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| 08-10-22 09:12am - 771 days | #271 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump says he took the Fifth Amendment in NY investigation. Says he's proud to stand with his Mafia buddies in proving that he is innocent of any crimes. "I'm innocent until proven guilty", Dongle screams. "Try to pin something on me. I'm the teflon politician, and I have the GOP standing with me!!!" Melania Trump gave her husband a big kiss, for standing tall, in spite of his bone spurs. "Dongle and I will stand firm, and accept donations to prove our innocence", Melania screams. ----- ----- Trump says he took the Fifth Amendment in NY investigation Associated Press MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK August 10, 2022, 10:33 AM WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump says he invoked the Fifth Amendment and wouldn't answer questions under oath in the long-running New York civil investigation into his business dealings. Trump arrived at New York Attorney General Letitia James' offices Wednesday morning, but sent out a statement more than an hour later saying he declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.” Anything he said during the deposition could have been used against him in a criminal case. While James' investigation is civil in nature, the Manhattan district attorney is running a parallel criminal probe. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump was being questioned under oath Wednesday in the New York attorney general’s long-running civil investigation into his business dealings as a flurry of legal activity surrounds the former president. Trump’s testimony comes just days after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of an unrelated federal probe into whether he took classified records when he left the White House. He arrived at the New York attorney general's office shortly before 9 a.m. in a multivehicle motorcade. As he left Trump Tower in New York City for the short ride downtown, he waved to reporters assembled outside but did not comment. The civil investigation, led by state Attorney General Letitia James, involves allegations that Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, misstated the value of prized assets like golf courses and skyscrapers, misleading lenders and tax authorities. “My great company, and myself, are being attacked from all sides," Trump wrote beforehand on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded. "Banana Republic!” Messages seeking comment were left with James’ office and with Trump’s lawyer. Trump’s testimony is happening at a critical point in James’ investigation: In May, James' office said that it was nearing the end of its probe and that investigators had amassed substantial evidence that could support legal action against Trump, his company or both. The Republican's deposition — a legal term for sworn testimony that’s not given in court — is one of the few remaining missing pieces, the attorney general’s office said. Two of Trump’s adult children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, testified in recent days, two people familiar with the matter said. The people were not authorized to speak publicly and did so on condition of anonymity. The three Trumps’ testimony had initially been planned for last month but was delayed after the July 14 death of the former president’s ex-wife, Ivana Trump, the mother of Ivanka, Donald Jr. and another son, Eric Trump, who sat for a deposition in James’ investigation in 2020. On Friday, the Trump Organization and its longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, will be in court seeking dismissal of tax fraud charges brought against them last year in the Manhattan district attorney’s parallel criminal probe — spurred by evidence uncovered by James' office. Weisselberg and the company have pleaded not guilty. James, a Democrat, has said in court filings that her office has uncovered “significant” evidence that Trump’s company “used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions.” James alleges the Trump Organization exaggerated the value of its holdings to impress lenders or misstated what land was worth to slash its tax burden, pointing to annual financial statements given to banks to secure favorable loan terms and to financial magazines to justify Trump’s place among the world’s billionaires. The company even exaggerated the size of Trump’s Manhattan penthouse, saying it was nearly three times its actual size — a difference in value of about $200 million, James’ office said. Trump has denied the allegations, explaining that seeking the best valuations is a common practice in the real estate industry. He says James’ investigation is part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” and that her office is “doing everything within their corrupt discretion to interfere with my business relationships, and with the political process.” He's also accused James, who is Black, of racism in pursuing the investigation. “THERE IS NO CASE!” Trump said in a February statement, after Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that James’ office had “the clear right” to question Trump and other principals in his company. Once her investigation wraps up, James could decide to bring a lawsuit and seek financial penalties against Trump or his company, or even a ban on them being involved in certain types of businesses. Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney’s office has long pursued a parallel criminal investigation. No former president has even been charged with a crime. That probe had appeared to be progressing toward a possible criminal indictment of Trump himself, but slowed after a new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, took office in January: A grand jury that had been hearing evidence disbanded. The top prosecutor who had been handling the probe resigned after Bragg raised questions internally about the viability of the case. Bragg has said his investigation is continuing, which means that Trump could invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and decline to answer questions from James’ investigators during the deposition in a Manhattan office tower that has doubled as the headquarters of the fictional conglomerate Waystar Royco — run by a character inspired partly by Trump — on HBO’s “Succession.” As vociferous as Trump has been in defending himself in written statements and on the rally stage, legal experts say the same strategy could backfire in a deposition setting because anything he says could potentially be used in the criminal investigation. In fighting to block the subpoenas, lawyers for the Trumps argued New York authorities were using the civil investigation to get information for the criminal probe and that the depositions were a ploy to avoid calling them before a criminal grand jury, where state law requires they be given immunity. Weisselberg and Eric Trump each invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 500 times when questioned by James’ lawyers during separate depositions in 2020, according to court papers. The former president could choose to do the same, but it’s likely “he’ll claim lack of knowledge on many questions,” New York University law professor Stephen Gillers said. That could be a successful strategy, since Trump is known as more of a “big-picture guy” Gillers said. “So he’ll answer the big-picture questions and those answers will be general enough to keep him out of trouble, or so his lawyers will hope.” But, the professor added, “his impetuosity makes him a lawyer’s nightmare and his overconfidence may lead him astray. Whoever questions him will encourage that." Whatever he does say, it will be behind closed doors and there's no certainty what he says will ever be made public — often, only excerpts of the testimony are ever made public in court filings, weeks and months later. ___ Associated Press journalists Michelle L. Price and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report. | |
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| 08-09-22 08:00pm - 772 days | #270 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Sleepy Joe Biden needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Biden claims he was not aware of the FBI raid of Dongle Trump's home. Trump, if he was still Prez, would have been watching the raid on closed-circuit TV, directing the FBI to search every nook and cranny to find evidence of crimes. We need Dongle back in the Whitest House, to lead the FBI to greatness once again. ---- ---- White House: Biden was ‘not aware’ of FBI raid at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Yahoo News Alexander Nazaryan August 9, 2022, 1:56 PM WASHINGTON—The White House refused on Tuesday to say much about Monday's Federal Bureau of Investigation search at Mar-a-Lago, the lavish South Florida resort where former President Donald Trump lives. “No one at the White House was given a heads-up,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing, adding that Biden was “not aware” of the dramatic move. “The president and the White House learned about this FBI search from public reports. We learned just like the American public did yesterday, and we did not have advance notice of this activity,” Jean-Pierre said. At an event at the White House earlier in the afternoon, a reporter shouted a question about the FBI search in Biden’s direction. The president did not respond. Karine Jean-Pierre answers questions at the podium. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the daily press briefing at the White House on Tuesday. (Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein) The contents of the warrant used to execute the search remain unknown, but the target appears to be a trove of documents removed by Trump from the White House, according to multiple reports. Throughout much of the summer, a House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, which was carried out by Trump’s supporters, has meticulously made the case that the former president was intimately involved in planning an attempt to stop certification of the previous November’s presidential election. Donald Trump speaks. Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Aug. 6 in Dallas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Trump and his supporters in the Republican Party and conservative media outlets have painted Monday’s development as a political ploy intended to frustrate Trump’s expected launch of a 2024 presidential campaign. Outlets like Fox News, which had been downplaying Trump’s role in the future of the Republican Party, quickly and furiously rose to his defense. Democrats had been pushing Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue a criminal investigation into Trump’s role on Jan. 6 more actively. The attorney general has not commented on what took place at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. | |
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| 08-09-22 07:52pm - 772 days | #269 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Hillary Clinton is selling "But Her Emails" merchandise after the FBI raided Dongle Trump's home for documents. ------ ------ Hillary Clinton promotes 'But Her Emails' merch after FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago Yahoo News Dylan Stableford August 9, 2022, 1:37 PM A day after the FBI conducted a search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Hillary Clinton responded on Tuesday with a tweet promoting merchandise emblazoned with the phrase “But Her Emails” — which has become the sardonic response among her supporters to Trump’s many scandals. Clinton wrote that every hat or T-shirt sold benefits Onward Together, the political action committee she founded following her loss to Trump in the 2016 presidential election. In a follow-up tweet, the former secretary of state said that the $30 hats quickly sold out but could be preordered for when they are back in stock. On Monday night, Trump revealed that the FBI executed a search warrant at his private club and residence in south Florida. According to multiple reports, Monday’s FBI search at Mar-a-Lago was related to an investigation into Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents. Trump made Clinton’s allegedly lax security in her email practices a centerpiece of his 2016 campaign, leading chants at his rallies to “lock her up” for the possible crime. But Trump’s own handling of government documents and intelligence has long been scrutinized. On Monday, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times shared photos of notes thrown in a toilet, which Haberman said were Trump’s and taken at the White House and on an overseas trip. (Flushing those records would violate the Presidential Records Act.) The Times has previously reported that Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance, overruling concerns of intelligence officials. The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is looking into a possible cover-up of White House records from that day. Documents from the National Archives showed a gap in Trump’s phone calls spanning the period when his supporters stormed the Capitol. Police crouch behind a vehicle with Police Palm Beach painted on the side by a gated entrance flanked by a Trump flag beneath palm trees faintly illuminated by the night sky. Police stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) “These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in a statement posted to Truth Social, his social media website on Monday. The agents, he said, “even broke into my safe!” In his 340-word statement, Trump bemoaned the “weaponization” of the Justice Department and likened the lawfully executed search warrant to the Watergate break-in. Trump also referenced Clinton’s controversial use of a private email server as secretary of state. “Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 E-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress,” Trump wrote. “Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable.” Split screen image with smirking Hillary Clinton wearing a black baseball cap with But Her Emails emblazoned across the front and an image of a somber-faced Donald Trump. A promotional illustration for Hillary Clinton's "But Her Emails" hat from her Onward Together website, and former President Donald Trump. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: via Twitter, AP) There was, however, a federal investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server during the 2016 campaign. That July, then-FBI Director James Comey concluded that Clinton was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information on a private email server but concluded that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring criminal charges against her. Comey’s decision to inform Congress less than two weeks before Election Day that he had reopened the probe — only to reaffirm his conclusion on the eve of the election that she should not face prosecution — was viewed by some as one of the key reasons she lost to Trump. Three months ago, a federal grand jury began investigating whether Trump had mishandled top-secret documents. That came after the National Archives confirmed that it had retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago — including records marked as “classified” and even “top secret” — and asked the Justice Department to investigate. | |
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| 08-09-22 07:46pm - 772 days | #268 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Brett Kavanaugh and the US Supreme Court Justices are dancing with glee. A Nebraska woman and her daughter were charged for having an abortion. Brett Kavanaugh offers his services to prosecute the woman and daughter for murder. Hail Brett, the beer guzzling boy from next door. --- --- Nebraska woman charged with helping daughter have abortion Associated Press JOSH FUNK August 9, 2022, 6:17 PM OMAHA, Nebraska (AP) — A Nebraska woman has been charged with helping her teenage daughter end her pregnancy at about 24 weeks after investigators uncovered Facebook messages in which the two discussed using medication to induce an abortion and plans to burn the fetus afterward. The prosecutor handling the case said it's the first time he has charged anyone for illegally performing an abortion after 20 weeks, a restriction that was passed in 2010. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, states weren’t allowed to enforce abortion bans until the point at which a fetus is considered viable outside the womb, at roughly 24 weeks. In one of the Facebook messages, Jessica Burgess, 41, tells her then 17-year-old daughter that she has obtained abortion pills for her and gives her instructions on how to take them to end the pregnancy. The daughter, meanwhile, “talks about how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body," a detective wrote in court documents. “I will finally be able to wear jeans,” she says in one of the messages. Law enforcement authorities obtained the messages with a search warrant, and detailed some of them in court documents. In early June, the mother and daughter were only charged with a single felony for removing, concealing or abandoning a body, and two misdemeanors: concealing the death of another person and false reporting. It wasn't until about a month later, after investigators reviewed the private Facebook messages, that they added the felony abortion-related charges against the mother. The daughter, who is now 18, is being charged as an adult at prosecutors' request. Burgess' attorney didn’t immediately respond to a message Tuesday, and the public defender representing the daughter declined to comment. When first interviewed, the two told investigators that the teen had unexpectedly given birth to a stillborn baby in the shower in the early morning hours of April 22. They said they put the fetus in a bag, placed it in a box in the back of their van, and later drove several miles north of town, where they buried the body with the help of a 22-year-old man. The man, whom The Associated Press is not identifying because he has only been charged with a misdemeanor, has pleaded no contest to helping bury the fetus on rural land his parents own north of Norfolk in northeast Nebraska. He's set to be sentenced later this month. In court documents, the detective said the fetus showed signs of “thermal wounds” and that the man told investigators the mother and daughter did burn it. He also wrote that the daughter confirmed in the Facebook exchange with her mother that the two would “burn the evidence afterward." Based on medical records, the fetus was more than 23 weeks old, the detective wrote. Burgess later admitted to investigators to buying the abortion pills “for the purpose of instigating a miscarriage.” At first, both mother and daughter said they didn’t remember the date when the stillbirth happened, but according to the detective, the daughter later confirmed the date by consulting her Facebook messages. After that he sought the warrant, he said. Madison County Attorney Joseph Smith told the Lincoln Journal Star that he’s never filed charges like this related to performing an abortion illegally in his 32 years as the county prosecutor. He didn't immediately respond to a message from the AP on Tuesday. The group National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which supports abortion rights, found 1,331 arrests or detentions of women for crimes related to their pregnancy from 2006 to 2020. In addition to its current 20-week abortion ban, Nebraska tried — but failed — earlier this year to pass a so-called trigger law that would have banned all abortions when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. A Facebook spokesman declined to talk about the details of this case, but the company has said that officials at the social media giant “always scrutinize every government request we receive to make sure it is legally valid.” Facebook says it will fight back against requests that it thinks are invalid or too broad, but the company said it gave investigators information in about 88% of the 59,996 times when the government requested data in the second half of last year. | |
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| 08-09-22 07:26pm - 772 days | #267 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
McCord: So I think what you're really asking is what prudential concerns would go into it, particularly in a sensitive case like this, where we're talking about a former president. And there's also prudential concerns about danger to national security. I would also be thinking down the line, am I going to be able to make a case in court? Because is the national defense information so sensitive that the equity holder, the national security agency whose information it is, is never going to let me put it in court, is never going to say to me, "It's OK, prosecutor, to prove up that this is national defense information." The very nature of which means it would cause substantial damage to U.S. national security, if it were disclosed. Admitting that is actually admitting to things that sometimes our national security agencies don't want to admit to. So there's all kinds of prudential things you'd be looking at in terms of the former president. That's what's unprecedented here. And so it would be more than just you have probable cause. It would be, "Where are we going from here? If we find the things we're going to find, are we going to be seeking an indictment from this? What are the different things to weigh?" To me, that would depend on how significant are the documents, right? How sensitive is the national security information? Are we worried that some of this information would actually be shared outside of Mar-a-Lago, potentially with foreign adversaries? I'd be really concerned about that. A view of the buildings of Mar-a-Lago from the road, amid palm trees. Former President Donald Trump's residence Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images) Isikoff: I asked you before about Justice Department precedents for cases such as this, and the one that leaps to mind is Sandy Berger, who was Bill Clinton's national security adviser, and then after he leaves office, he goes into the National Archives while he was preparing for his testimony before the 9/11 commission, and outright helps himself to classified documents, stuffs them in his socks and his pants, and gets caught red-handed. He gets prosecuted. He doesn't get prison time, he gets fined and community service, gives up his law license. And there's some other cases of just outright theft by people who just take bucketloads of old Civil War documents from the archives, and try to use them for financial purposes. Those are cases that clearly meet the willfulness standard that you're talking about. But it's hard for me to see a set of circumstances involving Trump that meets that kind of standard here. McCord: This is where I pointed out the whole background history here, right? Of being put on notice that there were documents missing from the archives. His own attorneys, and his own consultants, packaging up 15 boxes, in coordination with the archivist about the missing records, and sending them back. I'm sure his own attorneys advised him of what the laws are, and it was widely reported — many, many lawyers and others talking about what the laws are that prohibit the taking of presidential records, and certainly prohibit them as handling of classified information. So you know, I can tell a tale here that wouldn't sound that much different than stuffing [classified documents] into your pockets. You're put on notice that you may have classified information that needs to be returned, and then you make some decisions about what to keep and not return. I don't know that that's so much different than going into the archives and walking out with [documents]. You have now taken what you've been told is not yours to take. | |
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| 08-09-22 07:25pm - 772 days | #266 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump rallies the GOP around him while wearing red, white and blue. Tells his supporters to arm themselves with 356 and 44 Magnum handguns. And to bring along some weapons of mass destruction. He will bring down Sleepy Joe and re-take the Whitest House. But Sleepy Joe is taking a laxative to prepare to resist Dongle. He's alerted the FBI, the Secret Service, and the US Armed Forces that Civil War is imminent. "We must take a stand for liberty and equality", declares Sleepy Joe. And some Dems rally behind Sleepy Joe. But not all. Some Dems think it's all a big hoo-haw over nothing. However, some legal experts think that Dongle Trump could be charged with the Espionage Act. Can Dongle Trump be put in jail, for stealing documents that don't belong to him? Alan Dershowitz, the famous radical lawyer who wanted to defend Adolf Hitler, now wants to defend Dongle Trump from espionage charges. Alan says Dongle is too stupid to be a spy. Will the jury believe Alan? Or put Dongle in jail, where he will be forced to learn a real trade. ---- ---- Trump could be charged with violating the Espionage Act, former DOJ national security chief says Yahoo News Michael Isikoff August 9, 2022, 4:19 PM The former chief of the Justice Department’s national security division said Tuesday that the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., suggests that the former president could be charged with violating the World War I-era Espionage Act. That law has traditionally been used to target government leakers, such as former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. But it also “actually has provisions that apply to essentially the mishandling [of classified material] through gross negligence, permitting documents to be removed from their proper place, or to be lost, stolen or destroyed,” Mary McCord, a veteran federal prosecutor who headed DOJ’s national security division in the closing years of the Obama administration, told the Yahoo News “Skullduggery” podcast. McCord said that the Espionage Act is one of two federal crimes that appear to apply to Trump’s reported conduct. He could also be charged, she said, with violating another federal statute that targets anyone who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys public records.” McCord noted that the decision to search Trump’s home could only have been conducted with the approval of a federal judge based on an affidavit from the FBI that there was evidence of a crime at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the search. “So it couldn’t be, ‘We thought the stuff was there a year ago, but not now.’ It would have to be probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime exists in that location at that time,” McCord said. “And that means that the Department of Justice, probably at the highest levels, probably all the way up to the attorney general, agreed that this was a step that was not only legally supportable, but also important to take.” Donald Trump wears an expression of deep skepticism. Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Hilton Anatole on Aug. 6 in Dallas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) One factor that McCord suggested would be on the minds of DOJ national security lawyers is what Trump might have done with the highly classified material that was still believed to be at Mar-a-Lago. “Are we worried that some of this information would actually be shared outside of Mar-a-Lago, potentially with foreign adversaries? I’d be really concerned about that,” she said. What follows is an edited conversation of the interview with McCord conducted by “Skullduggery” co-hosts Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman and Victoria Bassetti. Isikoff: So rather striking news last night that the FBI has raided the home of the former president of the United States. And according to Trump, broke into his safe. What do you make of this? McCord: First, I would quarrel with two terms you just used. "Raid" and "broke into his safe." Isikoff: I said, "according to Trump." McCord: OK, fair enough. Because this was of course a court-authorized search warrant that would've had to have included the safe within the terms of the search warrant. It's a very overt step for the FBI to actually execute a search warrant that signals to the whole world that they had probable cause — that a federal judge agreed with — to believe that the evidence of a crime would be located in the premises to be searched at the time it was searched. So it couldn't be, "We thought the stuff was there a year ago, but not now." It would have to be probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime exists in that location at that time. And that means that the Department of Justice, probably at the highest levels, probably all the way up to the attorney general, agreed that this was a step that was not only legally supportable, but also important to take. Two vehicles, a golf cart and a van, leave through the gates of Mar-a-Lago, which are flanked by two men in dark glasses. U.S. Secret Service and Mar-A-Lago security staff at the entrance of former President Donald Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Tuesday. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Isikoff: What are the potential crimes here? McCord: There's a variety of different possible crimes, but I think the two that are probably worth focusing the most on are 18 USC 2071. This really applies to any federal government employee who, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys public records, right? Records that are public records. Another potential crime is actually under the Espionage Act, which is 18 USC 793. And that actually has provisions that apply to essentially the mishandling through gross negligence, permitting documents to be removed from their proper place, or to be lost, stolen, or destroyed. There's also conspiracy provisions within that 18 USC 793. But certainly gross negligence could be proved by willfulness, because that would be even beyond gross negligence. Klaidman: Does that suggest possibly that they had information that there was some kind of obstruction going on? McCord: I think one of the things that is significant here to me is the fact that after it was revealed, however many months ago, that documents had been taken, presidential records had been taken to Mar-a-Lago, 15 boxes were returned [to the National Archives], right? This is a result of consultations with the archivist. Because even if [the removal of the documents] was all an accident, it's been called to the president's attention. It’s been called to the president's lawyers' attention. There was an actual collaborative effort to round up the documents, the presidential records that had been mistakenly taken, and then return them. But this idea that, "Oh, it was a mistake." He [Trump] doesn't really have that anymore. I think that's significant because it shows, "OK. You had your chance. You argue mistake. The department obviously has probable cause to believe you still have documents." And so, the question is why. Right? Bassetti: The New York Times is reporting that in June, multiple officials from the Department of Justice, including the chief of counter-intelligence and export control [Jay Bratt] visited Mar-a-Lago to check the documents, and see where some of them were being stored. What does it tell you that someone at that rank, and in that position, went to Mar-a-Lago? Mary McCord poses outside the Department of Justice. Then Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., in 2017. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images) McCord: So I do think it's significant. I mean, that's the litigating division within Department of Justice that investigates mishandling of classified information. And the fact that we have a national security division lawyer such as Jay Bratt, the head of counterintelligence and export control, does mean that we're talking about national security implications, not simply presidential records that aren't classified. Bassetti: When you were the head of the national security division, what sort of evidence would you have wanted to see before you would have signed off on a search warrant of a potential suspect? | |
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| 08-09-22 01:29pm - 772 days | #265 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Mike Pence says if Dongle Trump wants to steal secret documents from the Whitiest House, the GOP stands firmly with Dongle. After all, the laws don't apply to the GOP. They can shit on the public, and get away with it. They are politicians, remember. Dongle says it's time to arm yourselves with 357 and 44 Magnums. And shoot to kill anyone standing in your way. And maybe even people lying in your way. But not good old GOP members. They are the heart of America. ---- ---- Pence expresses 'deep concern' over Mar-a-Lago search, asks for 'full accounting' from Garland USA TODAY August 9, 2022, 1:36 PM WASHINGTON - Many Republicans are rallying around former President Donald Trump after the FBI search on his Mar-a-Lago estate – some more aggressively than others. While House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans vowed to investigate the Department of Justice over the search, Vice President Mike Pence issued a tweet expressing his "concern" over the incident. "I share the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump," Pence tweeted. Pence, who like Trump is considering a 2024 presidential run, also tweeted that some FBI agents "were found to be acting on political motivation" during the Trump administration. In what looked a carefully worded series of tweets, Pence tweeted that Attorney General Merrick Garland "must give a full accounting to the American people as to why this action was taken and he must do so immediately." The latest:Ex-Bush AG Gonzales says Mar-a-Lago search likely had approval from ‘highest level’- live updates The background:What's happening at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home? Was the FBI there? Answers to your questions Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Young Americas Foundation's National Conservative Student Conference on July 26. Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Young Americas Foundation's National Conservative Student Conference on July 26. What did McConnell, McCarthy say? Other Republicans, including Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, had not commented at all as of Tuesday midday. In pledging to investigate should Republicans win the House, McCarthy issued a starker message to Attorney General Garland: "Preserve your documents and clear your calendar." Declaring that "I've had enough," McCarthy said the Justice Department has reached "an intolerable state of weaponized politicization." Democrats, for the most part, said the search was totally justified, given Trump's troubling history of handling classified information, the subject of the Justice Department's inquiry. "No person is above the law," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on NBC's "Today" show. A breakdown of the Trump investigations: Trump in midst of gathering storm of investigations. Mar-a-Lago document inquiry is one of many. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pence expresses 'concern' over Trump search, asks Garland to explain | |
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| 08-09-22 11:57am - 772 days | #264 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Republicans are crying foul after the FBI searches Trump's Florida home. The office of the president is sacred. Never before has the nation seen such shameful behavior on the part of the FBI. The FBI must hang its head in shame. Didn't the FBI do a wonderful job investigating Brett Kavanaugh before he was put on the US Supreme Court? Didn't they ignore hundreds, maybe even more, tips that showed Brett Kavanaugh was probably a liar and lying to Congress under oath? But the FBI was following orders from the Whitest House, to show that Brett Kavanaugh is a good old boy who loves his beer. And ignoring any tips that showed Brett might have been naughty. Sleepy Joe Biden needs to wake up, and start the Justice Department investigations into GOP rivals who might have committed crimes. People like Brett Kavanaugh, who almost certainly lied under oath to Congress. Drain the swamp in Washington. Remove the GOP from Washington, and lock them up. ---- ---- Republicans lash out at Justice Department after FBI searches Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home NBC Universal Zoë Richards and Vaughn Hillyard August 8, 2022, 8:21 PM Republican lawmakers and officials accused the Biden administration on Monday night of weaponizing the Justice Department for political ends after former President Donald Trump revealed that the FBI had searched his Florida home. Allies were quick to back Trump's claim that the unprecedented search of a former president's home was politically motivated, with some vowing to take action on Capitol Hill. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif, said the Justice Department had reached “an intolerable state of weaponized politicization” and vowed that Republicans would conduct oversight of the department if they win back the chamber in the November midterm elections. “Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar,” McCarthy said in a statement. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who leads the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, tweeted that the search was part of a history of the Biden administration's "going after" its political opponents, without providing any supporting details. Scott also demanded answers about the FBI's actions, insisting that the bureau "must explain what they were doing today & why." A source familiar with the matter said the search was tied to classified documents Trump is alleged to have taken with him from the White House to his Palm Beach resort in January 2021. A separate source said it is the Trump team’s understanding that the investigation is related to the transfer of documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and that agents seized several boxes of documents. The Republican National Committee's chair, Ronna McDaniel, suggested the FBI activity was a partisan attack. “Countless times we have examples of Democrats flouting the law and abusing power with no recourse," McDaniel said in a statement, suggesting the only way to stop Democrats "is to elect Republicans in November.” Armed Secret Service agents stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, late Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump said in a lengthy statement that the FBI was conducting a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate and asserted that agents had broken open a safe. (AP Photo/Terry Renna) Armed Secret Service agents stand outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, late Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump said in a lengthy statement that the FBI was conducting a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate and asserted that agents had broken open a safe. (AP Photo/Terry Renna) Other Republicans raised concerns about the potential electoral implications, both in November and in 2024. "We’re 100 days away from midterm elections. President Trump is likely going to run again in 2024. No one is above the law. The law must be above politics,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina tweeted. “However, launching such an investigation of a former President this close to an election is beyond problematic.” Republicans who are considered potential White House contenders in 2024 also weighed in. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested the search was "another escalation" in an effort to wield political power against the administration's adversaries, "while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves." South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem also referred to the search as an example of the "unprecedented political weaponization" of the Justice Department, adding that investigations into Trump by the agency over the years were "un-American." A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on the FBI search, and the White House said it was not given a heads up. “We did not have notice of the reported action and would refer you to the Justice Department for any additional information,” a White House official said. | |
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| 08-09-22 11:45am - 772 days | #263 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Lara Trump claims President Dongle Trump has every authority to take documents from the Whitest House. After all, the Whitest House belongs to Dongle. Who has graciously let that scummy Dem Sleepy Joe occupy it while Dongle is busy with other matters. So if Dongle wants to take papers from the Whitest House, Sleepy Joe needs to back away. Or else Sleepy Joe could be shot for trespassing on private property. Also, the rumors that Dongle trashed secret documents and flushed them down the Whitest House toilets is completely un-true. The toilets worked fine, the last time Dongle used them. So he is offended that anyone would think he could dump those papers down the toilet. Dongle respects papers. He loves to collect them. That's why he took so many of them to his new house, in spite of the Federal Government asking for them back. ---- ---- Lara Trump incorrectly claims that Donald Trump had 'every authority' to take documents from White House Yahoo TV Stephen Proctor August 9, 2022, 12:51 AM Former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Monday, with guest host Will Cain, where she spoke about the FBI raid on her father-in-law’s Florida home at his Mar-a-Lago resort, reportedly searching for highly classified documents the former president took with him when he left the White House. “Have you spoken to the former president?” Cain asked. “How is he doing? What is the attitude of the family?” “I have spoken to my father-in-law,” Trump answered, “and I gotta tell you, you know, he’s as shocked as anybody.” The National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of materials from Mar-a-Lago in February, but that wasn’t everything the former president had taken, despite Mrs. Trump’s claim of cooperation. Investigators have been to Mar-a-Lago in the months since those 15 boxes were retrieved, in an attempt to get the rest of the materials. “The bottom line here is that these documents that have been in question have been — everybody’s been cooperating,” Trump said. “Everybody from my father-in-law’s team has been cooperating with the FBI, with any authority that asks for anything up until now.” Mrs. Trump went on to incorrectly state that the former president had the authority to take the classified documents to his home. In doing so, he may have violated the Presidential Records Act, passed in response to the Nixon Watergate scandal. “My father-in-law, as anybody knows who’s been around him a lot, loves to save things like newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, photographs, documents that he had every authority, Will, to take from the White House, ”Trump said. “And again, he’s been cooperating every single step of the way.” Tucker Carlson Tonight airs weeknights at 8 p.m. on Fox News Channel. | |
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| 08-08-22 07:01pm - 773 days | #262 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Trump asked why his generals couldn't be more like Hitler's, book says Yahoo News Dylan Stableford August 8, 2022, 10:24 AM Former President Donald Trump once asked his White House chief of staff Gen. John Kelly why his generals couldn’t be more like Adolf Hitler’s, who were, in Trump’s view, “totally loyal.” The previously unreported conversation was published by the New Yorker on Monday in an excerpt from “The Divider: Trump in the White House,” a book by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser that will be published on Sept. 20 by Doubleday. Baker is the chief White House correspondent for the New York Times and Glasser is a staff writer for the New Yorker. “You f***ing generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump asked Kelly, according to the book. “Which generals?” Kelly asked. “The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded. “You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said. According to the book’s authors, the 45th president was apparently unaware of that part of Nazi history. “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” Trump replied. In another conversation recounted in the excerpt, Trump told Kelly about his idea for an Independence Day parade in Washington, D.C., like the one he saw on a visit to Paris on Bastille Day. As in France, Trump wanted the U.S. military to take part in the parade — with one exception. “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” he told Kelly. “This doesn’t look good for me.” Trump explained that there had been several formations of injured veterans — including wheelchair-bound soldiers who had lost limbs in battle — at the Bastille Day parade, and that he did not like their inclusion. John Kelly is seen looking at President Trump as he speaks during a briefing with senior military leaders at the White House. Trump and Kelly in 2017. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) “Those are the heroes,” Kelly told Trump. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are — and they are buried over in Arlington,” he added, referring to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Va., where many soldiers who died in wars are buried. According to the book, Kelly did not mention that his own son Robert, a Marine who was killed while serving in Afghanistan, was buried among them. “I don’t want them,” Trump repeated. “It doesn’t look good for me.” | |
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| 08-08-22 06:58pm - 773 days | #261 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump fights for the rights of citizens everywhere. Dongle is close friends with the FBI. After all, Dongle is close to Vlad Putin, the Russian dictator. And Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea. And Xi Jinping, the dictator of Mainland China. Also, Dongle Trump was leader of the Untied States of Trumperland, until Sleepy Joe Biden stole the Whitest House away from Dongle, who was taking a nap. Now, the FBI has stormed into Mar-a-Lago, the Florida home that Dongle occupies since he decided that New York had too many slimy Dems that wanted to prosecute him for alleged crimes. Dongle has Secret Service protection. Did the Secret Service fire handguns or other weapons of mass destruction at the FBI during this raid? Enquiring minds want to know: How many FBI agents were wounded and/or killed in this raid? Will the American taxpayer have to pay for burials and medical care for the FBI and the Secret Service? Sleepy Joe Biden says he knows nothing of Dongle Trump's problems. But wishes the former president well. Sleepy Joe Biden will issue a statement telling all good Americans to have a happy and peaceful New Year. ----- ----- FBI raids Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home amid reported investigation into classified documents Yahoo News Christopher Wilson August 8, 2022, 5:27 PM Former President Donald Trump said Monday evening that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had conducted a raid of his Florida home. “These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in a statement posted to Truth Social, his social media website, calling the move “prosecutorial misconduct” and an attempt by Democrats to hurt a possible 2024 presidential bid. A great egret stands near former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) The Justice Department is investigating Trump’s actions in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The then president’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election have also been the focus of the House Jan. 6 select committee’s investigation. In May, a federal grand jury also began investigating whether Trump had mishandled classified documents, including taking 15 boxes of materials to the Florida resort. Former U.S. Attorney and NBC legal analyst Barb McQuade was among those who noted that the FBI would have needed a judge to agree that there was "probable cause to believe that evidence of a specific crime will be found on the premises" in order for a search warrant to have been approved. The New York Times reported Monday evening that two people familiar with the investigation said it appeared to be centered on material Trump took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after he left office. Earlier this year, the Washington Post reported that some of the records were "so sensitive they may not be able to be described in forthcoming inventory reports in an unclassified way." Trump’s handling of records that are subject to protection under the Presidential Records Act was under scrutiny throughout the day Monday after New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman released photos that appeared to show that Trump tried to dispose of documents by ripping them up and placing them in toilets. Regarding the FBI search warrant executed Monday at Mar-a-Lago, the White House issued a statement to NBC News saying, “We did not have notice of the reported action and would refer you to the Justice Department for any additional information.” Monday’s raid was first reported by Florida Politics — which said the FBI had executed a search warrant and left the premises — minutes before Trump posted his statement about it. The current FBI director, Chris Wray, was appointed to the position by Trump in 2017. “They even broke into my safe!” Trump said in the statement, comparing the latest events to the Watergate break-in. Trump also lamented that his opponent in the 2016 presidential race, Hillary Clinton, “was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 E-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress.” An FBI investigation into Clinton’s handling of the emails recommended that the former secretary of state not be charged with a crime, and an internal State Department investigation cleared her of wrongdoing. Trump concluded by writing, “I will continue to fight for the Great American People!” | |
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| 08-07-22 11:50am - 774 days | #260 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Passage of a bill by the Dems would raise prices and hurt America. Listen to the GOP: only spend money on Republican bills, not on Dem bills. Make America great again: Vote for Dongle Trump, the bestest president of the Untied States of Trumperland. Poor people making less than $400,000 might also have to pay more taxes. Become a Republican, and you too can think of all the poor people making less than $400,000 as the great unwashed. -------- -------- Impending passage of Democrats' climate and tax bill is a 'boondoggle': Mike Rounds ABC News MEGHAN MACPHERSON August 7, 2022, 10:10 AM Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds on Sunday labeled the impending passage of a Democratic tax, climate and health bill as a "boondoggle" for the country. Rounds was responding to ABC "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos, who asked him in an exclusive interview immediately after Delaware Democrat Chris Coons appeared: "We just heard Sen. Coons say that this bill is going to be a boon to consumers, a boon for the economy. Your response?" Rounds pushed back on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a proposal Democrats said would reduce the deficit, support clean energy and lower drug costs, in part by increasing corporate taxes. "It's not going to do much to help inflation, we're still gonna have a problem there," Rounds told Stephanopoulos. MORE: Democrats advance the Inflation Reduction Act, setting up Senate 'vote-a-rama' He also disagreed with a congressional Joint Committee on Taxation analysis showing that the bill would not raise taxes, increase spending over the long term or put an additional tax burden on families making less than $400,000. He contended that Americans would be impacted as broader costs are levied on the economy and corporations raise prices. "We will see those tax increases coming down the line and Americans are gonna feel it," Rounds said. "The bottom line on this is that what they're really trying to do is to take dollars in and then redistribute it back out to the places that they think it should be done … This is not the time to be experimenting in that area." PHOTO: Sen. Mike Rounds speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing on the Fiscal Year 2023 Budget in Washington, April 26, 2022. (Al Drago/AP, FILE) PHOTO: Sen. Mike Rounds speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing on the Fiscal Year 2023 Budget in Washington, April 26, 2022. (Al Drago/AP, FILE) One key provision of the IRA would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices on some prescription drugs, with a proposition to cap out-of-pocket spending at $2,000. Rounds cast Medicare's potential negotiating power another way. "First of all, it doesn't start for four years. And second of all, once it does start, what do you think the drug companies are going to be doing when they start being dictated to?" he told Stephanopoulos. "This is not healthy, it's not good and it will cause problems in the marketplace." Stephanopoulos followed up on Rounds' concerns of a recession, pointing to the latest report from the Labor Department that U.S. employers added an unexpectedly robust 528,000 jobs in July as the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5%. That is the lowest in the last 50 years. But Rounds insisted he and other Republicans had reservations. MORE: What's in the Senate Democrats' landmark 'Inflation Reduction Act'? "What you're actually seeing, we believe, might be a precursor to what's to come. You're going to find out the larger companies such as Walmart are talking about starting to reduce the number of people that they're going to be employing," he said. "So while it's good and we want to see job growth, I don't think we can necessarily say that that is not a precursor yet to probably some more serious economic issues coming very shortly," he said. With the midterm elections only months away, Rounds said his focus was on 2022 -- not on 2024, as Stephanopoulos raised the possibility of former President Donald Trump running again for the White House. Nonetheless, Rounds said he expected a "wide open field" in the next Republican presidential primary. "Let's see who else is coming up," he said. PHOTO: A general view of the U.S. Capitol Dome, in Washington, D.C., July 6, 2022. (Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via AP, FILE) PHOTO: A general view of the U.S. Capitol Dome, in Washington, D.C., July 6, 2022. (Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via AP, FILE) "You want [Trump] to wait until after the midterms to announce?" Stephanopoulos asked. "Most certainly. I think that would be good, because I think Democrats would like to have him draw attention away from the 2022," Rounds said. "We have to have a good strong showing in the 2022 … and then we'll have divided government, but at least we'll be able to slow down some of these rather radical ideas that they're putting out right now." MORE: Biden touts unexpectedly strong jobs report and movement on Senate spending bill Stephanopoulos also asked Rounds for his view on a proposed pro-abortion access amendment in his home state in light of last week's resounding defeat of an anti-abortion amendment in Kansas, another Republican stronghold. "[Abortion access] is back where it should be and that is back to the states, and then we'll let the people and the legislative body decide exactly what they think is the long-term approach. Me personally, I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is wrong," Rounds said. Impending passage of Democrats' climate and tax bill is a 'boondoggle': Mike Rounds originally appeared on abcnews.go.com | |
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| 08-06-22 06:06pm - 775 days | #259 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
John Leguizamo slams James Franco's casting as Fidel Castro: 'He ain't Latino' But if you put Franco in blackface, he could probably pass for Latino. After all, James is an actor. And actors lie. Just like Dongle Trump. Was Dongle Trump best buddies with Fidel Castro? Dongle is still currently best buddies with Vlad Putin and the dictators of mainland China and North Korea. Dongle admires strong men ruling with despotic powers. He wishes he had despotic powers, so he could put Hilary Clinton and Sleepy Joe Biden in prison. ---- ---- John Leguizamo slams James Franco's casting as Fidel Castro: 'He ain't Latino' Yahoo Movies Taryn Ryder August 5, 2022, 2:41 PM News that James Franco is set to play former Cuban president Fidel Castro in an upcoming film has some in Hollywood riled up. (No, not because of his sexual misconduct allegations.) Veteran actor John Leguizamo posted Deadline's casting news on Instagram, writing, "How is this still going on? How is Hollywood excluding us but stealing our narratives as well? No more appropriation Hollywood and streamers! Boycott!" Leguizamo, who was born in Bogotá, Colombia, called the situation "[f*****] up." John Leguizamo calls out Hollywood for excluding Latinos as James Franco is reportedly cast as Fidel Castro in upcoming movie. (Photos: Getty Images) "Plus seriously difficult story to tell without aggrandizement which would b wrong! I don't got a prob with Franco but he ain't Latino," the Moulin Rouge! star added. Newly appointed The View co-host Ana Navarro commented that she plans to boycott — for many reasons. "I'd like to think no Latino actor worth their salt would sign up to play and aggrandize a murderous dictator who terrorized the people of Cuba for six decades. For both reasons you articulated, I join you in the boycott," she wrote. Miguel Bardem's film Alina of Cuba stars Ana Villafañe as Castro's daughter, Alina Fernandez, and follows the true-life story of her Cuban exile. The screenplay is by Oscar-nominated writer Jose Rivera and Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz. This is one of Franco's first major casting announcements since he was swept up in the #MeToo movement in 2018. In a rare interview in December, Franco admitted he used "fame like a lure," but said not all allegations were true. | |
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| 08-06-22 05:39pm - 775 days | #258 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The great cover-up. The Secret Service is hiding evidence from Congress about Dongle Trump. Will Sleepy Joe let this slide, letting the Secret Service off the hook for trying to destroy evidence that, according to the law, must be kept? Why is the Secret Service allowed to break the law to protect Dongle Trump, the sworn enemy of Sleepy Joe? Did the Secret Service swear allegiance to Dongle Trump, even though he is no longer the President? Trump's allies destroyed public documents. Which was illegal. Why aren't they in jail? The Secret Service has broken the law? Why aren't members of the Secret Service in jail? Why weren't they charged with crimes, and fired? And then prosecuted? What the fuck is going on when law officers are breaking the laws? ---- ---- Yahoo News Jan. 6 texts, data deleted from Secret Service, Pentagon phones lead to accusations of cover-up Tom LoBianco·Reporter Sat, August 6, 2022 at 10:00 AM Evidence of all the information erased, wiped, deleted and otherwise obscured by members of former President Donald Trump’s administration in the days, weeks and months after the riot that unfolded at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is now apparently under scrutiny by the House select committee hearings investigating the failed insurrection. Text messages and other data were wiped from the phones of Secret Service agents, despite Congressional and government watchdog requests to keep evidence from that day. Senior Pentagon officials involved in responding to the attack had their government-issued phones “wiped” as part of what the Pentagon called a standard process for departing employees. Top aides, including former acting secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and former acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli, had their electronic devices wiped in the same process. “The same mindset that would seek sweeping pardons is likely the same that would engage in a cover-up,” said Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department lawyer who chronicled multiple deletions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack. “All of the data points currently align with a cover-up as the most likely explanation.” The House committee is continuing to probe for more evidence related to the Jan. 6 insurrection, including seeking deleted texts, to add to the hours of witness testimony, reams of documents and immersive graphic displays already presented at the hearings. Staff for the panel declined to comment for this story. Trump aides and advisers have denied any wrongdoing. But the apparent attempt at obfuscating the evidence has been impossible to ignore. When the Jan. 6 committee hosted its “season finale” last month, it focused on the “187 minutes” — the more than three hours that elapsed after Trump finished his speech to supporters on the Ellipse near the White House and then finally called off the rioters. Security footage shows rioters in winter clothes milling about on the tiled floors of the Capitol in a haze of smoke. In the background, a line of Capitol Police hold hands in an attempt to bar entry to a closed door. This exhibit from video released by the House select committee shows security video with Secret Service radio traffic audio in the background discussing the evacuation of Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021. (House select committee via AP) White House call logs and the president’s daily diary for much of that stretch of time were empty, and Trump’s photographer at the White House was told “no photographs” during that period as he sat glued to Fox News watching the riot unfold. But, as the committee detailed, Trump was on the phone extensively with Rudy Giuliani, one of his lawyers at the time, and was even lobbying senators, as they were being evacuated, to try to overturn his election loss. Investigators have been able to use documents from various court cases and even public interviews to fill in gaps in the timeline of that day. But breakthroughs sometimes seem to have been almost accidental. On-screen text on video shown at a hearing last month says: January 6th Committee Interview, The President wanted to lead tens of thousands of people to the Capitol. Voice of: White House Security Official. Anonymous testimony as seen on video during the House select committee hearing on July 21. (House TV via Reuters video) One of the greatest caches of information came from former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows before he stopped cooperating with investigators. And that doesn’t account for the papers he burned in the White House after meeting with one of the top lawmakers who helped coordinate the insurrection, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn. This week, a unexpected trove of information came to light during the defamation trial of longtime conspiracy theorist and Jan. 6 coordinator Alex Jones, when it was revealed that Jones’s lawyers accidentally sent two years of text messages from his cellphone to Mark Bankston, a lawyer representing the parents of a boy killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Bankston said the Jan. 6 committee had requested the messages and related documents. | |
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| 08-06-22 05:28pm - 775 days | #257 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The truth revealed. Dongle Trump has secrets he wants to hide. He hid his school records while he was in high school. And he hid his college records. Then he demanded that his political opponents expose their records. Why does Dongle want his secrets and lies to remain hidden? Is he guilty of ordering the deaths of people he does not like? Is Dongle the secret father of hundreds, maybe even millions of illegitimate children he refuses to recognize or support? Can state or federal authorities go after Dongle Trump for refusing child support? Enquiring minds want to know: how often has Dongle Trump cheated on his current wife? How often has he been prescribed Viagra so he can carry on hidden affairs with married women? These are matters that must be cleared up, before Dongle Trump can run for President of the Untied States of Trumperland. | |
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| 08-05-22 02:33pm - 776 days | #256 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump, the fiercest President-For-Life of the Untied States of Trumperland, wants more time to sue Hilary Clinton. Yes, there might be a statute of limitations for mere mortals. But Dongle is a God from Heaven. If he wants to go after scummy Democrats from Hell like Hilary (The lock-her-up girl) Clinton, then the Untied States of Trumperland should give him the right to sue. While blocking all suits against Dongle, since he is so busy making America great again. Vote for Dongle: he needs a few billions to make him happy again. And if he gets his Whitest House back again, boy, will he go after all his enemies with the full faith and force of the Untied States. ---- ---- Bloomberg Trump Tells Judge He Was Too Busy as President to Sue Clinton Sooner Erik Larson Fri, August 5, 2022 at 11:50 AM (Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump’s lawyers argued the statute of limitations shouldn’t apply to the lawsuit he filed against political rival Hillary Clinton because the “immense and unrelenting demands” of the job prevented him from doing so sooner. The former president was simply too busy during his single term in office to discover the details of the alleged plot, which he claims involved a vast effort to falsely accuse him and his 2016 campaign of colluding with Russia and swamp him with costly investigations, his lawyers wrote in a filing Thursday night in federal court in Florida. Trump “was preoccupied with carrying out his eminently important presidential duties and was therefore impeded from effectively asserting his rights,” his lawyers said. The suit was filed in March under the civil version of a racketeering law normally used against organized crime. But Clinton argues Trump missed the four-year statute of limitations because all of the alleged conduct was known to him no later than Oct. 29, 2017, when he publicly accused several of the defendants of cooking up a Russia “witch hunt.” US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, is weighing a joint motion to dismiss the case by Clinton, her 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta and former Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, among others. They raised the statute of limitations as one of the reasons the suit should be thrown out. The case is scheduled for trial in May. David Kendall, Clinton’s lawyer with Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The case is Trump v. Clinton, 22-cv-14102, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida. | |
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| 08-05-22 01:30pm - 776 days | #255 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump in desperate need of cash. Can you donate a few million or more so Dondle can make more runs to McDonald's, his favorite dining spot? For a donation of $5 million, you will get a signed photo of the Dongle, and maybe get to shake our bestest leader's hand. --- --- Trump PAC formed to push debunked voter fraud claims paid $60K to Melania Trump's fashion designer USA TODAY Erin Mansfield August 5, 2022, 7:26 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. The fund affiliated with former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election paid $60,000 to a fashion designer known for styling Melania Trump’s wardrobewhen the couple was in the White House. The Save America political action committee distributed the money to Hervé Pierre Braillard in four payments starting April 7 and going through June 24, according to records filed with the Federal Elections Commission. The committee reported that these payments were all for “strategy consulting.” It’s not clear what the money specifically paid for. “Mr. Pierre serves as a senior adviser to Save America, involved in event management and special projects,” said Taylor Budowich, a senior official with Save America. The payments offer a window into one of the many ways Trump, who is not a candidate for any federal office, is allowed to use money in the PAC, which has raised more than $100 million since it was registered in November 2020 to fight debunked voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election. Save America: Millions raised to fight election fraud. Here's how that money was spent. Here's one Trump the French like: (Hint: not Donald) Then-first lady Melania Trump tours the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C, in a hat designed especially for her by her personal stylist, the Franco-American Herve Pierre. Then-first lady Melania Trump tours the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C, in a hat designed especially for her by her personal stylist, the Franco-American Herve Pierre. The Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol riot has scrutinized the advertising and spending of Save America. Fundraising emails advertised an “Official Election Defense Fund” that an investigative counsel for the committee said never existed. The PAC also spent millions paying the company that put on the Trump rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and keeps former White House aides on the payroll. The Federal Election Commission does not allow candidate committees, which are formed to raise money for a specific candidate, to spend money on personal items, including clothing. But Save America is not a candidate committee, it's a leadership PAC, originally designed for politicians to raise and give money to other candidates. They carry fewer restrictions and have been criticized as slush funds. Experts who spoke with USA TODAY said the use of leadership PACs to spend money with fewer rules is a loophole that should be closed. “If you are going to a political function and trying to buy a new dress or a new tuxedo, that’s typically something that the FEC would say campaign funds should not be used for,” said Michael Beckel, research director for Issue One, a bipartisan political reform organization. First lady Melania Trump stands alongside the gown she wore to the 2017 inaugural balls, and the gown's designer, Herve Pierre, as she donates the dress to the Smithsonian's First Ladies Collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C, on Oct. 20, 2017 First lady Melania Trump stands alongside the gown she wore to the 2017 inaugural balls, and the gown's designer, Herve Pierre, as she donates the dress to the Smithsonian's First Ladies Collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C, on Oct. 20, 2017 “So it really raises questions if leadership funds are being used to pay for something like a new dress or new clothing that campaign funds could not be used for legally,” he said. Braillard, who goes by Hervé Pierre, is a French-American fashion designer based in New York who has worked with other first ladies, including Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush while they were in the White House. While Trump was in office, Braillard was featured in Vogue and The New York Times for his work dressing Melania Trump. “I do a bit of styling with (Melania Trump) but it’s not really my forte,” Braillard told The New York Times in 2017. “What interests me in this relationship is not just finding pretty clothes – a lot of people can do that. It’s more about the legacy of this woman. Everybody has a different reaction to what she’s wearing.” Efforts to reach Braillard and Melania Trump were unsuccessful. Eiffel Tower dinner: Melania Trump continues fashion tour de force Bastille Day in Paris: Melania Trump goes chic in Valentino Melania Trump wears a red Dior skirt suit after arriving with President Donald Trump on Air Force One at Orly Airport, south of Paris, on July 13, 2017. Melania Trump wears a red Dior skirt suit after arriving with President Donald Trump on Air Force One at Orly Airport, south of Paris, on July 13, 2017. The vast majority of members of Congress have leadership PACs. Save America has given the maximum $5,000 donation to dozens of candidates for Congress who repeat Trump’s unfounded claims about a stolen election. Because there is a federal cap on those contributions, tens of millions of dollars in donor money is left over. “For so long the whole point of leadership PACs, even when they were set up, was to kind of ingratiate yourself and help your other Congress-people or other political candidates, but that’s apparently pretty much gone by the wayside,” said Ann Ravel, a former member of the Federal Election Commission. “It’s in desperate need of regulation.” Beckel said the federal government banned campaign money from being used on personal expenditures before formally defining a leadership PAC. The result is a legal disagreement on whether leadership PACs can cover personal expenditures. With the Federal Election Commission deadlocked, making personal expenditures from a leadership PAC ends up being allowed. In 2018, the Campaign Legal Center and Issue One, two nonprofit organizations that advocate on money in politics, published an analysis of more than 200,000 records from leadership PACs and found that “often under the guise of fundraising activity, officeholders and candidates overwhelmingly use leadership PAC money to pay for, among other things, five-star luxury resort stays, expensive dinners, trips to theme parks, golf outings, tickets to Broadway shows and sporting events, and international travel.” In a follow-up study published in September, the groups wrote: “When leadership PACs are essentially underwriting lavish lifestyles for politicians, it raises serious questions about whether leadership PAC funds are being spent in ways that amount to personal use." FEC records show Save America has also spent $212,200 at the Trump Hotel Collection. Adav Noti, the legal director at the Campaign Legal Center, said the bigger question about Save America is what is going to happen to all of the money once Trump declares a run for the presidency. It’s not legal for Trump to use it for his campaign, Noti said. “Even if you’ve made it to like a whole bunch of candidates for Congress, it’d barely make a dent in all the money that they have,” he said. “So where is the rest of it going to go?” While Melania Trump has maintained a lower profile since leaving the White House, she continues to make some public appearances in clothing that fans post about on social media. Neither fans nor Melania Trump’s official accounts have indicated the clothing was designed by Braillard. She wore a tan trench coat dress for her Fox News interview on May 15, 2021. This past May, she donned a red dress for a public appearance at a foster care organization in West Palm Beach, Florida. On July 20, she wore to Ivana Trump’s funeral a short-sleeve A-line dress to the mid-calf. "Very classy and elegant like always,” fan account @elegant_melania called the tan outfit she wore on Fox News. White House Easter Egg Roll: Melania Trump dons ice-blue coat Melania Trump breaks the rules: She wore white pumps before Memorial Day Contributing: Katherine Swartz This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's Save America PAC paid $60K to Melania Trump's fashion designer | |
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| 08-05-22 08:01am - 776 days | #254 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski died in a car crash. She was a member of the GOP who supported Dongle Trump. Was she assassinated by Democrats from Hell for supporting Dongle, the fightenest President-For-Life of the Untied States of Trumperland? Inquiring minds want to know: will President Dongle Trump send teams of wet-work specialists against Dems to cleanse the swamp in Washington? Only by shining the bright light of truth on these issues can we finally learn how corrupt Washington has become under Sleepy Joe. Or, maybe, it was Dongle himself who ordered the hit: Jackie might have been backsliding in her support of Dongle. ---- ---- LA Times Police change account of car crash that killed Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski TOM DAVIES Thu, August 4, 2022 at 2:28 PM FILE - In this July 19, 2018, photo, Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Walorski's office says that she was killed Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, in a car accident. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) shown outside the Capitol in Washington on July 19, 2018. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) Police have changed their description of the crash that killed U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), saying Thursday that it was the SUV in which she was a passenger that crossed a state highway’s centerline and caused the head-on collision. Walorski and two members of her congressional staff died in the Wednesday afternoon crash in northern Indiana, along with the woman driving the other vehicle, the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office said. The department’s initial account was that the car driven by Edith Schmucker, 56, Nappanee, Ind., crossed into the SUV’s path, but the office released a statement Thursday saying investigators had talked with witnesses and viewed video evidence that their preliminary determination of which direction the vehicles were traveling was incorrect. Investigators determined that the SUV driven by Zachery Potts, 27, of Mishawaka, Ind., crossed the centerline for unknown reasons in a rural area near the town of Wakarusa. Potts was Walorski’s district director and the Republican Party chairman for northern Indiana’s St. Joseph County. Also killed was Emma Thomson, 28, of Washington, D.C., who was Walorski’s communications director. Walorski, 58, was first elected to represent northern Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District in 2012 and was seeking reelection this year to a sixth term in the solidly Republican district. Walorski was a reliable Republican vote in Congress, including against accepting the Arizona and Pennsylvania electoral votes for President Biden following the Capitol insurrection. Under Indiana law, it will be up to local Republican officials to pick a candidate to replace Walorski on the election ballot. Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb has the authority to schedule a special election to fill the remainder of Walorski’s current term, which ends this year. The governor’s office and the state Republican Party both said Thursday it was too soon to say when those decisions would be made, as tributes to Walorski’s public service continued. The U.S. Senate chaplain included her, Thomson and Potts in the chamber’s opening prayer, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) praised all three in his opening remarks. He acknowledged “how great a hole Jackie and her team are leaving behind” at the Capitol. In Indianapolis, members of the Indiana House, where Walorski served for six years before running for Congress, bowed their heads Thursday while Republican Rep. Timothy Wesco said a prayer for Walorski. Wesco, who took over Walorski’s legislative seat, called Walorski a “mentor” who was “passionate in everything that she did.” “Her faith was central to her as a person, and her faith is what gives us hope today,” Wesco said. “None of us are guaranteed tomorrow.” This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. | |
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| 08-04-22 10:19am - 777 days | #3 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
I take a different approach. I currently have 4 pages of "My Babes photo list" at indexxx.com. Much easier keeping track of the models, since you have a small thumbnail of each model and links to most of the sites that each model appears at. Adding and deleting models only takes a mouse click. So I have hundreds of models that I think are worth following. If I only had more time. | |
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| 08-04-22 10:08am - 777 days | #253 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Mainland China fires missiles into waters off Taiwan. Says the people of Taiwan are ready to suicide if they can't re-unite with mainland China. As an act of mercy and faith, Mainland China will invade Taiwan and take the Chinese people into their loving arms. And people who object can jump into the waters off Taiwan. Also, Mainland China has brokered a deal with Russia, where Mainland China and Russia will celebrate the birthday of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin and Vlad Putin simultaneously. Showing the true solidarity of free world Communists. Ex-President-For-Life Dongle Trump has promised to attend the celebrations. ---- ---- China fires missiles into waters off Taiwan in largest ever drills Reuters Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu August 4, 2022, 4:54 AM By Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu TAIPEI (Reuters) -China fired multiple missiles around Taiwan on Thursday, launching unprecedented military drills a day after a visit by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the self-ruled island that Beijing regards as its sovereign territory. The exercises, China's largest ever in the Taiwan Strait, began as scheduled at midday and included live-firing in the waters to the north, south and east of Taiwan, bringing tensions in the area to their highest in a quarter century. China's Eastern Theatre Command said at around 3:30 p.m. (0730 GMT) it had completed multiple firings of conventional missiles in waters off the eastern coast of Taiwan as part of planned exercises in six different zones that Beijing has said will run until noon on Sunday. Taiwan's defence ministry said 11 Chinese Dongfeng ballistic missiles had been fired in waters around the island. The last time China fired missiles into waters around Taiwan was in 1996. Taiwan officials condemned the drills, saying they violate United Nations rules, invade its territorial space and are a direct challenge to free air and sea navigation. Tensions had been building ahead of Pelosi's unannounced but closely watched visit to Taiwan, made in defiance of heated warnings from China. Before Thursday's drills officially began, Chinese navy ships and military aircraft briefly crossed the Taiwan Strait median line several times in the morning, a Taiwanese source briefed on the matter told Reuters. By midday, warships from both sides remained in the area and in close proximity, and Taiwan scrambled jets and deployed missile systems to track multiple Chinese aircraft crossing the line. "They flew in and then flew out, again and again. They continue to harass us," the Taiwanese source said. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and reserves the right to take it by force, said on Thursday its differences with the self-ruled island are an internal affair. "Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces is reasonable, lawful," China's Beijing-based Taiwan Affairs Office said. In Taiwan, life was largely as normal, despite worries that Beijing could take the unprecedented step of firing a missile over the main island, similar to a launch by North Korea over Japan's northern island of Hokkaido in 2017. Taiwan residents are long accustomed to Beijing's threats. "When China says it wants to annex Taiwan by force, they have actually said that for quite a while," said Chen Ming-cheng, a 38-year-old realtor. "From my personal understanding, they are trying to deflect public anger, the anger of their own people, and turn it onto Taiwan." However, Taiwan said that the websites of its defence ministry, foreign ministry and the presidential office were attacked by hackers, and warned of the likelihood of stepped up "psychological warfare" in coming days. 'COMRADE PELOSI' Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Pelosi's visit to Taiwan a "manic, irresponsible and highly irrational" act by the United States, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Wang, speaking at a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, said China had made the utmost diplomatic effort to avert crisis, but would never allow its core interests to be hurt. Unusually, the drills in six areas around Taiwan were announced with a locator map circulated by China's official Xinhua news agency earlier this week - a factor that for some analysts and scholars shows the need to play to both domestic and foreign audiences. On Thursday, the top eight trending items on China's Twitter-like Weibo service were related to Taiwan, with most expressing support for the drills or fury at Pelosi. "Let's reunite the motherland," several users wrote. In Beijing, security in the area around the U.S. Embassy remained unusually tight as it has been throughout the week. There were no signs of significant protests or calls to boycott U.S. products. "I think this (Pelosi's visit) is a good thing," said a man surnamed Zhao . "It gives us an opportunity to surround Taiwan, then to use this opportunity to take Taiwan by force. I think we should thank Comrade Pelosi." U.S. SOLIDARITY Pelosi, the highest-level U.S. visitor to Taiwan in 25 years, praised its democracy and pledged American solidarity during her brief stopover, adding that Chinese anger could not stop world leaders from travelling there. China summoned the U.S. ambassador in Beijing in protest against her visit and halted several agricultural imports from Taiwan. "Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan," Pelosi told Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence - a red line for China. "Now, more than ever, America's solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that's the message we are bringing here today." The United States and the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations warned China against using Pelosi's visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said earlier in the week that Pelosi was within her rights to visit Taiwan, while stressing that the trip did not constitute a violation of Chinese sovereignty or America's longstanding "one-China" policy. The United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide it with the means to defend itself. China views visits by U.S. officials to Taiwan as sending an encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the island. Taiwan rejects China's sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the island's future. (Reporting by Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu; Additional reporting by Tony Munroe, Ryan Woo and Martin Quin Pollard in Beijing and Fabian Hamacher in Taipei; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) | |
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| 08-03-22 12:42am - 779 days | #252 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Although it's true some people lost their lives in Kentucky floods, they only got what they deserve for voting for people like Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul. McConnell and Paul, as true GOP members, voted against climate change. So if God punished Kentucky with floods, it's only natural that people would die. Good for Kentucky. And the funky Democrats from Hell will probably vote to give the poor in Kentucky money to help them out. Republicans are smart. They know how to make America great again. Give tax breaks to billionaires, the people who know how to make money wisely. Only by studying politics will you learn God's will. And understand why men like Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul sleep peacefully at night. ----- ----- Some suggest flood victims ‘got what they voted for.’ Kentuckians aren’t having any of that. Silas Walker Austin Horn Tue, August 2, 2022 at 3:00 AM In the wake of disastrous flooding that claimed the lives of more than 30 Kentuckians, those in the state are not only dealing with cleanup efforts but also vitriolic comments that suggest the victims deserved their fate because of the political makeup of Eastern Kentucky. Many Kentuckians of all political stripes have, in one voice, called out these criticisms as lacking a basic level of empathy and humanity. One anonymous user tweeted that, while heartbreaking, “this is what they (Kentuckians) voted for.” “This is heartbreaking, but at the same time, this is what they voted for... The sad thing, is I think they will continue to vote for the same people over and over.” Another tweeted that “now blue states will be be bailing them out -- yet they elect (Senators) Mitch (McConnell) and Rand (Paul).” It is true that many Kentucky politicians at the federal level, particularly those in the GOP, have voted against legislation aimed at combating climate change. But Kentuckians far and wide have starkly criticized justifying the devastation wrought upon the victims, many of whom are poor and represent a sliver of Kentucky’s 4.5 million people, by blaming them for the state’s voting behavior. Reacting to a tragedy by saying that the government should adopt different policies is one thing – several climate scientists have lain blame at the feet of a worldwide increase in CO2 emissions – but it’s another altogether to suggest that anybody ‘had it coming’ because of their perceived political leanings, they pointed out. Writing for the United Kingdom-based publication The Independent, East Tennessee native Skylar Baker-Jordan said that in an article titled “Liberals saying Kentucky deserves these floods need to take a hard look at themselves.” “Blame the people in power, by all means,” Baker-Jordan wrote. “But don’t blame some of the poorest, most neglected, most mocked and marginalized people in our nation.” The five counties that are confirmed to have lost lives in the floods – Knott, Perry, Breathitt, Letcher and Clay – average a median household income of $32,464. 22 to 37 percent of their residents live in poverty. Kentucky’s median household income is $52,238 and 15% of residents live at or below the poverty line. America’s median household income is more than $67,500. Baker-Jordan, a political leftist, said that “an Appalachian Democrat, I can barely believe what I’m seeing from people who should be on the same side as me.” And many Democrats have, just as resoundingly, called out the blame game. Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Elridge put it bluntly: “If your take on the devastation in Eastern Kentucky is to say folks ‘deserve it’ for how they vote, you’re an ***hole.” Eastern Kentucky author Silas House framed the reaction of a cynical few as part and parcel with negative attitudes toward the region that fail to reckon with its once-central role in the American economy. “So many on here (Twitter) lecturing me about how my people live off them. No. Appalachia has fueled this country since the beginning. With timber, coal, gas, our children, our lives. We keep getting pushed down and we keep getting back up,” House wrote. Another nuance often lost on outsiders commenting about the tragedy: Eastern Kentucky is not a political monolith, and was until recently under control of the opposite party. For a long time, Appalachian Kentucky in the Eastern part of the state was solidly under Democratic control. Only in the 21st century has a majority of Eastern Kentuckians voted for Republicans at the federal level reliably. The shift took place more slowly on the state level, and much of the local politics of Eastern Kentucky counties is still dominated by Democrats. The Herald-Leader published a report on the shifting political sands of the region in June. Richard Young, executive director of CivicLex, wrote in a Herald-Leader op-ed that some vitriolic responses to the floods are in part due to the “rot of partisanship” that has infected American politics. But the best counterexample, he said, is the behavior of Eastern Kentuckians themselves. “In our own home, we can find hope,” Young wrote. “Despite these trends, the past few days have shown that Kentuckians know the path forward and out. As soon as it became clear that our Eastern Kentucky neighbors needed care, people across the state began organizing supply drop-offs, fundraisers, and mutual aid.” | |
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| 08-02-22 02:18pm - 779 days | #251 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The end of an era: Dongle Trump will stand up like a man and testify under oath. Now Dongle Trump will be able to tell lawyers how stupid are the questions they ask. He will be able to tell the judge and jury that people don't understand his brilliant mind and how it works. They have accused Dongle Trump of sacrificing the truth in the name of glory: but Dongle Trump knows, better than anyone, that his Master, the Evil Prince of Darkness, Darth Sidious, a.k.a the Emperor Palpatine, has guided Dongle Trump in making America great again. Down with people of color. Down with immigrants. Free the White People! Donate $1 to Dongle Trump, and you will get a handwritten email from the Great Man Himself. Donate $5 to Dongle Trump, and you can attend the next rally for America in Dongle Trump's honor. Donate $100 million, and Dongle Trump will shake your hand. And give you a personalized zirconi diamond wrist watch. ----- ----- The New York Times Trump Faces Questions About His Net Worth in Interview He Tried to Avoid Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum Tue, August 2, 2022 at 11:23 AM For decades, Donald Trump has boasted with impunity about a subject close to his heart and ego: his net worth. “I look better if I’m worth $10 billion than if I’m worth $4 billion,” he once said when disputing his ranking on the Forbes billionaires list. In a court case, he acknowledged that when it came to describing the value of his brand, “I’m as accurate as I think I can be.” And when he described his self-aggrandizing style in his book, “The Art of the Deal,” he chose a phrase that has followed him ever since: “truthful hyperbole.”’ But now, Trump will face questions under oath about that pattern of embellishment in an investigation that may shape the future of his family real estate business. The former president and his eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, are expected to be questioned later this month by the New York state attorney general’s office, which has been conducting a civil investigation into whether he and his company fraudulently inflated the value of his assets. His son, Donald Trump Jr., was interviewed last week, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The attorney general, Letitia James, has argued in court papers that “fraudulent or misleading” business practices reigned at the Trump Organization for years, and she has said her investigators must question the Trumps to determine who was responsible. Trump fought hard to avoid an interview, but a judge ordered him to face questioning, and investigators will seek to elicit answers that might reveal whether he approved any bogus valuations of his hotels, golf clubs and other assets. Even a single misstep in the deposition could be costly for Trump, who is also the focus of a separate criminal investigation into the same issues. Although that investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office lost momentum early this year, prosecutors are planning to review Trump’s answers and any incriminating statements or clumsy comments could breathe new life into it. The former president, who is no stranger to being deposed, will present unusual challenges and opportunities for James’ lawyers, according to accounts from people who have questioned him under oath in the past and a review of nearly a dozen depositions. He is quick to spar with his inquisitors and often struggles to restrain himself, once telling a lawyer that her questions were “very stupid.” The interviews will mark the final stage of James’ three-year civil inquiry, teeing up one of the most consequential decisions of her tenure: whether to sue Trump and his company. James, facing the likelihood that a lawsuit would bring several more years of legal wrangling without victory assured, could first pursue settlement negotiations with the former president’s lawyers to extract a swifter financial payout. If James does bring a lawsuit, and Trump loses at trial, a judge could impose steeper financial penalties on the former president and even restrict his business operations in New York, all in the midst of a 2024 presidential campaign that he has long hinted he will join. James, a Democrat running for reelection, has assumed the role of Trump’s chief antagonist in New York. And in recent months, she has adopted an unusually aggressive legal strategy — including persuading a judge, Arthur F. Engoron, to hold the former president in contempt of court — as she battled to obtain his documents and testimony. The depositions, while a victory for James, might not deliver a smoking gun. Trump could assert that he delegated the valuation of his assets to employees, and that he was not deeply involved, or he could invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination, declining to answer at least some questions. But people familiar with Trump’s approach to legal battles expressed doubt that he would keep quiet. Unlike in criminal cases, a jury in civil cases like the one James might bring can draw a negative inference from a defendant’s refusal to answer questions. And if Trump relies on his Fifth Amendment privilege — as his son Eric Trump did hundreds of times in an interview with James’ office two years ago — that could raise questions about what he might be seeking to hide and provide fresh fodder for his political opponents. Trump himself has ridiculed witnesses for invoking their Fifth Amendment rights, once remarking that “You see the Mob takes the Fifth,” and that, “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” James’ inquiry centers on whether Trump’s annual financial statements were a work of fiction — a vehicle for exaggerating the value of his real estate so that he could secure favorable loans and other financial benefits. James, who has said that Trump “got caught” using “funny numbers in his financial documents,” is examining whether Trump and his company used inflated valuations to mislead banks and the IRS. In challenging James, Trump’s legal team would be likely to argue that he was entitled to some leeway in valuing his real estate, a process that is widely viewed as more art than science. Trump’s financial statements contained disclaimers that the value of his properties had not been audited or authenticated. Trump’s lawyers might also argue that the banks that received his financial statements were hardly victims; these lenders made millions of dollars from their dealings with Trump, who recently paid off some of his largest loans. Any lawsuit James might bring could have some holes as well: Trump famously does not use email, so any directions he might have given his employees about drafting the financial statements were probably not in writing. Trump is no novice when it comes to facing questions under oath, having navigated numerous depositions in private lawsuits throughout his half-century in the public spotlight. When asked in 2012 how many depositions he had participated in, Trump, perhaps hyperbolically, put the number at “over 100.” Yet the stakes are higher this time, with Trump facing scrutiny not from private lawyers but government investigators, a relatively rare occurrence for the former president. While Trump responded to questions from the special counsel, Robert Mueller, he did so only in writing. And unlike Mueller, who did not examine Trump’s personal finances, James’ lawyers have spent three years investigating the minutiae of his company’s operations. If past depositions are any guide, Trump will be likely to strike a combative tone with James’ lawyers while portraying himself as the unwitting victim of a vindictive legal opponent. He might also lob the occasional insult at his interviewers. (In a 2011 deposition, he called a female lawyer “disgusting” after she requested a break to pump breast milk for her daughter and displayed the pump to illustrate her point.) That apparent lack of discipline could work to James’ advantage, lawyers who have deposed him said. Trump thinks of himself as his own best advocate and might ignore advice from his attorneys to avoid directly answering questions. “He’s completely fearless in a deposition,” said Jason A. Forge, who represented the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Trump’s for-profit education venture, Trump University, and questioned him under oath. “He’s way more engaged than a normal witness, and you can tell he enjoys the challenge and revels in the verbal sparring,” said Forge, who predicted that there was “no way” he’ll refuse to answer questions. In short, he added, Trump was “the dream deponent.” The lawsuit ended in a settlement. Trump’s willingness to talk arguably hurt him in a 2007 deposition for a lawsuit that also centered on the value of his assets. In that case, Trump had sued journalist Timothy L. O’Brien for writing a book that cast doubt on the size of his net worth, but in the deposition, O’Brien’s lawyer coaxed out a series of admissions from Trump, who acknowledged: “Even my own feelings affects my value to myself,” and said that his net worth “can vary actually from day to day,” and that he determined it by gauging “my general attitude at the time.” He then added, “And as I say, it varies.” “Have you ever exaggerated in statements about your properties?” O’Brien’s lawyer asked him. “I think everyone does,” Trump replied. A judge ultimately dismissed Trump’s lawsuit. | |
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| 08-02-22 12:17pm - 779 days | #250 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russia says the Untied States of Trumperland was secretly responsible to bombing Russian forces. Ex-president Dongle Trump says Sleepy Joe Biden is spending billions of US taxpayer dollars to invade the Ukraine and attack bestest buddy Vlad Putin. When will the American people wake up and remove Sleepy Joe from the Whitest House, and put Glorious Leader for Life Dongle Trump back where he truly belongs? Sleepy Joe has been having secret meeting with Dongle Trump to resolve the conflict: only when Vlad Putin comes to the table will there be a chance the war will end: but the Secret Service has a plan to assassinate Sleepy Joe and put their man Dongle Trump in charge. The Dems are holding secret talks with the GOP to transfer power back to the man who will make America great again. ---- ---- Reuters UPDATE 1-Russia says United States is directly involved in Ukraine war Tue, August 2, 2022 at 5:19 AM (Recasts) LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday said that the United States, the world's top military power, was directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine because U.S. spies were approving and coordinating Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian forces. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. Russia's defence ministry, headed by a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine's deputy head of military intelligence, had admitted to the Telegraph newspaper that Washington coordinates HIMARS missile strikes. "All this undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine," the defence ministry said. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants Ukraine to defeat Russia and has supplied billions of dollars of arms to Kyiv but U.S. officials do not want a direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian soldiers. Russia said the Biden administration was responsible for missile attacks on civilian targets in areas controlled by Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine. "It is the Biden administration that is directly responsible for all Kiev-approved rocket attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in populated areas of Donbas and other regions, which have resulted in mass deaths of civilians," the defence ministry said. Russia and the West frame the conflict in Ukraine very differently. Putin calls it a "special military operation" aimed at preventing what he says is a Western attempt to use Ukraine to threaten Russia and at protecting Russian speakers from persecution from dangerous nationalists in Ukraine. The 69-year-old Kremlin chief increasingly casts the conflict as an existential battle with the West whose outcome will reshape the global political order. Kyiv and its Western backers say Putin's claims are without foundation and that there is no justification for waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state whose borders Russia recognised. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who sometimes holidays with Putin in the Russian wilderness, said the operation in Ukraine was going to plan with Russian and Russian-backed forces pushing back Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region. "After taking control of the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic, the Donetsk People's Republic is being liberated as planned," Shoigu told top generals. He said the settlements of Hryhorivka, Berestove, Stryapivka, Pokrovske, Semyhirya and Novoluhanske had been taken recently, including the largest thermal power plant in Europe. Neither Russia nor Ukraine discloses its losses. U.S. intelligence estimates that some 15,000 Russians have been killed so far in Ukraine - equal to the total Soviet death toll during Moscow's occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-1989. Ukrainian losses are probably a little less than that, U.S. intelligence believes, according to U.S. estimates. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has given detailed estimates of its own losses. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Nick Macfie) | |
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| 08-02-22 12:06pm - 779 days | #249 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Democrats are paying to support their enemies. Why? ----- ----- Trump-targeted Republican blasts Dems for subsidizing challenger Reuters David Morgan August 1, 2022, 3:35 PM America First Policy Institute summit in Washington By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican targeted by Donald Trump for voting to impeach the former president in 2021, accused Democrats on Monday of subsidizing the "entire campaign" of his Trump-endorsed challenger in Tuesday's primary election. Meijer, who has been censured by two county Republican parties for opposing Trump and repudiated by a third, is locked in a close race for renomination against John Gibbs, a far-right Republican and former Trump administration official who questions Democratic President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory. "You would think that the Democrats would look at John Gibbs and see the embodiment of what they say they most fear," Meijer wrote in an opinion article that appeared on Monday in the online newsletter, Common Sense. "Instead they are funding Gibbs." Democrats are promoting Gibbs and other far-right candidates in the hopes of bettering their odds in the November midterm elections, when Republicans are widely favored to win back control of the House of Representatives. Nationwide, Democrats have spent millions on candidates who echo Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, even as party leaders say those very same candidates pose a threat to U.S. democracy. They have made similar moves in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois. Meijer accused Democrats of selling out "any pretense of principle for political expediency — at once decrying the downfall of democracy while rationalizing the use of their hard-raised dollars to prop up the supposed object of their fears." He cited two Democratic members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack - Jamie Raskin and Elaine Luria - for supporting the campaign against him. Raskin and Luria did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Meijer, one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Democrats have launched a $435,000 ad buy to promote Gibbs in the final days of the Michigan primary campaign. That sum dwarfs the $345,000 in contributions that Gibbs' campaign has received since last November, according to Federal Election Commission documents. "The Democrats are not merely attempting to boost a candidate over the finish line: They are subsidizing his entire campaign," Meijer wrote. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of the House Democrats that produced and financed the Gibbs ad, was not immediately available for comment. Meijer is not alone in his criticism of the Democratic strategy. "This decision by the DCCC to try and sink @RepMeijer — one of the few Rs to vote for impeachment — and lift his election-denying MAGA opponent in tomorrow's @GOP primary makes them an instrument of Trump's vengeance. It's wrong," tweeted David Axelrod, one-time adviser to former Democratic President Barack Obama. (Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell) | |
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| 08-01-22 08:13pm - 780 days | #248 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security seem unsure why Congress wants to know about secret messages sent by text. Does Congress have the right to read secret messages? Can Congress or the Department of Justice sue the Secret Service and Homeland Security for deleting texts that are supposed to be kept? Enquiring minds want to know: is the Secret Service and Homeland Security above the law, just like Dongle Trump and the GOP? Will Sleepy Joe Biden let the Secret Service and DHS off the hook, or have them arrested for obstruction of justice? ----- ----- DHS watchdog asked the Secret Service for all Jan. 6 texts, then retracted the request in an email NBC Universal Julia Ainsley August 1, 2022, 4:03 PM The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog agency, which in February 2021 requested all Secret Service text messages sent around Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot, withdrew the request five months later, according to an email obtained by the top Democrats on two House committees. On July 27, 2021, DHS Deputy Inspector General Thomas Kait sent an email telling Jim Crumpacker, a senior official at DHS, “Jim, please use this email as a reference to our conversation where I said we no longer request phone records and text messages from the USSS relating to the events of January 6th,” referring to the U.S. Secret Service. The email was obtained by the House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. They sent a letter to the DHS inspector general’s office Monday referring to the email and noting that in December, five months after he retracted his request for Secret Service text messages, Kait again asked the Secret Service for the texts. Reps. Maloney and Thompson have requested communications from the DHS inspector general related to the July 2021 email and also asked for Kait to make himself available to testify by Aug. 15. It was not until this July that DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari told Congress that the Secret Service emails from Jan. 6, 2021, were missing. Spokespeople at the Secret Service have said the agency wiped the messages as part of a planned phone systems migration that essentially restored all phones back to factory settings. The Washington Post reported last week that in February 2021, Inspector General Cuffari’s office decided not to collect or review phones to try to recover the missing messages. The missing text messages have now called into question not only whether the Secret Service took steps to actively obscure the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but also why Cuffari did not alert Congress about the missing text messages sooner. The DHS inspector general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | |
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| 08-01-22 03:00pm - 780 days | #247 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Senator Lindsey Fuckall is saying he's above the law as a Senator. No one can know what he thinks or does or says, because the law does not apply to him. God save the Queen, the Republic, and the GOP. Also, Senator Fuckall is saying there is no proof that he tried to stab Sleepy Joe Biden in the back. "Where's the blood on my dagger?", cries Senator Lindsey. "There's no blood on this dagger. I asked my Republican friends to wash it clean. So I am innocent of all crimes moral and immoral!!!!" ---- ---- Sen. Graham challenges 2020 Georgia election probe subpoena Associated Press KATE BRUMBACK August 1, 2022, 10:31 AM ATLANTA (AP) — As expected, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is challenging a subpoena to testify before a special grand jury that's investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others broke any laws when they tried to overturn Joe Biden's win in Georgia. Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, received a subpoena that was issued on July 26 and orders him to appear before the special grand jury to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers said in a court filing. Graham is seeking to have the challenge to the subpoena heard in federal court in Atlanta rather than before the Fulton County Superior Court judge who’s overseeing the special grand jury. The senator is one of the Trump allies who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants to question as part of her investigation into what she alleges was “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” Graham had said repeatedly that he would fight the subpoena once he received it, which happened last week, according to his lawyers. He has denied meddling in Georgia's election. In a court filing last month, Willis, a Democrat, wrote that Graham made at least two telephone calls to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and members of his staff in the weeks after Trump’s loss to Biden, asking about reexamining certain absentee ballots “to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.” When he made those calls, Graham “was engaged in quintessentially legislative factfinding — both to help him form election-related legislation, including in his role as then-Chair of the Judiciary Committee, and to help inform his vote to certify the election,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing on Friday. Graham's lawyers cite a provision of the U.S. Constitution that they say “provides absolute protection against inquiry into Senator Graham's legislative acts.” They also argue “sovereign immunity" prevents a local prosecutor from summoning a U.S. senator “to face a state ad hoc investigatory body.” And they assert that Willis has failed to demonstrate “the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ necessary to order a high-ranking federal official to testify.” Willis' office will respond in court and expects Graham to testify before the special grand jury, spokesperson Jeff DiSantis said. Given that Graham has been summoned to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers are seeking expedited consideration of his motion to quash. Graham had previously filed a federal court challenge in South Carolina to try to stop Willis' efforts to compel him to testify. Before a judge there could hold a hearing, he withdrew that case and agreed to file any challenges to a subpoena in the investigation in either state superior court or federal court in Georgia, according to a court filing. U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, a Georgia Republican, filed a similar challenge in federal court after he received a subpoena to testify before the special grand jury. After hearing arguments from his lawyers and from Willis' office, a federal judge last week declined to quash his subpoena. U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May sent the matter back to Fulton County Superior Court, saying that there are at least some questions that Hice may be compelled to answer. If disagreements arise over whether Hice is protected under federal law from answering certain questions, he can bring those issues back to her to settle, she said. Willis has confirmed that the investigation’s scope includes a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger during which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly described his call to Raffensperger as “perfect.” ___ Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report. | |
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| 07-31-22 07:53pm - 781 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Some websites store your payment information, sometimes even including the CVC on your credit card. It depends on the website. Most websites do not store the credit card CVC. But it can depend. If you have security concerns, try to see about using PayPal or a similar service to fund your membership. They are supposed to protect your financial records. Or some people use a pre-paid credit card for that purpose, but I've never used one. I thought the bother, and expense/whatever of using a pre-paid credit card wasn't worth it. But a pre-paid credit card not only protects your financial information, but, if you only keep a small amount of credit on the card, prevents most over-charges. Having said that, I've used different credit cards for porn for over 20 years, and never had any problems from porn overcharges. So I've been lucky. | |
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| 07-28-22 07:15am - 784 days | #246 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Kim says, for the sake of peace, he must fire nuclear missiles at the heart of Sourth Korea and the Untied States of Trumperland. It's with a heavy heart that he will do this, since his bestie buddy, Dongle Trump, makes his home in Florida. But South Korea and the Untied States of Trumperland have left Kim with no choice: Give me liberty or give me death, the battle cry of North Korea, is raging in Kim's warmly beating heart. Only Dongle Trump can save the day: will he make his way to North Korea and talk his bestie buddy out of shooting Sourth Korea and the Untied States with nuclear missiles? ----- ----- Kim threatens to use nukes amid tensions with U.S., S. Korea Associated Press HYUNG-JIN KIM July 28, 2022, 2:21 AM SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned he’s ready to use his nuclear weapons in potential military conflicts with the United States and South Korea, state media said Thursday, as he unleashed fiery rhetoric against rivals he says are pushing the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war. Kim’s speech to war veterans on the 69th anniversary of the end of the 1950-53 Korean War was apparently meant to boost internal unity in the impoverished country amid pandemic-related economic difficulties. While Kim has increasingly threatened his rivals with nuclear weapons, it’s unlikely that he would use them first against the superior militaries of the U.S. and its allies, observers say. “Our armed forces are completely prepared to respond to any crisis, and our country’s nuclear war deterrent is also ready to mobilize its absolute power dutifully, exactly and swiftly in accordance with its mission,” Kim said in Wednesday's speech, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. He accused the United States of “demonizing” North Korea to justify its hostile policies. Kim said regular U.S.-South Korea military drills that he claimed target the North highlight U.S. “double standards” and “gangster-like” aspects because it brands North Korea’s routine military activities — an apparent reference to its missile tests — as provocations or threats. Kim also alleged the new South Korean government of President Yoon Suk Yeol is led by “confrontation maniacs” and “gangsters” who have gone further than previous South Korean conservative governments. Since taking office in May, the Yoon government has moved to strengthen Seoul’s military alliance with the United States and bolster its own capacity to neutralize North Korean nuclear threats including a preemptive strike capability. “Talking about military action against our nation, which possesses absolute weapons that they fear the most, is preposterous and is very dangerous suicidal action,” Kim said. “Such a dangerous attempt will be immediately punished by our powerful strength and the Yoon Suk Yeol government and his military will be annihilated.” South Korea expressed “deep regret” over Kim’s threat and said it maintains a readiness to cope with any provocation by North Korea in “a powerful, effective manner.” In a statement read by spokesperson Kang In-sun, Yoon’s presidential national security office said South Korea will safeguard its national security and citizens’ safety based on a solid alliance with the United States. It urged North Korea to return to talks to take steps toward denuclearization. Earlier Thursday, South Korea's Defense Ministry repeated its earlier position that it's been boosting its military capacity and joint defense posture with the United States to cope with escalating North Korean nuclear threats. In April, Kim said North Korea could preemptively use nuclear weapons if threatened, saying they would “never be confined to the single mission of war deterrent.” Kim’s military has also test-launched nuclear-capable missiles that place both the U.S. mainland and South Korea within striking distance. U.S. and South Korean officials have repeatedly said in the past few months that North Korea is ready to conduct its first nuclear test in five years. Kim is seeking greater public support as his country’s economy has been battered by pandemic-related border shutdowns, U.S.-led sanctions and his own mismanagement. In May, North Korea also admitted to its first COVID-19 outbreak, though the scale of illness and death is widely disputed in a country that lacks the modern medical capacity to handle it. “Kim’s rhetoric inflates external threats to justify his militarily focused and economically struggling regime,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are in violation of international law, but Kim tries to depict his destabilizing arms buildup as a righteous effort at self-defense.” Experts say North Korea will likely intensify its threats against the U.S. and South Korea as the allies prepare to expand summertime exercises. In recent years, the South Korean and U.S. militaries have canceled or downsized some of their regular exercises due to concerns about COVID-19 and to support now-stalled U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program in return for economic and political benefits. During Wednesday’s speech, Kim said his government recently set tasks to improve its military capability more speedily to respond to military pressure campaigns by its enemies, suggesting that he intends to go ahead with an expected nuclear test. But Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said North Korea won’t likely conduct its nuclear test before China, its major ally and biggest aid benefactor, holds its Communist Party convention in the autumn. He said China worries that a North Korean nuclear test could give the United States a justification to boost its security partnerships with its allies that it could use to check Chinese influence in the region. North Korea recently said it is moving to overcome the COVID-19 outbreak amid plummeting fever cases, but experts say it’s unclear if the country can lift its strict restrictions soon because it could face a viral resurgence later this year. During Wednesday’s event, Kim, veterans and others didn’t wear masks, state media photos showed. On Thursday, North Korea reported 11 fever cases, a huge drop from the peak of about 400,000 a day in May. North Korea has rejected U.S. and South Korean offers for medical relief items. It has also said it won’t return to talks with the United States unless it first abandons its hostile polices on the North, in an apparent reference to U.S.-led sanctions and U.S.-South Korean military drills. | |
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| 07-28-22 02:48am - 785 days | #245 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump notifies CNN he will file a defamation lawsuit. CNN declares bankruptcy, gets on its knees and begs Dongle not to destroy the News service. "We were only trying to report the news," CNN cries. But Dongle remains firm: you have questioned my honor, and I must destroy you. Dongle wraps himself in the American flag, of red, white and blue. He is honorable and truthful: like General George Washington, Dongle can never tell a lie. Also, Dongle is stating that subjective belief is more important than facts. That is why Dongle deserves to be awarded billions of dollars in damages from the Untied States of Trumperland for allowing Fake News to criticize Dongle Trump, the greatest President of the Untied States of Trumperland the world has ever seen. ---- ---- Trump notifies CNN of 'intent to file' defamation lawsuit regarding his unproven election claims Yahoo News David Knowles July 27, 2022, 4:14 PM Former President Donald Trump said in a statement Wednesday that he had notified CNN he was intending to file a defamation lawsuit against the news outlet for its refusal to back his discredited claims that election fraud accounted for his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race. “I have notified CNN of my intent to file a lawsuit over their repeated defamatory statements against me,” Trump's statement said. “I will also be commencing actions against other media outlets who have defamed me and defrauded the public regarding the overwhelming evidence of fraud throughout the 2020 election.” In a letter dated July 21, 2022, and addressed to CNN's CEO Chris Licht and executive vice president and general counsel David Vigilante, lawyers for Trump cited numerous examples in which they maintain the former president was defamed. “Accordingly, I hereby demand on behalf of President Donald Trump that CNN (1) immediately take down the false and defamatory publications, (2) immediately issue a full and fair retraction of the statements identified herein in as conspicuous a manner as they were originally published, and (3) immediately cease and desist from its continued use of ‘Big Lie’ and ‘lying’ when describing President Trump’s subjective belief regarding the integrity of the 2020 election,” the letter stated. Trump’s months-long scheme to overturn his defeat to Biden has been laid bare by the House select committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Ample evidence has been put forth showing that Trump was told by staffers, administration officials and family members that fraud had not affected the final results. Testimony from Republicans close to the then president has also shown that he pursued a plan for state lawmakers to overturn the will of the voters by submitting slates of alternate electors. As the New York Times reported Tuesday, Trump campaign aides acknowledged in emails that those electors were “fake” and would be used to try to convince Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6. On Tuesday, Trump returned to Washington to deliver a campaign-style speech on crime that devolved into more unfounded claims about his election loss. The former president depicted the select committee as intentionally lying to defame him and spoil his chances of winning reelection. “They really want to damage me so I can no longer go back to work for you,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s going to happen.” But on Wednesday, ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl reported that the Republican National Committee has told Trump it will cease paying his legal bills should he announce himself as a 2024 presidential candidate. As of late February, Trump had filed 42 separate lawsuits since Election Day 2020 and lost them all. In December of last year, he did win a case in which Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers had asked a court to make the former president pay for the state’s legal fees in mounting a defense against Trump’s unsuccessful election lawsuit there. | |
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| 07-27-22 12:03pm - 785 days | #244 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The Justice Department says no man is above the law. But some men are invisible to the law. Which is different. Only now is the Justice Department learning that Dongle Trump might have been involved in the Jan. 6 riots. According the Justice Department, maybe Dongle Trump was the invisible co-conspirator? Invisible to the Justice Department? Did Dongle Trump have anything to do with the Jan. 6 riots? Does the Justice Department want to know? Why is the Justice Department now asking people if Dongle Trump might have, horrors above, possibly known about the Jan. 6 riots, and maybe even had something to do with them? Justice for all. But not for the powerful, who are invisible to the Justice Department. With liberty and justice for all. With exceptions. "But in recent days, Garland has repeatedly asserted his right to investigate or prosecute anybody, including Trump, provided that is where the evidence leads." Which means the Justice Department can do what it wants. And point out how it is fair and equitable for everyone. While it can step on anyone it wants to. Or not. And it's far easier to step on the weak, than on the strong and powerful. That's why they say: "With liberty and justice for all." Sounds great. ---- ---- The New York Times Justice Department Asking Witnesses About Trump in its Jan. 6 Investigation Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush Wed, July 27, 2022 at 4:43 AM Federal prosecutors have directly asked witnesses in recent days about former President Donald Trump’s involvement in efforts to reverse his election loss, a person familiar with the testimony said Tuesday, suggesting that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation has moved into a more aggressive and politically fraught phase. Trump’s personal role in elements of the push to overturn his loss in 2020 to Joe Biden has long been established, through his public actions and statements and evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But the Justice Department has been largely silent about how and even whether it would weigh pursuing potential charges against Trump, and reluctant even to concede that his role was discussed in senior leadership meetings at the department. Asking questions about Trump in connection with an electors plot or the attack on the Capitol does not mean the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into him, a decision that would have immense political and legal ramifications. The department’s investigation into a central element of the push to keep Trump in office — the plan to name slates of electors pledged to Trump in battleground states won by Biden — now appears to be accelerating as prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington ask witnesses about Trump and members of his inner circle, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the person familiar with the testimony said. In April, before the committee convened its series of public hearings, Justice Department investigators received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump White House, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence testified to the federal grand jury in the case last week, and prosecutors have issued subpoenas and search warrants to a growing number of figures tied to Trump and the campaign to forestall his loss. A spokesperson for Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to comment, saying the Justice Department did not provide details of grand jury proceedings. The department’s questioning of witnesses about Trump and its receipt of the phone records were reported earlier by The Washington Post. If a decision were made to open a criminal investigation into Trump after he announced his intention to run in the 2024 election, as he continues to hint he might do, the department’s leadership would be required to undertake a formal consultation process, then sign a formal approval of the department’s intentions under an internal rule created by former Attorney General William Barr and endorsed by Garland. But in recent days, Garland has repeatedly asserted his right to investigate or prosecute anybody, including Trump, provided that is where the evidence leads. “The Justice Department has from the beginning been moving urgently to learn everything we can about this period, and to bring to justice everybody who was criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which is the fundamental element of our democracy,” Garland told “NBC Nightly News” in an interview broadcast Tuesday, when asked to comment on criticism that his investigation was moving too slowly. The questions about Trump focused on, among other topics, the plan he was pushing to derail congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory on Jan. 6, 2021, the person familiar with the testimony said. The two Pence aides who testified to the grand jury — Marc Short, who was his chief of staff, and Greg Jacob, who was his counsel — were present at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 4, 2021, when Trump sought to pressure Pence into embracing the plan to cite the competing slates of electors as justification to block or delay the Electoral College certification. In recent weeks, the Justice Department also seized phones from two key figures, John Eastman, the lawyer who helped develop and promote the plan to upend the Electoral College certification, and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who was at the center of the related push to send the slates of electors pledged to Trump from states Biden won. Prosecutors have also issued grand jury subpoenas to figures connected to the so-called fake electors scheme. Those who have received the subpoenas have largely been state lawmakers or Republican officials, many of whom put their names on documents attesting to the fact that they were electors for Trump from states that were won by Biden. The subpoenas, some of which have been obtained by The New York Times, show that prosecutors are interested in collecting information on a group of pro-Trump lawyers who helped to devise and carry out the plan, including Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal lawyer. There are also indications that the tense standoff between the Justice Department and congressional investigators over the transcripts of interviews conducted for the Jan. 6 committee hearings is easing. The House is set to begin handing over some of the transcripts and intends to increase the pace in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the situation. Members of the committee have said they are still considering making a criminal referral to the Justice Department in hopes of increasing the pressure on Garland to prosecute Trump. Garland shrugged off that suggestion. “I think that’s totally up to the committee,” he said in his NBC interview. “We will have the evidence that the committee has presented, and whatever evidence it gives us, I don’t think that the nature of how they style, the manner in which information is provided, is a particular significance from any legal point of view.”  2022 The New York Times Company | |
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| 07-27-22 11:40am - 785 days | #11 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
my18teens.con Hardcore teen site. Lots of cute teen models. | |
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| 07-24-22 05:18pm - 788 days | #243 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Lindsey Graham, a Republican politican, argues that the US Constitution gives him absolute immunity for anything he does. So he can't break the law: he makes the laws. That's why we need Dongle Trump back in the Whitest House: So he can lead Republicans to glory as they make America great again. And lock up or execute scummy Democrats from Hell, such as Sleepy Joe Biden, who is trying to make problems for God-fearing Republicans. God-fearing, but not afraid of Democrats. ------ ------ Politics Lindsey Graham argues Constitution grants him 'absolute immunity' in Georgia election-interference probe, a response one former prosecutor calls 'disturbing' Charles R. Davis Jul 13, 2022, 5:03 PM Lawyers for Sen. Lindsey Graham are seeking to quash a subpoena related to the 2020 election. Graham has been asked to testify before a Georgia grand jury about calls he made to Brad Raffensperger. Graham's lawyers say the South Carolina Republican has immunity under the US Constitution. Lawyers for Sen. Lindsey Graham are arguing that the South Carolina Republican cannot be forced to testify before a Fulton County grand jury about alleged election interference, claiming he has "absolute immunity" under the US Constitution for phone calls he placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to pressure officials in Georgia to overturn President Joe Biden's victory. Graham, one of the former president's most loyal allies, was ordered earlier this month to appear before a grand jury. Others subpoenaed include Rudy Giuliani, Trump's former personal attorney. At issue are phone calls Graham is alleged to have placed in November 2020 to Raffensperger, a fellow Republican whom Trump would later pressure to "find" him the votes necessary to claim victory in the state. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal at the time, Raffensperger said that Graham had called him and suggested he throw out all mail-in ballots from counties with high rates of mismatched signatures. He refused. "We have laws in place," Raffensperger recounted saying. Graham has disputed that characterization of the phone call, insisting he only wished to know more about the state's election processes. In a filing on Wednesday with a US district court, attorneys for the senator maintained that the conversations cannot be subject to legal scrutiny and the subpoena — upheld by a Georgia state judge on Monday — should be discarded. They insist he is protected by the Constitution's speech and debate clause, which states that federal lawmakers "shall not be questioned in any other place" for their remarks during legislative sessions. Graham's phone calls, because they could potentially be used to craft new laws, fall under this "legislative sphere," the lawyers argue. In an analysis published by NBC News, Carol C. Lam, a former US Attorney, called Graham's response to the subpoena "disturbing," arguing the senator's legal response is a delay tactic that "impedes Georgia's ability to investigate possible election corruption within its borders." Kermit Roosevelt, a constitutional law expert at the University of Pennsylvania, told Insider that the argument being made by Graham's attorneys is at the very least "plausible." "The speech or debate clause, if you're just looking at the text, seems like it's about things that members of Congress say on the floor, but the court has read it more broadly," Roosevelt said. The question is whether the court will accept Graham's characterization of his intent, prima facie, or itself seek to examine the substance of his conversations before ruling on whether they were loosely "legislative" in nature. A spokesperson for the Fulton County district attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | |
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| 07-24-22 02:05am - 789 days | #242 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump slams Jan. 6 hearings as a hoax. Reveals that once he re-takes the Whitest House, he will show how to run a real witch hunt: the FBI, the Secret Service, the National Guard and the full might of the combined military forces of the Untied States of Trumperland will be given marching orders: use full and unconditional force to hunt down and destroy the personal enemies of Dongle J. Trump, the fightenest President of the Untied States we've ever known, greater than Washington and Lincoln and Hitler combined. "Dongle uber alles", cry Dongle's allies. "We will rise again and take you down!" -------- -------- Trump slams Jan. 6 hearings as a ‘hoax’ at Arizona campaign rally, as Pence makes rival appearance Yahoo News Nicole Darrah July 23, 2022, 7:58 AM At a rally Friday night in Arizona, former President Donald Trump railed against the panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot — and his vice president, Mike Pence, who is also contemplating a presidential run, made a rival appearance in the Grand Canyon State. Speaking in Prescott Valley in support of Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters, Trump attacked the House select committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Trump said he had watched Thursday night’s hearing, which focused on what he was doing while the violent mob breached the Capitol as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. The former president called it a “hoax.” He also repudiated former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony last month, in which she detailed Trump’s apparent plan to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and tell his supporters after his “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse that he hadn’t lost the election. Donald Trump at a podium with a poster saying: Save America, President Donald J. Trump. Former President Donald Trump addresses a rally in Prescott Valley, Ariz., on Friday night. (Rebecca Noble/Reuters) Hutchinson claimed under oath that Tony Ornato, a top security official for the president, told her about an altercation on Jan. 6 in which Trump allegedly lunged at the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle, colloquially known as “the Beast,” demanding to be taken to the Capitol, and was physically restrained by a Secret Service agent, Robert Engel, when he was told he would be returning to the White House instead. According to Hutchinson, Ornato "described [Trump] as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now!'" she said. On Friday night, Trump contested Hutchinson’s testimony, saying he could not have physically done what she had claimed. The former president also denied Hutchinson’s claim that she saw a White House valet cleaning up a mess after Trump apparently smashed a plate with his lunch on it against a wall. “They have me throwing food,” Trump told the crowd. “I don’t throw food in the White House. I don’t throw food anywhere. I eat the food.” Mike Pence speaks to a crowd of supporters. Former Vice President Mike Pence talks to supporters at the University Club of Chicago in June. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images) He also railed against Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who told the members of the Jan. 6 committee that Trump pressured him, without evidence, to say the 2020 election was fraudulent. Trump called Bowers "a RINO coward who participated against the Republican Party" during the June hearing. Trump said of the House’s investigation: “Where does it stop? Where does it end? Never forget: Everything this corrupt establishment is doing to me is all about preserving their power and control over the American people, for whatever reason. They want to damage me in any form so I can no longer represent you. Footage of Trump recording a speech, subtitled: Say heinous attack on our nation. Footage of Trump recording a speech on the day after the riot is shown on a screen at the Jan. 6 committee's primetime hearing on Thursday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) “If I stayed home, took it easy, if I announced that I was not going to run any longer for political office, the persecution of Donald Trump would immediately stop,” he added. “They’re coming after me because I’m standing up for you.” Trump didn’t mention Pence on Friday night — but the two had dueling events in Arizona at which they campaigned for opposing candidates for governor. Pence, who is also contemplating running in 2024, attended two events with Karrin Taylor Robson, a development attorney who has called for moving on from the 2020 election. Next week, Trump and Pence will cross paths again in Washington, D.C. — Trump’s first visit to the nation’s capital since leaving office — where each will deliver major speeches. | |
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| 07-23-22 09:47am - 789 days | #2 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Biden and Trump: A tale of two presidents with COVID. This time, things are different USA TODAY July 22, 2022, 7:56 AM WASHINGTON – Joe Biden isn’t the first U.S. president to contract COVID-19. That dubious honor goes to his predecessor, Donald Trump. But this time, things are different. Biden is fully vaccinated and boosted. When Trump tested positive in fall 2020, vaccines weren’t available and treatment options were limited. Trump was given an experimental antibody treatment and steroids after his blood oxygen levels fell dangerously low. He was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three days. Death rates have fallen sharply since Trump contacted the virus, primarily because of the arrival of vaccines and advances in treatments. More than 1 million Americans have died from the virus, which is still killing an average of 353 people in the U.S. every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The unvaccinated are at far greater risk, over two times more likely to test positive and nine times more likely to die from the virus than those who have received at least a primary dose of vaccine, according to the public health agency. Biden is experiencing mild symptoms and is taking Paxlovid, an at-home antiviral therapy that has been available since December for patients who are 12 and older and are at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19. "It remains to be seen what's going to happen with President Biden," Dr. Jerome Adams, who was surgeon general when Trump contracted the virus, told USA TODAY, "but he is in a much better situation based on all the data we have available to come out of this with little to no harm in the long run." Biden gets COVID: Biden says he 'feels fine' and is working: live updates Transparency on diagnosis The Biden White House appears to have been far more transparent about Biden’s positive diagnosis than Trump and his aides were after he tested positive. After months of downplaying the severity of the virus, Trump announced his positive test result on Twitter just before 1 a.m. on Oct. 2, 2020. His chief of staff, Mark Meadows, later revealed in a book that Trump had actually tested positive days earlier – on Sept. 26, three days before a presidential debate with Biden. Trump tested positive on the same day he held a Rose Garden ceremony in which he announced he would nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Meadows wrote. US President Donald Trump walks to Marine One prior to departure from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, October 2, 2020, as he heads to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, after testing positive for COVID-19. US President Donald Trump walks to Marine One prior to departure from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, October 2, 2020, as he heads to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, after testing positive for COVID-19. Trump subsequently took another test and got a negative result, Meadows wrote. He tested again on Oct. 1 and tweeted about the positive test result early the next day. The White House never disclosed Trump’s initial positive test. And Trump denied that he was sick before the presidential debate, calling the report "fake news." Biden officials, on the other hand, had been raising the possibility for weeks that he could eventually contract the virus. He tested positive Thursday morning, shortly before his diagnosis was announced, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. A few hours later, the White House released a 21-second video in which Biden reassured the nation. "It's going to be OK," he said. Jean-Pierre was emphatic about the differences between administrations at Thursday's briefing: "We are doing this very differently – very differently ... I would argue – than the last administration." Jean-Pierre said that she and COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha have not seen the president because they are following CDC guidance while he isolates. "We believe getting direct information, pretty much detailed information, from this letter that we – in a transparent way – shared with all of you on how he was doing, and we have committed to do that every day." Contributing: The Associated Press Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on Twitter @mcollinsNEWS. COVID on the rise: BA.5 makes up nearly 80% of new COVID-19 cases. Here's what to know about the subvariant This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden, Trump both got COVID. Vaccines, treatment, transparency differ | |
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| 07-23-22 09:38am - 789 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Covid update: Covid is going to be with us forever. That's the bad news. The good news is that we can prevent nearly every COVID death in America. Except Republican policies are fighting covid immunization. Which is key to preventing covid deaths. For some reason, even though over 1 million people died in the United States from covid, Dongle Trump seems to be held blameless. As president, Dongle Trump declared repeatedly the covid was either disappearing or was going to disappear, since February 2020, after the first known US covid death. It's now 2022, and Republicans are still saying individual rights are more important than any death from covid. Can Dongle Trump be put in prison for mass murder? Or do people believe that criminal negligence is okay for national leaders? ------ ------ COVID-19 'is going to be with us forever,' White House says Yahoo News Alexander Nazaryan July 22, 2022, 2:31 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. WASHINGTON — White House pandemic response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha delivered a grim message on Friday about the ever-evolving coronavirus pathogen that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates has infected more than 140 million Americans, including President Biden. “This virus is going to be with us forever,” Jha said during a press briefing otherwise devoted to an update on the president’s health. “It’s really, really important that people build up their immunity against this virus,” he added, emphasizing that vaccination is the best means of doing so. It was a bracing reminder that any hopes of fully eradicating the coronavirus are long gone. And while many Americans have sought a return to normal life, the coronavirus continues to cause economic and social disruptions. Ashish Jha White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters) “Dr. Jha is acknowledging the consensus among medical and public health experts — that COVID-19 is with us for our lifetimes and beyond,” Dr. Leana Wen, a public health expert closely aligned with the White House on the pandemic, told Yahoo News. “But this is not the COVID-19 of 2020,” Wen said, pointing to the widespread availability of vaccines and treatments. “We now have many tools that allow us to live with this coronavirus.” Biden is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots. On Friday, he and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre both said his symptoms remained mild after the president tested positive for COVID on Thursday. The president’s infection returned the pandemic to the headlines after several months during which the war in Ukraine, inflation and gun control dominated news coverage. Some public health experts saw Biden’s infection as a further sign of how complacent citizens have become. Like many Americans, Biden had ceased to wear a mask and had resumed travel, including abroad. “The president likes to interact and engage with the American public,” Jean-Pierre said in response to a reporter’s question about whether Biden regretted the recent pace of his social and travel commitments. The several waves of the Omicron variant that have washed over the United States have suggested that the virus initially known as SARS-CoV-2 is becoming increasingly transmissible, though not necessarily more virulent. While that is good news for people who are vaccinated and boosted, it does mean that the virus will almost certainly find new ways to evade immune protections, if only to ultimately cause relatively mild illness. Even as the BA.5 variant continues to drive new infections, a new, even more transmissible strain known as BA.2.75 has been detected in the United States. “The dominant strains are so contagious that it’s extremely difficult to avoid infection,” Wen told Yahoo News. But even if the coronavirus lingers for years to come, it is for the most part the unvaccinated and the unboosted who risk serious illness or death. More than 1 million Americans have died due to COVID-19 since the pandemic began. “We’re at a point now where, I believe, where we can prevent nearly every COVID death in America,” Jha said on Friday. The week ended with about 400 people dying daily from COVID-19 across the country. Edited on Jul 23, 2022, 11:00am | |
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| 07-22-22 11:17pm - 790 days | #241 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Florida police sergeant charged with battery and assault for grabbing a fellow police officer by her throat. Cops can only grab civilians by the throat. And use civilians for target practice. But a cop can't grab a fellow cop by the throat. Or use a fellow cop for target practice. Unless the cop has a helluva lawyer. Or is assisting Dongle Trump in the performance of Dongle's duties. Then the cop can do whatever Dongle Trump commands. ---- ---- Florida police sergeant seen grabbing officer by the throat is charged with battery and assault NBC Universal Tim Stelloh July 21, 2022, 10:15 PM Sunrise Police Department. A Florida police sergeant who was seen in body camera video grabbing another officer by her throat last year was charged with battery and assault on a law enforcement officer, officials said Thursday. Christopher Pullease, 47, was also charged with evidence tampering and assaulting a civilian during the Nov. 19 incident, the Broward State Attorney’s office said in a statement. Pullease, who was relieved of his supervisory duties in January, was accused of “intentionally touching or striking” the female officer against her will and assaulting her when he held pepper spray to her face, the statement said. The assault charge against the civilian, who was being arrested on what authorities described as a violent felony when the incident occurred, was prompted by Pullease holding the spray to the man’s face, the prosecutor’s office said. A probable cause affidavit obtained by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel accused Pullease of trying to “impair” his cellphone for his use in a criminal trial. In the video, which was muted and blurred by the police department to protect an internal investigation, Pullease can be seen appearing to talk to the suspect, who is handcuffed and in the back of a patrol car. The female officer can be seen approaching him and grabbing his duty belt in an apparent attempt to pull him away, according to Sunrise Police Chief Anthony Rosa. The video shows Pullease wheel around and briefly grab the officer by her throat while pushing her backward into another patrol car. He does not appear to deploy the pepper spray. In a January statement, Rosa said the sergeant, who he did not name, arrived at the scene and approached the suspect, who Rosa described as "verbally and physically resistive." Pullease “approached and engaged in a verbal altercation with the suspect in a manner that I feel was inappropriate and unprofessional," Rosa said. "This supervisor escalated the encounter instead of de-escalating an emotionally charged situation. It is our practice at the Sunrise Police Department to do everything we can to deescalate tense incidents and bring calm to chaos." Rosa also praised the female officer, noting that she was acting in accordance with department policies that call for intervention when there is an "imminent fear of engagements escalating unnecessarily." Rosa did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday and a message left on a phone number listed under Pullease's name was not immediately returned. It wasn't clear if he has a lawyer to speak on his behalf. The local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in a January statement obtained by a Florida TV station, WSVN, the union's president denounced Rosa for "publicly ridiculing" Pullease while an internal probe was underway. Pullease's status at the department wasn't immediately clear. If convicted, he faces five years in prison on the felony battery charge and five years for evidence tampering. He faces one year for the assault on an officer charge and 60 days for assault on a civilian. | |
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| 07-22-22 01:32pm - 790 days | #240 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Steve Bannon found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress. Will Dongle Trump return to the Whitest House and issue a pardon for Steve Bannon? Or will he have to serve time in jail? Enquiring minds want to know: why didn't Dongle Trump issue pardons for himself and his children? Was that a fatal mistake on Dongle's part? ----- ----- Steve Bannon found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress Yahoo News Dylan Stableford July 22, 2022, 11:51 AM Steve Bannon, ex-White House strategist and adviser to former President Donald Trump, was found guilty by a jury Friday of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to appear before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Bannon was found guilty of two counts of criminal contempt — one for refusing to appear for a deposition before the panel and the other for refusing to produce requested documents. Each count carries a minimum potential sentence of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a fine of $100 to $1,000. The jury deliberated for a little over two hours in federal court in Washington, D.C., before returning its verdict. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols set Oct. 21 as the date for Bannon's sentencing. Bannon did not testify during the weeklong trial, and his legal team did not call any witnesses. Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Bannon thanked the jury and the court, and both he and one of his attorneys, David Schoen, indicated that they planned to appeal. His attorneys had argued that the charges against him were politically motivated and that Bannon — who was serving as an unofficial adviser to Trump at the time of the insurrection — had been engaged in good-faith negotiations with the committee over his concerns about testifying. A video of Steve Bannon is displayed on a screen above the House Select Committee. A video of Bannon is shown Thursday at a hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) “No one ignored the subpoena,” Evan Corcoran, another lawyer for Bannon, told the jury. Prosecutors had argued that he did just that. “It wasn’t optional. It wasn’t a request, and it wasn’t an invitation. It was mandatory,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Vaughn told jurors. “The defendant’s failure to comply was deliberate. It wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a mistake. It was a choice.” In October, the House voted to refer Bannon to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution after the panel unanimously recommended it. He was indicted by a federal grand jury the next month. The select committee had sought to compel him to testify about what he knew in the days and weeks leading up to the deadly siege. On Jan. 5, 2021, Bannon said on his podcast that “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.” Steve Bannon surrounded by photographers. Bannon arrives at court Friday after his trial on charges of contempt of Congress. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) “It’s going to be moving, it’s going to be quick. This is not a day for fantasy. This is a day for maniacal focus. Focus, focus, focus. We’re coming in right over the target, OK? This is the point of attack we’ve always wanted,” he said. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice chair of the committee, had said those comments indicated that Bannon had “substantial advance knowledge of the plans for Jan. 6 and is likely to have had an important role in formulating those plans.” | |
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| 07-22-22 11:45am - 790 days | #239 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
A Georgia woman who is Black died after cops say she "fell" out of a patrol car. The woman's family is suspicious. Patrol cars are supposed to be locked from the inside. So how could she have fallen out? Enquiring minds want to know: was this woman murdered by the police? Or did the police do something to cause the woman to die? There are rumors that Dongle Trump will investigate the incident: If Dongle Trump investigates, will the truth be revealed? Or covered up? Did they check if the woman had sexual relations before she died? What, exactly, happened to the woman, before she died? Unfortunately, cops don't always tell an accurate story. The story they tell about the woman kicking open a locked patrol car door seems strange. ---- ---- A Georgia woman died after she 'fell' out of a patrol car. Cruisers are supposed to be locked, an expert said. NBC Universal Tim Stelloh July 21, 2022, 6:58 PM A Georgia woman having what her family described as a mental health crisis died Thursday after authorities said she “fell out” of a patrol car last week, even though, according to a policing expert, cruisers are always supposed to be locked from the inside. Brianna Grier, 28, was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement. Grier had been in a coma since the encounter last week in Hancock County, roughly 100 miles southeast of Atlanta, her sister, Lottie Grier, said in an interview. Her ventilator was removed after a doctor told relatives that she was "brain dead," Lottie Grier said. Brianna Grier, 28, at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta after she was placed on a ventilator. (Courtesy Lottie Grier) The Grier family first spoke to Macon TV station WMAZ. In the statement, the bureau said an early investigation into the death shows that deputies arrested Grier and were taking her to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office when she "fell out of a patrol car and sustained significant injuries." The agency did not provide additional details about the circumstances of Grier's death and said the investigation into the incident, which was requested by Hancock County Sheriff Terrell Primus on July 15, is ongoing. The deputies involved in the incident have not been identified. A person who answered the phone at the sheriff’s office on Thursday declined to comment. "Something went wrong and we want answers," Brianna Grier's father, Marvin Grier, said. "Something went wrong and my daughter is gone." Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and an expert on police training, said in a text message that patrol cars are “ALWAYS supposed to be locked from the inside.” "Otherwise," he added, "prisoners would be letting themselves out all the time." Alpert said he thinks child locks are used to secure police vehicle doors. He’d never before heard of someone escaping from a cruiser, he said. Marvin Grier said his wife called authorities on the night of July 14 because their daughter, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia nearly a decade ago and was medicated for the condition but used illegal drugs to cope, was having a mental health crisis. During previous similar episodes, he said ambulances were dispatched to the family's home and she was cared for in a medical setting. Last week, two deputies came in a patrol car instead, Marvin Grier said. "She needs help," Marvin Grier recalled telling the officers. His daughter told the deputies that she'd been drinking, Marvin Grier recalled, so one of the deputies said they would detain her for intoxication until the morning, when she could get medical attention. Before their patrol car left, Marvin Grier said he watched the deputies handcuff his daughter and place her in the vehicle's back seat. They never made it to the jail, Marvin Grier said. At roughly 6 a.m. on July 15, he said an officer came to the family's home and said that Brianna "kicked the door open and jumped out of the car." She suffered a head fracture and was airlifted to Grady Memorial, her father recalled the officer saying. Authorities provided the family with no other details about what happened and they have not heard from investigators in the days since, Marvin Grier said. "Her sisters, her brothers, her babies — we need answers," Marvin Grier said. "Want to know the truth." Brianna Grier leaves behind 3-year-old twin girls, he said. | |
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| 07-22-22 07:52am - 790 days | #238 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
ARTICLE CONTINUES: Even after Trump finally gave in to his allies’ pleas to call off the mob and condemn the violence at the Capitol, he struggled to stick to the scripts staffers had written for him to read on camera. The committee played never-before-seen outtakes from two video messages — one filmed on Jan. 6 in the Rose Garden and a second shot on Jan. 7 in the White House. In both, Trump veered from the script, struggled to condemn those who had stormed the Capitol and continued to perpetuate his false claims of a stolen election. In a particularly telling outtake from the Jan. 7 message, Trump refuses to acknowledge that his options for staying in power have been exhausted. “This election is now over. Congress has certified the results,” Trump said before stopping. “I don’t want to say the election is over. I want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election is over, OK?” Pence’s Secret Service detail feared for their lives A slide with image of a silhouette of a person in front of a rendering of the White House reads: January 6th Committee Interview; The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives.; Voice of White House Security Detail. A slide from the video presentation during the House select committee hearing on Thursday. (House TV via Reuters Video) The committee played chilling testimony from an anonymous White House security official who described hearing “disturbing” radio communications from members of Vice President Mike Pence’s Secret Service detail while the Capitol was under siege, before Pence and his family had been moved to a secure location. “Members of the VP’s detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives,” said the official, whose voice and identity were shielded to protect his identity. “They’re screaming, saying things like, ‘Say goodbye to family.’” There will be more hearings to come Reps. Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and Elaine Luria sit at a desk with microphones and name plaques in front of flags. Rep. Liz Cheney, center, on Thursday. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Thursday’s presentation marked the eighth in the recent series of public hearings the select committee has held this summer to share the findings of its ongoing investigation into the attack on the Capitol. Though the primetime hearing had previously been billed as a “finale” of sorts, the committee’s leaders confirmed Thursday that the panel plans to reconvene again in September to share more of the findings it has continued to uncover since it began this latest round of hearings last month. “Our committee understands the gravity of this moment and the consequences for our nation,” the panel’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in her closing statement Thursday. “We have much work yet to do, and we will see you all in September.” | |
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| 07-22-22 07:50am - 790 days | #237 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Why doesn't the Jan. 6 commitee understand: Dongle Trump wanted to make America great again. That's why he wanted to stay in the Whitest House. Let's face it: if there's a choice between Dongle Trump, the fightenest President of the Untied States of Trumperland, and a sleazy Democrat like Sleepy Joe, who would you pick to run the country? Also, Dongle Trump has revealed secret plans that only Dongle Trump knew about, how he was protecting the country from rabid Democrats and other evil doers who were scheming evil plots. The Fake News does not understand the inner workings of Dongle Trump's mind. ---- ---- Key takeaways from Thursday's primetime Jan. 6 hearing on the Capitol attack Yahoo News Caitlin Dickson July 21, 2022, 10:29 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. Thursday’s primetime hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol shined an unflattering light on then-President Donald Trump’s reaction to the violent riot waged by his supporters. Committee members Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., walked viewers through a minute-by-minute recap of how Trump spent the hours that the riot raged, relying heavily on testimony from a variety of witnesses who were in the White House that day, including former national security adviser Matthew Pottinger and former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, both of whom testified in person on Capitol Hill. The gripping presentation focused on the 187 minutes between the end of Trump’s Jan. 6 speech at the Ellipse, south of the White House, at around 1:10 p.m., and when he finally released a videotaped statement, at 4:17 p.m., in which he grudgingly urged his supporters to leave the Capitol. A video of former President Donald Trump is played on a screen above seated members of the Jan. 6 select committee and dozens of other people at tables before them. A video of Donald Trump is played on a screen at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday. (Al Drago/Pool via AP) Kinzinger and Luria made the case that the violent attack on the Capitol was the culmination of Trump’s multistep effort to remain in power despite having lost the 2020 election, and that his failure to call off the mob intent on blocking the certification of the Electoral College votes showing Joe Biden had won was a deliberate choice. By effectively delaying the electoral vote count by several hours, Kinzinger said, “The mob was accomplishing President Trump’s purpose, so of course he did not intervene.” “On Jan. 6, when lives and our democracy hung in the balance, President Trump refused to act because of his selfish desire to stay in power,” said Luria. Using a combination of live and videotaped testimony, text messages sent by Trump allies, and phone transcripts from those demanding that Trump call off his supporters, the committee filled in the gaps on how Trump had spent that fateful afternoon on Jan. 6. Here are some of the most shocking revelations. Inaction at the Capitol Luria said the committee’s investigation found that Trump knew the Capitol was under attack within 15 minutes of leaving the stage following his rally at the Ellipse. And yet, she said, from 1:25 p.m. until shortly after 4 p.m., he remained in the White House dining room watching the siege unfold on Fox News. Witnesses who were at the White House during that time period described how advisers, allies on Capitol Hill and the president’s own children repeatedly urged Trump to make a statement condemning the violence and telling his supporters to leave the Capitol. But instead of heading to the White House briefing room to record such a message, Luria said, Trump was busy making calls to Senators, encouraging them to object to the electoral college certification. It was only after the Defense Department had mobilized the entire National Guard, elected officials had been moved to secure locations and the failure of the insurrection was apparent that “Trump finally relented” and tweeted a video at 4:17 p.m. telling the rioters to go home, Luria said. Witnesses refuted a number of Trump’s key talking points Trump has repeatedly insisted, without evidence, that prior to Jan. 6 he offered to send 20,000 National Guard troops to secure the Capitol that day but that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to accept the offer. Hours before Thursday’s hearing got underway, Trump repeated that assertion on his social media platform Truth Social. But the select committee swiftly knocked down the claim, showing clips from interviews with multiple former White House staffers, including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. Both stated definitively that they were not aware of Trump issuing orders to send the National Guard or any other law enforcement personnel to the Capitol on Jan. 6. The committee also introduced testimony from two new witnesses who confirmed some details from the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who previously testified that she was told about an alleged altercation between Trump and his Secret Service detail after the former president was told that it would not be safe for him to join his supporters at the Capitol following his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. Thursday night's witnesses, however, did not confirm details about Trump's alleged actions during the altercation. Hutchinson said she heard about the altercation, which involved Trump grabbing for the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle and lunging at Secret Service agent Robert Engel. Trump has forcefully denied the account, but on Thursday Luria revealed that the panel has since obtained “evidence from multiple sources regarding an angry exchange in the presidential SUV, including testimony we will disclose today from two witnesses who confirmed that a confrontation occurred.” One witness, who Luria described as “a former White House employee with national security responsibilities,” said they also were told by Engel and former White House deputy chief of staff Anthony Ornato that Trump was “irate” when he was told he could not go to the Capitol. The other witness, retired D.C. Metropolitan Police Sgt. Mark Robinson, was assigned to Trump’s motorcade on Jan. 6 and sat in the lead vehicle with a Secret Service agent, also known as a “T.S. agent.” In a filmed interview played at the hearing, Robinson told the committee that the T.S. agent told him that “the president was upset,” that he’d been “adamant about going to the Capitol” and that “there was a heated discussion about that.” Trump’s supporters reacted to his tweets in real time Throughout the hearing, Kinzinger and Luria wove together testimony about Trump’s inaction at the White House, the efforts by others to convince him to issue a statement condemning the rioters, and video footage of the violence unfolding at the Capitol to show how all of these aspects influenced the others. Some of the starkest examples of this were video and audio clips showing how members of the mob reacted in real time to tweets Trump sent that day, demonstrating, as Matthews said, “the impact that his words have on his supporters.” In particular, the committee showed footage of rioters reacting angrily to Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet criticizing Pence for refusing to go along with the illegal plot to block the certification of some Biden electors. Later, they played a recording of walkie-talkie communications between members of the far right group the Oath Keepers, some of whom were inside the Capitol, reading a subsequent tweet in which Trump urged the mob to “stay peaceful” and to “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement.” “He didn’t say not to do anything to the congressmen,” a person on the recording is heard saying in response to Trump’s tweet. “He didn’t ask them to stand down.” Trump’s supporters were similarly receptive when he finally did issue the video statement at 4:17 telling them to go home. In footage shot at the Capitol shortly after that tweet was sent, the rioter known as the QAnon Shaman is seen yelling: “I’m here delivering the president’s message. Donald Trump is asking us to go home,” as others in the crowd watch the president’s video statement on their phones. The committee also played a clip of testimony given last week by Stephen Ayres, an Ohio man who was charged with participating in the riot, who said that he and others at the Capitol began to disperse as soon as Trump’s video message from the Rose Garden came out. Trump refuses to stick to the script Donald Trump stands at a podium with the Presidential Seal and a microphone and points a finger downward as he makes a pained grimace of apparent frustration. This exhibit from video released by the Jan. 6 select committee shows President Donald Trump recording a video statement at the White House on Jan. 7. (House Select Committee via AP) | |
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| 07-22-22 07:21am - 790 days | #236 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Fox News reveals the real truth: Not only is Dongle Trump the secret love-child of Adolf Hitler and his lover Eva Braun, but Dongle shares genetic material with Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. And now Fox News has shown that not only is the Federal Government corrupt, but the Justice Department is corrupt as well. They forced Dongle Trump from the Whitest House, in spite of Dongle Trump being the clear winner of the election in 2020. Republicans are rallying around Dongle, and vow to take to the streets with AK47s and 357 Magnum revolvers, and even Dirty Harry's sidearm, the fearsome 44 Magnum revolver, to put Dongle back in the Whitest House and put Sleepy Joe in jail, where he really belongs. "Lock him up," chant the Republicans, while raising their arms in salute of the Fuhrer Dongle Trump. ------ ------ Jan. 6 hearing dominates top TV networks — except one Associated Press DAVID BAUDER July 22, 2022, 3:14 AM NEW YORK (AP) — America's top television networks on Thursday turned prime time over to a gripping account of former President Donald Trump's actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — with one prominent exception. The top-rated news network, Fox News Channel, stuck with its own lineup of commentators. Sean Hannity denounced the “show trial” elsewhere on TV just as he was featured in it, with the House's Jan. 6 committee examining his tweets to Trump administration figures. Hannity aired a soundless snippet of committee members entering the hearing room as part of a lengthy monologue condemning the proceedings. That was all Fox News Channel viewers saw of the hearing. “It's really just a cheap, selectively edited political ad,” Hannity told his viewers. Meanwhile, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and MSNBC aired the second prime-time hearing, focusing on Trump's real-time response to the riot. The committee said it was the last hearing until September. “This very much sounded like a closing argument, certainly of this chapter of their investigation, and it was profound,” ABC News anchor David Muir said. About 20 million people watched the first prime-time hearing on June 9, the Nielsen Company said. Generally, reaching that big an audience in mid-July would be a long shot, as it is the least-watched television month of the year. Yet the seven daytime hearings have proven something of an oddity. Buoyed by strong word-of-mouth, the hearings grew in audience as they went along. CNN, for example, reached 1.5 million people for the second daytime hearing on June 16, and 2.6 million for the last one on June 12, Nielsen said. Fox's broadcast station in New York, which did not air last month's prime-time hearing, showed the Thursday night session. There's little interest at Fox News Channel, which televised the daytime hearings, although only up until the demarcation line of the network's popular show “The Five.” Ratings show that roughly half the network's audience flees when the hearings start, and return when they're over. That would be a much more serious problem in prime time, where Fox's audience is more than double what it is during the day. Fox News Channel's decision not to air the prime-time hearings is almost certainly a function of the demands of their audience and prime-time hosts, said Nicole Hemmer, an expert on conservative media and author of the upcoming book “Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s.” “It creates an awkward situation when a host like Tucker Carlson tells his audience that the hearings are a debacle not worth their time, and then the network preempts his show to air them,” Hemmer said. Sean Hannity told his viewers that the Jan. 6 hearing was Sean Hannity told his viewers that the Jan. 6 hearing was "really just a cheap, selectively edited political ad." (AP) Carlson found plenty of things to talk about besides the hearing Thursday, including President Joe Biden's COVID-19 diagnosis, a “meltdown” by liberals over the U.S. Supreme Court's abortion decision, the failure of drug legalization, “climate crazies” and “trans-affirming” lessons in Los Angeles schools. Hannity's lead story was the “grand finale” of the Jan. 6 committee, although he didn't show it — at least with the sound on. He brought on guests like GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, who said that if the hearings have done anything, “they've exonerated President Trump and the people supporting him.” Talk show host Mark Levin told Hannity the U.S. Justice Department is corrupt because “the Colbert 9 are roaming free.” That's a reference to federal prosecutors' decision not to bring charges against nine people associated with CBS’ “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” who were arrested in a U.S. Capitol complex building last month. While Hannity was on the air, the Jan. 6 committee showed tweets that Hannity and other Fox News personalities had sent to Trump administration officials, warning that the Capitol riot was making the president look bad. In a closing statement, Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice chair, noted that most of its case against Trump has been made by Republicans. She ridiculed the notion that the committee's findings would be much different if Republicans other than she and Rep. Adam Kinzinger were members. “Do you really think that Bill Barr is such a delicate flower that he would wilt under cross-examination?” she said. The Republicans watching Fox News Channel on Thursday night didn't hear her. | |
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| 07-21-22 12:21pm - 791 days | #235 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Blacks ask for the Department of Justice to investigate the death of Jayland Walker. Jayland was a 25-year-old black man who was allegedly shot at least 40 times by eight Akron police officers. I write allegedly, because it hasn't yet been proven that each of the officers actually hit the dead man with a bullet. I'm not sure why the police officers needed to shoot the black man. But if you're going to shoot somebody, I've read that police are trained to empty their weapons at least once, and if the guy is still a threat, to reload and keep firing. Police are not as efficient as Dongle Trump, who boasted that if he was involved in a shooting, he would rush in with his bare hands and stop the culprit. Bring back Dongle Trump, the man of action. ------ ------ Attorney: DOJ should investigate Jayland Walker's death Associated Press July 20, 2022, 12:58 PM Scroll back up to restore default view. AKRON, Ohio (AP) — An attorney for the family of Jayland Walker, the 25-year-old Black man killed in a hail of police gunfire last month in Ohio, on Wednesday joined the national NAACP and its Akron branch in calling for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Walker's death. Attorney Bobby DiCello made the call while questioning the integrity of the current investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which was asked by Akron officials to examine the June 27 shooting. A preliminary autopsy shows that Walker was shot at least 40 times by eight Akron police officers who fired dozens of rounds at the end of car and foot pursuit that began with an attempted traffic stop for minor equipment violations. National NAACP President Derrick Johnson in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week asked the DOJ to investigate Walker's death. A spokesperson for the Ohio Attorney General's Office issued a statement after Wednesday's news conference saying: “BCI shall remain steadfast in our commitment to independent investigations regarding officer involved shootings, and this case is no different.” An Akron spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. | |
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| 07-21-22 12:10pm - 791 days | #234 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
This is not right. A homeless man was shot and killed for threating the life of a police officer. Police have the right to defend themselves. Especially against the homeless. The homeless man was carrying a bicycle part, which he could have used to attack the police officer. So why is LA city going to have to pay cash to the homeless man's family, instead of making the cops involved pay? Something is not right. Bring back Dongle Trump: he will fix America, so if people get shot, it will be the right ones who get shot. In a different case, police shot a man who was carrying a six-inch, black metal latch actuator. The man was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive. The moral of the story: do not carry anything if you are outside your house. If you don't have a house, do not go out. ---- ---- Jury awards $2 million to family of homeless man shot and killed by LAPD LA Times Christian Martinez July 20, 2022, 10:07 PM The family of a homeless man who was shot and killed by a Los Angeles police sergeant was awarded more than $2 million Tuesday by a federal jury following a wrongful death and excessive force suit. Victor Valencia, 31, was killed Jan. 11, 2020, after LAPD Sgt. Colin Langsdale responded to the Palms neighborhood for reports of a person carrying a gun and acting erratically. Valencia was carrying a bicycle part, not a gun, and was on his way to his sister's house, the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint. Langsdale said he shot Valencia after the man began pointing the object at him. The shooting was cleared by the Los Angeles Police Commission in November 2020. But in the suit filed in federal court in March 2021, Valencia's parents and now 9-year-old son alleged that Langsdale had used excessive force resulting in Valencia's death. "An eye witness testified that the shooting did not happen the way Sgt. Langsdale described and that Mr. Valencia looked erratic and was moving his arms above his shoulder level in the air but was not pointing the object at anyone and was not threatening anyone," the law office of attorney Dale Galipo, who represented Valencia's family, wrote in a release. On Tuesday, after a five-day trial, the jury unanimously found true the allegations of excessive force, awarding the family $2,165,000. The verdict came a day after Los Angeles police shot and injured a 39-year-old man who was also reportedly holding an object police mistook for a gun. On Monday evening, police responded to Leimert Park for reports of an assault with a deadly weapon by a person with a "black, semiautomatic handgun." "Officers made contact with the suspect, who they believed was in possession of a handgun," the Los Angeles Police Department said in a release. Officers shot the man, later identified as Jermaine Petit, after he pointed the object at them while walking away, police said. Petit was taken to a hospital in serious condition and is expected to survive. A "six-inch, black metal latch actuator" was recovered at the scene, police said. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. | |
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| 07-21-22 02:57am - 792 days | #233 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
US Congress is mulling bills to stop Dongle Trump from the White House. Dongle Trump rallies his supporters with the cry: "Give me liberty or give me death!!!!" But Dongle Trump is playing it smart: he's made a deal with bestie bosom friend Vlad Putin to open hotels with the Dongle Trump brand in Moscow and other spots that are safe from savage Democrats from Hell. Hail, Dongle Trump: We love you, buddy. The Secret Service is considering holding a memorial march in honor of Dongle Trump, the bestest President of Trumperland. And maybe locking up Sleepy Joe, in a hidden closet. The Untied States of Trumperland needs a strong leader to fight and make America great again. ---- ---- Senators announce bipartisan bills to stop candidates from stealing elections NBC Universal Sahil Kapur and Frank Thorp V July 20, 2022, 10:44 AM WASHINGTON — After months of negotiating, a group of senators announced two proposals Wednesday designed to close gaps in federal law and prevent future candidates from stealing elections. The measures — called the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act and the Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act — are led by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. The bills seek to close loopholes in election law that then-President Donald Trump and his allies tried to exploit to keep him in power despite his defeat in the 2020 election. The first bill would clarify the vice president's role in counting Electoral College votes, raise the bar for members of Congress to object, and try to prevent fake slates of electors from interfering in the process. The second is aimed at protecting election workers. The bills come as the House’s Jan. 6 committee prepares to holds its last public hearing — at least for the time being — on Thursday outlining evidence it has received in connection to what it calls a plot to overturn the result of the 2020 election. “Through numerous meetings and debates among our colleagues as well as conversations with a wide variety of election experts and legal scholars, we have developed legislation that establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President," Collins, Manchin and the rest of the Senate group said in a joint statement. "We urge our colleagues in both parties to support these simple, commonsense reforms.” Preventing fake electors The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act would overhaul the 1887 Electoral Count Act by making clear that the vice president's role in confirming an election result is "solely ministerial" — that she or he doesn't have unilateral power to reject electors. It would also raise the threshold for forcing a vote on objecting to electors — from one House and Senate member to one-fifth of each chamber, the authors said. In all, 147 Republicans, including eight senators, objected to certifying electors on Jan. 6, 2021. The bill would also amend the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 to ensure that candidates of both parties receive resources to aid the transition, in limited circumstances "when the outcome of an election is reasonably in doubt," according to a summary. One of the thorniest issues for the group was how to make sure the correct electors for the winning candidate are counted. The legislation would identify the state's governor unless otherwise specified by the state, as the person responsible for submitting the election result — an attempt to avoid dealing with competing slates of electors. The Jan. 6 committee has outlined how Trump's team organized groups of fake electors in multiple states to try to overturn the 2020 election result in his favor; nearly a dozen false electors in Georgia have been hit with subpoenas in a criminal investigation into election interference in the state. The bill would also provide a process for expedited judicial review, featuring a three-judge panel and the possibility to directly appeal to the Supreme Court if a candidate wants to challenge the submitted electors. "This accelerated process is available only for aggrieved presidential candidates and allows for challenges made under existing federal law and the U.S. Constitution to be resolved more quickly," says the summary of the legislation. And the legislation would eliminate "a provision of an archaic 1845 law that could be used by state legislatures to override the popular vote," the summary continued. The second bill, the Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act, would double penalties under federal law for people "who threaten or intimidate election officials, poll watchers, voters, or candidates," the summary of the proposals said. It would also add Postal Service guidance to improve the processes for mail-in ballots, reauthorize the Election Assistance Commission for five years and make clear that electronic election records must be preserved. Bipartisan support Apart from Manchin and Collins, other members of the group include Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.; Mitt Romney, R-Utah; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Chris Coons, D-Del.' and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Some senators are sponsoring one of the two bills but not the other. "The January 6th Commission has added urgency to what we made clear in the draft proposal we released in February: there are straightforward and sorely-needed steps we can take to protect and modernize the electoral count process — steps that the election law experts across the political spectrum we worked with can support," Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said in a statement. Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Wednesday she expects to hold a hearing on the election proposals soon. “I believe it'll be before the August recess. We'd like to get it done and move on this as soon as possible," she told NBC News. It is unclear when the legislation may come to a vote in the full Senate. With a packed calendar in the coming weeks, it is likely to be after the August recess. Some senators have also suggested that it can be voted on in the lame-duck session after the midterm election. The bills would address the process of counting and certifying the vote, a bipartisan pursuit. They largely avoid the topic of voting rights and would not set federal requirements for ballot access, a cause that Senate Republicans vigorously oppose. "This is a good bill — specifically the provisions clarifying the Vice President’s limited role and increasing the threshold for objections," Sasse said in a statement. "This bill cleans up some ambiguity in the ECA that was dishonestly exploited on January 6th. For months, some progressives have tried to hijack these talks and use this as an opportunity to federalize elections, but that’s not going to fly." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who blessed the bipartisan negotiations months ago, reiterated his confidence in the working group at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 "needs to be fixed," McConnell said. "And I've been in constant touch with Senator Collins and sympathetic with what she's trying to achieve." House leaders also want to address the issue. House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told NBC News that the proposals appear to be "a meaningful step in the right direction to ensure that the peaceful transfer of power will continue to take place — uninterrupted by individuals who attempt to overthrow the U.S. government." He said he also wants to see the Jan. 6 committee's legislative recommendations, which he expects to come "shortly" in preliminary form. "Certainly their work has exposed the need for us to act in Congress to prevent the type of attempted theft that was being undertaken by Donald Trump and his cronies," he said. | |
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| 07-21-22 01:19am - 792 days | #232 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
California beachfront land taken from black family returned in ceremony. The land was taken in 1924. It's now 2022. Around 98 years later. So when the law sets limits for the number of years a case can be disputed, there are sometimes ways around the limits. Dongle Trump is considering holding a protest against this action, taking property away from White people and giving it back to Black people. ----- ----- California beachfront land taken from Black family returned in ceremony Reuters Rollo Ross July 20, 2022, 6:08 PM By Rollo Ross MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (Reuters) - A century-old racial injustice was righted on Wednesday when the deed to Los Angeles County beachfront property that had been taken from an African-American couple was ceremoniously returned to their heirs. Dignitaries participating in the ceremony called the return of government land unjustly acquired from Black citizens unprecedented in the United States and a model for other jurisdictions to follow. The property now belongs to Marcus and Derrick Bruce, great-grandsons of Willa and Charles Bruce, who said they will share the proceeds with their extended family. Derrick Bruce attended Wednesday's ceremony along with his son Anthony Bruce, who will manage the property, which houses a lifeguard training facility. Los Angeles County will now lease the land for $413,000 per year and retain the right to buy it for $20 million. "I hope that many people are propelled to action because of this and that they understand that it does take a lot of grit. ... You've got to be protesting if you really want to get this done," Anthony Bruce told Reuters, crediting community activist Kavon Ward with spearheading the return campaign. Bruce's Beach, 7,000 square feet (650 square meters) of prime real estate in the city of Manhattan Beach, had once been the rare resort where Black people could gather and enjoy the beach in segregated and discriminatory Los Angeles County of the early 20th century. In 1924 Manhattan Beach officials, ostensibly claiming eminent domain to build a park, forced out Willa and Charles Bruce. The land was later transferred to the state and then the county. Activists and politicians determined the real motivation for eminent domain was racism, and passed a state law last year to approve returning the land to the Bruces' heirs. Ward's campaign included a protest in 2020 that was noticed by County Supervisor Janice Hahn. "This is something that's happened across this country and if the people in power really want to make amends for what they have done to Black people, this is the way to do it - return stolen land," Ward told Reuters. Hahn said when she approached county lawyers about returning the land under these circumstances, she was told it had never been done before. "Today, we're sending a message to every government in this nation confronted with this same challenge: This work is no longer unprecedented," Hahn said at the ceremony. Dignitaries at the ceremony acknowledged two atrocities of U.S. history - slavery and the genocide of Native American people - by recognizing that the land originally belonged to the Tongva indigenous people and that it was essentially stolen from the Bruces in a country that had not granted equality to the descendants of slaves. "If the ripple effects of slavery and slavery itself did not exist, then we would not be here today," said state Senator Steven Bradford, who sponsored the state legislation behind the return. (Reporting by Rollo Ross; Writing by Daniel Trotta; editing by Donna Bryson and Leslie Adler) Tags | |
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| 07-21-22 01:02am - 792 days | #231 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Secret Service deleted Jan. 6 text messages after House requested them. The Secret Service says it did nothing wrong in deleting the message, even though legally they did not have the right to delete the messages. The Secret Service says the deletions were innocent and done in error. “I smell a rat,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told a reporter Wednesday. In other words, Secret Service agents can lie to defend themselves. Will they be held accountable? They broke the law deleting the messages. But they claim they are honorable and truthful. Shades of Brett Kavanaugh, the beer-drinking good old boy who cries when people don't swallow his lies. --------- --------- Secret Service deleted Jan. 6 text messages after House requested them Yahoo News Tom LoBianco July 20, 2022, 3:17 PM The Secret Service erased text messages that could help verify, or rebut, some of the most stunning testimony about President Donald Trump’s actions during the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. Secret Service officials say the wiped messages were part of a prescheduled “reset” of their phones. But House lawmakers have cast doubt on that explanation for the missing messages, which cover critical moments leading up to and through the Jan. 6 insurrection. “I smell a rat,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told a reporter Wednesday. Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks during a hearing of the House's select committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks during a hearing of the House select committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Members of the House select committee looking into the events of Jan. 6, as well as others, have been pushing the Secret Service to turn over texts and other records as part of their investigations into the attack. Last week, news reports revealed that the Secret Service had deleted the requested messages, according to the government watchdog that oversees the Department of Homeland Security. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi called the reports “categorically false” at the time. The agency was engaged in a prescheduled reset of devices before receiving the request from the DHS inspector general to protect records, according to a Secret Service statement. However, the text messages were requested before they were deleted. “Congress informed the Secret Service it needed to preserve and produce documents related to January 6 on January 16, 2021, and again on January 25, 2021, for four different committees who were investigating what happened, according to the source,” CNN reported Wednesday. “The Secret Service migration did not start until January 27, 2021.” Immediately following the reports, the Jan. 6 committee, which includes Raskin, subpoenaed the Secret Service for the texts. Earlier this week, the agency turned over one text message to the panel, according to a committee aide who said lawmakers are still looking at ways to find the messages. “We have concerns about a system migration that we have been told resulted in the erasure of Secret Service cell phone data,” the Jan. 6 committee said in a statement released Wednesday. A committee staffer said Wednesday in a briefing with reporters that “members are still determining exactly how to get the information we’re seeking.” The Secret Service got pulled into an offshoot of the sweeping Jan. 6 hearings late last month after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson relayed a story from fellow aide Tony Ornato — who previously served in the Secret Service and is currently a high-ranking official in the organization — that Trump lunged at his security detail and attempted to force them to drive him to the Capitol to join the rioters. Secret Service officials, speaking anonymously, denied that account. But Ornato and another agent, Bobby Engel, have not yet spoken publicly about the incident. A Washington, D.C., police officer who was part of Trump’s motorcade that day confirmed Hutchinson’s testimony in an interview with House investigators recently, according to a CNN report. The stunning depiction of Trump thrusting at his own protectors caught the most attention, but House investigators have uncovered multiple other events about which questions remain. In one particularly chilling scene recounted by former Vice President Mike Pence’s ex-counsel, Greg Jacob, agents wanted to drive Pence from a secure location beneath the Capitol to Joint Base Andrews during the Capitol assault. The seemingly innocuous request, however, may have been enough for Trump to claim that the election result was never certified and that therefore the transfer of power to Joe Biden was not complete, based on Trump lawyer John Eastman’s legal reasoning. “I know you, I trust you, but you’re not the one behind the wheel,” Pence told one of his agents with him at the time, according to Jacob. Pence and his team have not explained exactly what he meant by that statement. But Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker reported in their book, “I Alone Can Fix It,” that Pence was wary of unchecked support for Trump among the rank and file of the Secret Service. And Pence’s former national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, testified that he had to tell Ornato on Jan. 6 not to direct that the vice president be driven away from the Capitol. _____ The rioters got within two doors of Vice President Mike Pence's office. See how in this 3D explainer from Yahoo Immersive. | |
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| 07-20-22 03:03pm - 792 days | #230 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Trump called him last week asking him to decertify President Biden’s win in his state. Can we dump Sleepy Joe Biden and put Dongle Trump back in the Whitest House? Will Dongle do a better job of man of action, going after his personal enemies with the full force and might of the federal government, no matter where they are hiding? And put Sleepy Joe Biden and his infamous son in jail, where they really belong, for holding back Dongle Trump's plans to make America the land of the Free, White, Empowered Men of Action? And Dongle Trump has exposed Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos as a RINO, which might be even lower than a scummy Democrat. Power to the people. Take back America, and give to Dongle Trump, the truly elected leader of our proud nation. ----- ----- Wisconsin GOP leader says Trump's still begging him to decertify 2020 election HuffPost Ben Blanchet July 19, 2022, 8:30 PM A top Republican in Wisconsin says former President Donald Trump swung and missed in an attempt to coax him into decertifying the state’s 2020 presidential election results. Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Trump called him last week asking him to decertify President Biden’s win in his state. Vos told Wisconsin’s WISN-TV that the call followed the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month that limited absentee ballot drop-box locations to election offices. Trump, after the ruling, falsely claimed on his Truth Social platform that the ruling meant he won Wisconsin because the state used “corrupt and scandal-ridden Scam Boxes.” The former president later made a pitch to Vos and suggested he had a “decision to make” on the outcome of the election in the state. Biden beat Trump in the state by fewer than 21,000 votes, and he received the state’s 10 Electoral College votes. “It’s very consistent, he makes his case, which I respect. He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin,” Vos said of Trump’s call last week. “I explained it’s not allowed under the Constitution. He has a different opinion, and then he put out the [post]. So that’s it.” Vos referred to a post Trump later added to Truth Social that referred to him as a RINO, or “a Republican in name only.” “Looks like Speaker Robin Vos, a long time professional RINO always looking to guard his flank, will be doing nothing about the amazing Wisconsin Supreme Court decision,” Trump wrote. “The Democrats would like to sincerely thank Robin, and all of his fellow RINOs, for letting them get away with ‘murder.’” Vos reiterated that the ruling, however, doesn’t “go back and say what happened in 2020 was illegal.” “I think we all know Donald Trump is Donald Trump,” Vos said. “There’s very little we can do to control or predict what he will do.” Trump, in a response to the interview on Tuesday night, continued to assert that it was Vos’ “time to act” in response to the ruling. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. | |
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| 07-20-22 12:29pm - 792 days | #229 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Attorney General Garland says Trump would not be indicted before the November election. Because the federal government would not announce any investigation of a major political figure during the election season. Which is why the FBI reported an investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails during her election season against Dongle Trump: Hillary Clinton was a Democrat, so the FBI was allowed to announce an investigation. But Dongle Trump is a Republican, shielded by the might of the law. Are politician hypocrites? Do bears shit in the woods? Trump enemies’ tax audits under review; IRS defends exams of ex-FBI chiefs. Trump used the federal government as a weapon to punish and harass his enemies. But the federal government denies it did anything wrong. How can you tell when an employee of the federal government is lying? If his lips move when he talks. ------- ------- Attorney General Merrick Garland memo suggests no federal indictment of Donald Trump before November election USA TODAY David Jackson, USA TODAY July 20, 2022, 10:24 AM WASHINGTON – A Justice Department memo suggests Donald Trump won't face any federal indictment over the insurrection Jan. 6, 2021, before the election in November, legal analysts said. Attorney General Merrick Garland reminded U.S. Department of Justice officials that extra steps are required before action can be taken in politically sensitive cases during the fall election season – and unprecedented charges against a former president would qualify. Legal analysts said Garland restated a long-standing policy that discourages the announcement of investigations or indictments of major political figures on the cusp of elections because it could be construed as interference. In the memo May 25, Garland: Cited policies "governing the opening of criminal and counter-intelligence investigations by the Department, including its law enforcement agencies, related to politically sensitive individuals and entities," especially during campaigns. The Trump investigations: Inquiries set to accelerate in coming weeks: Where they stand The Jan. 6 committee:For the first time, panel alleges Trump, others engaged in criminal conspiracy to overturn election Did not mention Trump or any other politician who may be under investigation. Justice Department officials who charged hundreds of people for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, haven't said whether their investigation touches on Trump specifically. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland cautioned Justice Department officials about bringing charges in politically sensitive cases before an election. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland cautioned Justice Department officials about bringing charges in politically sensitive cases before an election. Reminded officials they are subject to the federal Hatch Act, which "generally prohibits Department employees from engaging in partisan political activity while on duty, in a federal facility, or using federal property." Takeaways: Garland reminded prosecutors that they need extra approvals for cases involving political figures in the weeks leading up to an election. What they're saying: Anti-Trump commentators cast the memo – first reported by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow – as an excuse for inaction against Trump. The Maddow Blog says the memo "doubles down" on the policy of Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr "against investigating candidates without approval." Attorneys, including Trump critics, noted that the caution makes sense because the department wants to avoid the perception of politically motivated investigations. In a video posted on Twitter, former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., a former federal prosecutor, described the Garland guidance as "a reaffirmation of what has been Justice Department policy for a long, long time." Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted, "Yes, Garland extends Barr’s instruction that investigations of presidential candidates and their senior aides must be cleared by the AG. That would typically happen in any event." Mariotti said, "Although that is not explicitly stated in the policy, I agree that we are unlikely to see an indictment of Trump or his associates before November." He added, "I don’t consider Garland’s memo to be a significant change from DOJ policy before Biden’s presidency." Bottom line: Few people expect the Justice Department to indict Trump in the weeks before the November midterm election. Bear in mind: As in previous guidance, the Garland memo does not foreclose all investigative action. It only calls for more consultation before moving forward in a politically sensitive case. Garland's guidance applies to the federal Department of Justice, not to law enforcement officials in Georgia. An Atlanta-based grand jury is investigating Trump's attempts to pressure state election officials to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden in Georgia. The Georgia story:Atlanta-area DA weighs whether to call Trump to testify before grand jury in election fraud probe Bottom line: The Garland memo tells employees that "we must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department's reputation for fairness, neutrality, and non-partisanship." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Garland memo to DOJ lays out steps for "politically sensitive" cases | |
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| 07-20-22 07:45am - 792 days | #228 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Steve Bannon says the low-down dirty Dems are holding a witch hunt to crucify Dongle Trump. But Stevie is smart: he knows that he is above the law, and can hold Congress in contempt. Dongle, Stevie, and other supporters of the Untied States of Trumperland will rise in revolt and take back the Whitest House to rule Trumperland with fists of steel. ---- ---- 'Above the law': Feds unveil contempt case against Steve Bannon; defense claims case driven by politics USA TODAY Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY July 20, 2022, 7:47 AM WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors began unveiling their case in the contempt trial of former White House strategist Steve Bannon on Tuesday, asserting that the longtime aide to President Donald Trump “decided he was above the law” when he defied a subpoena from a House committee investigating the Capitol attack. “It wasn't an accident; it wasn’t a mistake," Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Vaughn told jurors in opening arguments. "It was a decision; it was a choice. "This case is about the defendant thumbing his nose at the orderly process of our government. It is that simple," Vaughn said. Bannon put himself above the U.S. government's effort to examine the assault Jan. 6, 2021, she said. "Congress was entitled (to the information)," Vaughn said. "It was mandatory. ... He chose to show his contempt for Congress and its processes." Bannon attorney Evan Corcoran offered a stark counterpoint to the government's case, walking to his client's side at the defense table. "This is Steve Bannon, and he is innocent of the charges," Corcoran told the jury. Corcoran argued that "politics" drove the committee's decision to seek Bannon's testimony. "Politics is the lifeblood of the U.S. House of Representatives," Corcoran said. "Politics invades every decision that they make. It’s the currency of Congress." Corcoran denied that Bannon ignored the subpoena, arguing that there was no set time for Bannon to appear for a deposition and provide documents as his attorneys and the committee engaged in negotiations. "No one ignored the subpoena," Corcoran said. "Quite the contrary, there was direct engagement (with the committee). The evidence will be crystal clear. No one expected that Steve Bannon would appear. ... There will be no evidence that anyone ordered Steve Bannon to do anything." The government's very first witness, Kristin Amerling, deputy staff director and chief counsel to the Jan. 6 committee, directly challenged the defense claims. In her role as counsel, Amerling said she was personally involved in advising the committee related to the Bannon subpoena. Amerling said the committee had established specific deadlines for Bannon's compliance to produce documents by Oct. 7, 2021, and appear for a deposition on Oct. 14. Asked whether Bannon had satisfied those demands, Amerling told the prosecutor: "He did not." U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols moved ahead with the trial after an evidentiary dispute threatened to delay the case as defense lawyers expressed confusion over the judge's rulings. Bannon's defense team sought to exclude correspondence between the House committee and defense lawyers relating to the subpoena Bannon defied, resulting in his indictment. Nichols ruled Tuesday that he would admit the letters in their entirety, including discussions of executive privilege, which Bannon argued shielded him from the subpoena. Jan. 6 chair has COVID-19: Rep. Bennie Thompson tests positive for coronavirus 2 former Trump aides to testify: Matthew Pottinger, Sarah Matthews expected to testify at Jan. 6 hearing The judge had previously excluded the defense's executive privilege argument. Referring to the dispute, Corcoran said a delay was needed to resolve evidence questions and a "seismic shift" in the defense's understanding of the case. Bannon faces two counts of contempt, one for his refusal to appear for a deposition and another involving his refusal to produce documents, despite a subpoena from the House committee. The panel held a series of hearings this summer featuring damning testimony from former Trump administration officials. Steve Bannon's attorney David Schoen talks to reporters after a hearing on Bannon's trial on July 11 in Washington. Steve Bannon's attorney David Schoen talks to reporters after a hearing on Bannon's trial on July 11 in Washington. Each count could carry a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a maximum fine of $100,000. The subpoena was issued Sept. 23, 2021, and the committee and full House voted to hold Bannon in contempt. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in November. Amerling told the jury Tuesday that the committee's interest in seeking Bannon's testimony was related to alleged efforts to block the certification of Joe Biden's election as president, his contacts with Trump in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, and participation in pre-Jan. 6 strategy sessions at a downtown D.C. hotel where Trump allies gathered to discuss how to keep Trump in power. "Mr. Bannon had played multiple roles concerning the events of Jan. 6," Amerling testified. Bannon also is linked to two telephone contacts with Trump on Jan. 5, 2021, according to records gathered by the House investigating committee. Ketchup, regrets, blood and anger: A guide to the Jan. 6 hearings' witnesses and testimony President Donald Trump congratulates his adviser Steve Bannon in January 2017 during the swearing-in of senior staff in the East Room of the White House in Washington. President Donald Trump congratulates his adviser Steve Bannon in January 2017 during the swearing-in of senior staff in the East Room of the White House in Washington. The calls were highlighted during the panel's public hearing last week, examining the role of extremist groups who answered Trump's call to gather in Washington. After their initial call Jan. 5, Bannon said on his podcast, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. “It’s all converging, and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack,” Bannon said. “Right, the point of attack tomorrow. I’ll tell you this. It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. And all I can say is strap in.” What did Trump do on Jan. 6? On Jan. 6, Trump was out of public view as aides urged him to act. A breakdown of those 187 minutes. | |
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| 07-20-22 06:39am - 792 days | #227 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dongle Trump mulling movie to Ukraine, where bestest buddy Vlad Putin will put Dongle in charge of the re-education effort of the Ukraine workers who are still alive. The dead Ukraine workers will be buried shortly, with ceremony overseen by Dongle Trump, who loves to put on a good show. ----- ----- White House says Russia laying groundwork to annex Ukraine territory Reuters Nandita Bose and Steve Holland July 20, 2022, 6:15 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia is laying the groundwork for the annexation of Ukrainian territory and is installing illegitimate proxy officials in areas there under its control as it seeks to exert total control over its gains in the east, the White House said on Tuesday. Unveiling what he said was U.S. intelligence, John Kirby, the chief National Security Council spokesman, told a White House news briefing that the Russians are preparing to install proxy officials, establish the rouble as the default currency and force residents to apply for citizenship. "We have information today, including from downgraded intelligence that we're able to share with you, about how Russia is laying the groundwork to annex Ukrainian territory that it controls in direct violation of Ukraine's sovereignty," Kirby said. The same tactic was used in 2014 when Russia announced its annexation of Crimea after taking over control from Ukraine, Kirby said. The international community considers Crimea's annexation illegitimate. "We want to make it plain to the American people," Kirby said. "Nobody is fooled by it. (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is dusting off the playbook from 2014." Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to ensure its own security. Russia is now also attempting to take control of broadcasting towers, he said. White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby answers questions during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, July 19, 2022. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst) White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby answers questions during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, July 19, 2022. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst) At the same time, Kirby said the United States in the next few days will announce a new weapons package for Ukraine as it engages Russia in fierce battles in eastern Ukraine. It will be the 16th such drawdown of money approved by Congress and allocated under presidential authority, he said. The package is expected to include U.S. mobile rocket launchers, known as HIMARS, and rounds for Multiple Launch Rocket Systems as well as artillery munitions. The Russian embassy in the United States dismissed Washington's comments as "fundamentally false". "To date, more than 45 thousand tons of humanitarian cargo have been sent to Ukraine, the DPR and the LPR. How does all this relate to the concept of annexation?" it said in a Facebook post, referring to the Russian-backed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The United States has provided $8 billion in security assistance since the war began, including $2.2 billion in the last month. Washington will impose sanctions on officials involved in representing themselves as proxy officials, Kirby said. He predicted these proxies to try to hold "sham referenda" seeking to legitimatize Russian control. | |
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