. Was there a plot to eliminate this cutie, because of her association with the Kennedy family, those known Democrats? Enquiring minds want to know: Will Kennedi make a return, and run for President of the United States of Trumperland? Is Kenedi a rival of Ivanka Trump, the fairest flower of them all in Donald Trump's heart? Stay tuned for further updates. ----- ----- 'American Idol' platinum ticket contestant Kenedi Anderson mysteriously drops out 'for personal reasons' Yahoo Music Lyndsey Parker April 11, 2022, 7:53 PM For this landmark 20th season of American Idol, the show introduced a new twist, the platinum ticket — a “special upgrade” that fast-tracked three “best of the best” contestants past the first round of Hollywood Week. Among those three lucky recipients was 18-year-old songbird Kenedi Anderson, whose stunning piano-cabaret rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Applause” had Lionel Richie declaring her “the next big thing in the music business.” Katy Perry actually said she felt “threatened” by this rare talent, and Luke Bryan told Kenedi, “You might be the biggest star we’ve ever seen. … I truly believe your musical journey for the rest of your life just started right here.” But it seems Kenedi’s musical journey will not continue on American Idol. Kenedi Anderson was one of three platinum ticket recipients on Season 20 of 'American Idol.' (Photo: Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images) Kenedi Anderson was one of three platinum ticket recipients on Season 20 of 'American Idol.' (Photo: Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images) On Monday’s part two top 24 show, which took place at Disney’s Aulani Resort, Kenedi’s (excellent) performance of Christina Perri’s “Human” aired in full, along with her mentoring session with guest Bebe Rexha and even her encouraging surprise FaceTime conversation with Christina Perri herself. But after Kenedi was finished singing, none of the judges’ (presumably fawning) commentary was shown. Instead, the screen cut abruptly from sunny Hawaii to an indoor soundstage, breaking-news report-bulletin-style, and host Ryan Seacrest announced: “You might have noticed that there was no voting information during Kenedi’s performance just now. Since we taped these shows in Hawaii earlier, Kenedi has decided to withdraw from our show for personal reasons.” Before going back to ABC’s regularly scheduled programming, Ryan added, “We send her our well-wishes, and needless to say, we have incredible talent on this historic season, with more iconic Idol performance coming up for you right now.” Kenedi didn't specify her reason for quitting when she took to Instagram midway through the episode's East Coast broadcast, but revealed that while it was "one of the hardest decisions" of her life, it was a "necessary" one. An Idol representative was equally vague, merely telling Yahoo Entertainment: “We are disappointed to see Kenedi leave, but we are excited to watch this celebratory 20th season unfold with the incredible talent vying to be the next American Idol.” However, Yahoo's Idol source did confirm that only one contestant will be eliminated from Monday’s episode (along with the planned two from Sunday’s episode) to create the top 20 — thus making Kenedi one of the top 24’s eliminees by default. Rumors of Kenedi’s resignation began circulating last week, when fans noticed that her performances had not been uploaded to Idol’s YouTube channel and that the show had posted congratulatory Instagram Stories messages to all of this season’s top 24 semifinalists except Kenedi. Assuming the gossip was true, those eagle-eyed fan wondered if Kenedi’s Hawaii performance would even be shown this week at all. But, as a much-hyped platinum ticket recipient who’d made it all the way to Hawaii, Kenedi was apparently too essential a part of Season 20’s narrative to edit her out entirely. It’s too bad that such a talented performer chose to mysteriously exit, and it’s too bad that her platinum ticket (or her plane ticket to Hawaii, for that matter) couldn’t have gone to someone else — like maybe fan favorite Kelsie Dolin. But Kenedi isn’t the first Idol contestant to suddenly drop out recently. Last year, frontrunner Benson Boone withdrew from the top 24 after his aggressively hyped audition, although he quit before Season 19’s top 24 round was taped. Benson has since signed to Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds’s Warner Bros. label imprint, and according to Idol Spoilers, Kenedi was “in contact with Benson Boone” and “it is believed that he encouraged her to do as he did, just over a year ago.” Also last season, another frontrunner, Wyatt Pike — who made it all the way to the top 12 — mysteriously exited, though he later revealed this was for mental health reasons, not because he got a better offer. Hopefully Kenedi is OK, but regardless of her real reason for quitting, she now holds the dubious distinction of being the first female contestant in Idol history to drop out of the competition. Well, Kenedi would have been tough to beat, so she definitely made it easier for Monday’s remaining 11 hopefuls by taking herself out of the running. Let’s assess those 11 performances now: Cadence Baker, “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” Cadence got off to a strong start this season but floundered during Hollywood Week, with the judges noticing that the self-described “over-thinker” often looked terrified onstage. This week she regained her confidence for the Vegas-style opener of this Etta James classic (Lionel even gasped, “Wow, wow, wow”); however, I saw a bit of that deer-in-headlights doubt creep back onto her face once the band fully kicked in and she started to work the stage. Still, her voice sounded fantastic (Katy praised her “incredible range”), and Luke said this was Cadence’s best moment since her audition. Lionel additionally congratulated Cadence for finding “that extra burst of confidence.” It seems this girl is back on track... but is it too late? Sir Blayke, “Breakeven” When Bebe asked Blayke if this heartbreak song was dedicated to anyone in particular, he turned right to the camera and intoned, “You know who you are.” This was a performance that he later said brought him closure (“That song was me saying my final goodbye”), and I could feel his sincerity. It really made all the difference. “That was totally different vibe than I’m used to. You gave us vocals that we didn’t know you had,” marveled Katy. Luke, who freely admitted that the panel had been on the fence about Blayke during the Final Judgment, said Blayke “upped his game.” Lionel advised Blayke to “bring that emotion the stage” every time. So, if Blayke advances, he better rip open that emotional wound and sing another breakup ballad. Allegra Miles, “Adore You” Allegra bragged that this was her own arrangement of the Harry Styles hit, but I really didn’t care for her jazzy, soft-rock stylings, which just didn’t work with the song. That being said, aside from a few minor enunciation issues, her voice was beyond reproach (Luke said it was “really, really perfect” and “sounded like it had a filter on it”). Also, by “freeing” herself and performing for the first time this season without an instrument, she exuded a certain vivaciousness I’d never seen from her before. Katy compared Allegra to the almighty Bonnie Raitt, and Lionel said, “There are singers, and then there are stylists. … From the first note, I knew immediately when you opened your mouth exactly who you were.” If Allegra comes up with better song arrangements, she’ll be on a roll. Lady K, “Before He Cheats” Lady agonized between two Idol winners’ songs, “Collard Greens and Cornbread” by Fantasia or “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood… then went against Bebe’s advice and chose the Carrie song, which she thought would be more of an interesting challenge. I think she should have listened to Bebe. Lady K usually oozes so much personality, but surprisingly, I don’t think she brought enough fire to this tentative performance. Luke like the song choice, but told her, “I want to hear even more of that angst out of you. We just wanted it to get even dirtier!” Katy agreed, saying, “We know you can get a little more nasty, because we heard it toward the end.” Hopefully Lady will get another chance to bring the grit. Ava Maybee, “Tell Me Something Good” Ava took a big chance doing this big Chaka Khan classic, and she admitted it was “definitely out of my comfort zone.” But since the song came to her in a dream, she decided to follow her instincts. And judging from this stankfaced tour de force, she should always trust her gut. She absolutely electrified the stage. Katy looked riveted, Lionel was movin’ and groovin’, and Luke looked like he’d just woken up. “Welcome to the stage! Chaka Khan is not exactly the kind of person you wanna wrestle with, but you had the guts to do it. … That was really risky, but you took care of business,” raved Lionel. “There are songs that are a little dangerous to perform on American Idol, and historically this is one that gives people a problem. … But you really showed a different side. Good for you!” said Luke. This was a star-making moment, from a real original and a total natural. | |
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| 04-12-22 05:37am - 986 days | #7 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Judges are above politics. They must interpret the law fairly, with honor. That is why Republicans rejoice that a judge ruled to knock out a Democrat candidate from an election. But the judge took no joy in the decision. He was forced by honor and logic to eliminate the Democrat. The judge's heart bleeds for the Democrat, but he is forced to dis-allow her to run. Let us honor Republicans everywhere, who will make America great again. And put Democrats in prison, if the Democrats have committed crimes. ------ ------ Leading Iowa Democrat knocked off US Senate primary ballot Associated Press DAVID PITT April 11, 2022, 3:59 PM DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A state court judge has concluded that Democrat Abby Finkenauer cannot appear on the June 7 primary ballot for U.S. Senate, knocking off the candidate considered by many to be the party's best chance to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley. Judge Scott Beattie, a 2018 appointee of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, filed a ruling late Sunday that overturned a decision by a three-member panel of state elected officials. The panel concluded last week that Finkenauer's campaign staffers had substantially complied with Iowa law that requires candidates to obtain 3,500 names, including at least 100 signatures from at least 19 counties. Two Republicans challenged Finkenauer's petition papers, saying signatures from at least two counties did not have the required date accompanying them. In the past, the panel, which includes the secretary of state, attorney general and state auditor, has found petitions to be in substantial compliance with the law even though signatures were missing or difficult to interpret. Attorney General Tom Miller and Auditor Rob Sand, both Democrats, voted to allow Finkenauer's petitions citing past precedent for giving deference to campaigns that used the proper forms and made efforts to comply with the law. Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, voted against Finkenauer's petition. Kim Schmett and Leanne Pellett, former Republican county elections officials, challenged the signatures and then filed a court appeal of the Iowa Objection Panel's decision last week. Beattie concluded that the panel's legal interpretation was wrong and that the law clearly says each signature should be accompanied by a date. His decision knocked signatures from Allamakee and Cedar counties off of Finkenauer's nomination petitions, which meant her campaign failed to submit at least 100 signatures from at least 19 counties as required. Beattie said he took no joy in the decision. “This court should not be in the position to make a difference in an election, and Ms. Finkenauer and her supporters should have a chance to advance her candidacy. However, this court’s job is to sit as a referee and apply the law without passion or prejudice. It is required to rule without consideration of the politics of the day. Here the court has attempted to fulfill that role,” he said, Finkenauer accused Beattie of doing the bidding of Grassley and his allies in Washington. “This misguided, midnight ruling is an outrageous and partisan gift to the Washington Republicans who orchestrated this meritless legal action," she said. “We are exploring all of our options to fight back hard against this meritless partisan attack, and to ensure that the voices of Iowans will be heard at the ballot box." Finkenauer said her petitions had more than 5,000 signatures and she’s confident she has met the requirements to be on the ballot. Beattie promised last week he would file a decision by midnight Sunday to give either side time to appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. He filed the decision at 10:49 p.m. Sunday. Pate has said he must know whether Finkenauer qualifies for the ballot by Friday to give him time to have ballots printed and sent to overseas voters who must get their ballots by April 23 to comply with the law. Finkenauer, who served one term in the U.S. House from 2019-2021, seeks to be on the ballot with Democrats Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral, and Glenn Hurst, a doctor and Minden City Council member. The primary winner will face Grassley, who is seeking an eighth term in the Senate. Federal fundraising data and statewide polling indicate that Grassley, who turns 89 in September, is well positioned to retain the seat he has held since 1981 for another six years. Grassley has raised more than $4.7 million, Finkenauer about $1.9 million and Franken $1.8 million. Hurst raised just over $66,000. Republican state Sen. Jim Carlin, who will be on the Republican primary ballot opposite Grassley, raised $282,151. The Des Moines Register/Medicom Poll published in November gave Grassley a lead of 18 percentage points over Finkenauer. Alan R. Ostergren, the attorney for Schmett and Pellett, said the judge's decision is a victory for the rule of law. “Iowans expect candidates to follow state law and to follow the same rules as the hundreds of other candidates who successfully qualified to be on the ballot," he said in a statement. "Anyone who has ever been involved in a political campaign knows that you can easily avoid problems by turning in more than the bare minimum number of signatures. Abby Finkenauer didn’t do this for some reason and got caught short.” | |
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| 04-12-22 05:26am - 986 days | #6 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Putin warns the West: We will bury you. Russia will lead the world to a new Superpower. Russia and Trump will join to make the greatest nation on Earth. And once Trump is back in the White House, Russia and Trump will sign a peace treaty, that will put Joe Biden back in prison, where he belongs. Putin and Trump, allies forever. Blood is thicker than water, and money makes for strange bedfellows. That's why Trump has been seeking new bedmates. ----- ----- Putin warns the West: Russia cannot be isolated, or held back Reuters April 12, 2022, 4:56 AM (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Tuesday that attempts to isolate Moscow would fail, citing the success of the Soviet space programme as evidence that Russia could achieve spectacular leaps forward in tough conditions. Russia says it will never again depend on the West after the United States and its allies imposed crippling sanctions on it to punish Putin for his Feb. 24 order for what he called a "special military operation" in Ukraine. Sixty one years to the day since the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin blasted off into the history books by becoming the first man in space, Putin travelled to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East, 3,450 miles (5550 km) east of Moscow. "The sanctions were total, the isolation was complete but the Soviet Union was still first in space," Putin said, according to Russian state television. "We don't intend to be isolated," Putin said. "It is impossible to severely isolate anyone in the modern world - especially such a vast country as Russia." Russia's Cold War space successes such as Gagarin's flight and the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite from earth, have a particular pertinence for Russia: both events shocked the United States. The launch of Sputnik 1 prompted the United States to create NASA in a bid to catch up with Moscow. Putin says the "special military operation" in Ukraine is necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia - including via the NATO military alliance - and that Moscow had to defend Russian-speaking people in Ukraine from persecution. He said on Tuesday that the had no doubts Russia would achieve all of its objectives in Ukraine - a conflict he cast as both inevitable and essential to defend Russia in the long term. "Its goals are absolutely clear and noble," Putin said. "It's clear that we didn't have a choice. It was the right decision." Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance and the West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces. Russia's economy is on track to contract by more than 10% in 2022, the biggest fall in gross domestic product since the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday. Putin toured the space port in Russia's far east with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. "Why an earth are we getting so worried about these sanctions?" Lukashenko said, according to Russian state television. Lukashenko, who has a track record of sometimes saying things that appear to jar with his closest ally's stated positions on a range of issues, has insisted that Belarus must be involved in negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine and has said that Belarus had been unfairly labelled "an accomplice of the aggressor". (Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge) | |
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| 04-11-22 12:53pm - 986 days | #2 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
CumSwappingSis.com A new site/series in the nubiles-porn.com network. | |
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| 04-11-22 12:00pm - 986 days | #5 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Stop the presses. Tish Cyrus files for divorce from Billy Ray Cyrus. Will this end their marriage of 28 years? Will this stop them from creating another child with the talent of the golden one, Miley Cyrus? ---- ---- Tish Cyrus Files for Divorce from Billy Ray Cyrus After 28 Years of Marriage People Rachel DeSantis April 11, 2022, 7:55 AM It's over for Billy Ray Cyrus and wife Tish — again. The country singer, 60, and Tish, 54, are divorcing after more than 28 years of marriage, marking the third time they have gone their separate ways. Tish filed for divorce in Williamson County, Tennessee on Wednesday, citing "irreconcilable differences," according to documents obtained by PEOPLE. She also said that the couple have not lived together in more than two years. Reps for the pair did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment. TMZ was first to report the news. The "Achy Breaky Heart" singer and Tish married in 1993, and share five children: daughters Miley, 29, Noah, 22, and Brandi, 34, and sons Trace, 33, and Braison, 27. Video: Miley Cyrus's flight to Paraguay forced to make emergency landing Cyrus first filed for divorce in 2010, but announced five months later that he'd withdrawn his petition. "I've dropped the divorce. I want to put my family back together," the Hannah Montana star told The View at the time."Things are the best they've ever been." By 2013, however, things had soured once more, and Tish filed for divorce that June, telling PEOPLE at the time: "This is a personal matter and we are working to find a resolution that is in the best interest of our family. We ask that you respect our privacy at this time." The pair later said that they were able to salvage their marriage through hard work and couples therapy. RELATED: How 'Achy Breaky Heart' Blew Up and Thrilled This Man (Billy Ray Cyrus) — and the World "We both woke up and realized we love each other and decided we want to stay together," they said in a statement in July 2013. "We both went into couples therapy something we haven't done in 22 years of being together, and it's brought us closer together and really opened up our communication in amazing ways." In 2016, Billy Ray Cyrus told PEOPLE that while he and Tish had experienced their ups and downs over the years, they focused on taking things "one step at a time." "It's like everything in life," he said. "You take it one step at a time. One day at a time. I think one of the most important things in life and in a relationship is, you make adjustments." | |
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| 04-11-22 09:22am - 987 days | #4 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Donald Trump to bid on multi-million dollar yacht seized by authorities. Donald Trump knows a bargain when he sees one. If he can buy the yacht for pennies on the dollar, he can turn around and sell it for millions, after he paints the Trump name on the yacht. And then use the money to pay his lawyers, who can defend him in court against civil and criminal charges he might be facing. ---- ---- Italy seizes properties belonging to Russian racer Mazepin - police sources Reuters April 11, 2022, 6:34 AM Nikita Mazepin ROME (Reuters) - Italy has seized properties worth some 105 million euros ($114.45 million) owned by Russian former Formula One driver Nikita Dmitrievich Mazepin and his oligarch father, two police sources told Reuters on Monday. The operation targeted a villa - known as Rocky Ram - located in the north of the island of Sardinia. It is part of broader efforts aimed at penalising wealthy Russians linked to President Vladimir Putin after the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine by Moscow. There was no immediate comment from Mazepin's PR manager. Mazepin - who was fired in March by U.S.-owned F1 team Haas - has been included in an EU sanctions list along with his father, Dmitry, who the European Union's official journal described as a member of president Vladimir Putin's closest circle. Over the last weeks, Italian police have sequestered villas and yachts worth over 900 million euros from wealthy Russians who were placed on a European Union sanctions lists following the Ukraine conflict. The most valuable asset seized so far is a superyacht owned by billionaire Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko, worth around 530 million euros, which was impounded in the northern port of Trieste. ($1 = 0.9174 euros) (Reporting by Emilio Parodi; writing by Angelo Amante; Editing by Bernadette Baum) | |
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| 04-11-22 09:14am - 987 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russia threatens legal action if forced into debt default. Russia has hired an expert in bankruptcy, Donald Trump. At least 6 Trump companies used bankruptxy to solve their financial problems. That's why Putin is relying on Trump to solve Russian debt problems. Trump, the most genius president we've ever had. Also, the Republican party is open to helping Russia pay its debts. Since Republicans know how to make payoffs. And they are actively investigating Joe Biden's son for making payoffs without the blessings of the Republican party. Or maybe taking payoffs, without the blessings of the Republican party. After all, if money is involved, Republicans want their fair share. ----- ----- Russia threatens legal action if forced into sovereign debt default Reuters April 11, 2022, 2:39 AM (Reuters) - Russia will take legal action if the West tries to force it to default on its sovereign debt, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper on Monday, sharpening Moscow's tone in its financial wrestle with the West. "Of course we will sue, because we have taken all the necessary steps to ensure that investors receive their payments," Siluanov told the newspaper in an interview. "We will present in court our bills confirming our efforts to pay both in foreign currency and in roubles. It will not be an easy process. We will have to very actively prove our case, despite all the difficulties." Siluanov did not elaborate on Russia's legal options. Russia faces its first sovereign external default in more than a century after it made arrangements to make an international bond repayment in roubles earlier this week, even though the payment was due in U.S. dollars. Last week, Siluanov said Russia will do everything possible to make sure its creditors are paid. "Russia tried in good faith to pay off external creditors," Siluanov said on Monday. "Nevertheless, the deliberate policy of Western countries is to artificially create a man-made default by all means." Siluanov said Russia's external liabilities amount to about 20% of the total public debt, which stood at about 21 trillion roubles ($261.7 billion). Of that, about 4.5-4.7 trillion roubles were external liabilities. Russia has not defaulted on its external debt since the aftermath of its 1917 revolution, but its bonds have now emerged as a flashpoint in its economic tussle with Western countries. A default was unimaginable until recently, with Russia rated as investment grade in the run up to its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special military operation" and which on Sunday intensified in eastern Ukraine. "If an economic and financial war is waged against our country, we are forced to react, while still fulfilling all our obligations," Siluanov said. "If we are not allowed to do it in foreign currency, we do it in roubles." | |
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