I was laughing about such things a couple of weeks ago; however, it's no longer funny and is now deadly serious after last weekend.
"Have a toxic boss? Join the club" by Katie Johnston Globe Staff August 04, 2017
Toxic bosses have long been a reality for many beleaguered workers. The volatile manager who yells and kicks filing cabinets. The condescending director who blames everyone but himself when things go wrong. The demanding supervisor with no patience for employees who have to leave early to pick up a sick child.
And now we have Donald Trump, arguably the most high-profile boss in the world, who has a — shall we say — somewhat aggressive leadership style. He has been known to publicly question his subordinates (see: the steady stream of statements humiliating Attorney General Jeff Sessions), announce huge personnel changes without informing his department heads (see: the sudden ban on transgender people in the military), and revel in unusual proclamations of loyalty (see: the Cabinet meeting at which members publicly ingratiated themselves to Trump, among other instances).
While there has been some movement toward kinder, gentler, more empathetic leaders, some fear the president’s headline-generating hostility may again make it seem OK to be a bad boss.
Blame the guy for everything, Good God!!
Time for Trump to go on Undercover Boss so he can see where are the rats.
“It’s a resetting of standards of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable,” said James Bailey, a professor of leadership at George Washington University School of Business. “If the president can do this, why can’t I?”
“There might be this sort of unintentional and unconscious creep,” he added.
Really? With all the social media now?
If abusive bosses are feeling emboldened, though, there are a few recent cautionary tales they may want to keep in mind. To wit: Uber head Travis Kalanick and the late Fox News head Roger Ailes, who were both forced out amid sexual-harassment scandals. Then there’s Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf, who was excoriated for his “gutless leadership” by Senator Elizabeth Warren after he publicly blamed his employees for creating millions of fake accounts — which they did in order to make sales goals set by the bank. He retired a month later. And Volkswagen’s American CEO, who told Congress that “a couple of software engineers” were responsible for installing devices to cheat emissions tests in 11 million cars; he was out shortly thereafter.
Yeah, every time you turn around the media is grabbing at you, and I'm stumpfed that the VW guy went to prison when no one died but GM got off scot free.
Trump, of course, remains on the job, but his plummeting popularity and foundering legislative agenda might give pause to those considering a scorched-earth approach to leadership. but they are still out there, in high numbers: More than half of workers say their superiors are toxic, prone to explosive outbursts, berating employees, or taking credit for others’ ideas, according to a survey of 1,000 college-educated employees by the workforce consulting firm Life Meets Work.
Is Katie trying to tell her boss something?
Part of the problem lies with the personalities of those who rise to the top. People are usually promoted because they’re good performers, not good leaders. And high achievers tend to be confident and competitive, not focused on praising or accommodating employees, workplace analysts say.
Yeah, the problem is lies and the liars that tell them. Personality was never a problem with the last two war-criminal thugs. Bush was a folksy connector and Obama an able orator.
They are also under intense pressure to succeed.
As opposed to government work where failure is rewarded.
“Sadly, the vast majority of CEOs aren’t really big people people,” said Bob Kelleher, president of the Employee Engagement Group in Woburn. “They’re being managed by the board, they’re being managed by private equity firms, they’re being managed for results . . . not for being nice to everybody.”
OH! I guess in Congre$$' ca$e it's AIPAC.
Few people are natural-born leaders, according to 2015 Gallup research, which found that only one in 10 has what it takes to be a great manager and that companies fail to pick a candidate with the right talent 82 percent of the time.
A natural-born leader, huh?
The elitism just oozes from the statement, and if the big chieftains driving our $ociety can't get it right?
Tyrannical leaders also drive away employees — a 2015 Gallup poll found that half of US workers had quit a job to get away from a manager — and can affect the productivity of the ones who stick around.
I know my productivity has dropped precipitously over the last few years, but did they just call Trump a tyrant?
Were he a tyrant he wouldn't have signed the Russian-Iran-North Korea sanctions bill, which he did to forestall the big war coming against those three. He can read the writing on the wall.
Marc Prosser, a former small-business consultant, saw this firsthand when he worked with a financial startup in Boston a few years ago. The CEO’s tirades could be heard 50 feet away, Prosser said, and when something went wrong, his default response was, “You incompetent [expletive], why did you [expletive] this up?”
As a result, employees avoided him at all costs, and they often ended up at odds with the CEO on a project because they hadn’t checked in with him along the way.
“People who start companies are basically battling the world,” said Prosser, who now runs the small-business education site FitSmallBusiness.com. “You get an inflated sense of your own power.”
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
He's describing the ma$$ media!!!
Publicly humiliating employees can create a chaotic environment and cause other workers to lose confidence in the boss, workplace consultants say. The more petty the attack, the more employees will feel at risk. This can create less-loyal employees who are prone to act out and, say, leak damaging information to the press.
HA-HA-HA!
They just gave up their sources!
Unlike in other countries, such as Germany, where workers can elect representatives to serve on the board of directors, corporate boards in the United States don’t often oust leaders for being tyrants, especially if many of the members were picked by the CEO, said Bailey, the leadership professor. And Wall Street investors, who are loath to fire a leader who’s making money, can compound the problem.
But intolerance for bad bosses has been growing, particularly as the workforce is increasingly dominated by millennials, who are more likely to see authority figures as equals, workplace analysts say. And with plentiful job openings and companies desperate to keep talented workers, supervisors know they can’t get away with what that they might have in the past.
Now I'm leaking with laughter because almost 2/3 of millennial are their own bosses (hurray), so they HATE THEMSELVES!!
Never satisfied, are they?
Millennials are accustomed to having immediate access to people in power through Twitter and other social-media channels, said leadership coach Kristi Hedges. Sites such as the job-search forum Glassdoor allow workers to anonymously and publicly critique their bosses, giving employees the power to affect the company’s image.
“We don’t tolerate [bad behavior] like we used to,” Hedges said. “We see that there’s support for people who want to stand up to it.”
Well, that totally collides and conflicts with the opening thrust of this article.
You know, contradicting your thesis in a college paper like what is being done here gets you an F. I suppose it gets you a front-page story and an A in the world of pre$$ propaganda.
Last year, Glassdoor named Bain and Co.’s Bob Bechek the site’s top-rated boss. Bechek noted in a recent interview that he considers empathy key to long-term success — a quality that has received a lot of mileage in business circles in recent years. In 2014, the London consultancy the Empathy Business launched an Empathy Index, an annual ranking of companies that takes into account ethics, company culture, leadership, CEO approval ratings, and scandals, among other measures.
Now it's getting gross, not funny, and I have empathy for them.
Glassdoor named private-equity vulture Bain the best boss, huh?
Where's Occupy when you need them (oh, right, they are organizing neo-Nazi marches now).
Yeah, you can't help but see through this $will.
Humility also pays off for executives, according to new research from the University of Michigan that found that a CEO who seeks feedback on how he or she is doing can improve the firm’s bottom line by increasing confidence among the members of an executive team.
HA-HA-HA!
Listening is a top-rated leadership skill as well, according to an online survey commissioned by Hedges, the executive coach, as is showing emotion.
No wonder our political and economic $y$tems are failing so badly. They don't listen and they are a clique of soulless, self-serving $cumbags.
But with Trump as a highly visible and highly combative role model, leadership experts wonder if this movement toward more mild-mannered bosses may be derailed. Just as incidents of hate-related violence and harassment increased after Trump was elected, could there be an uptick in bosses behaving badly?
Well, millennials are their own bosses so they hate themselves (why did I take on so much student debt?) and the example she gives is the foul-mouthed Scaramucci (who?).
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Okay, keep the CEOs in mind for later in this post. When I first read it I didn't think much of it other than another day, another front page bashing of the president from the Globe. Fine. Ten days later it looks like much, much more.
Meanwhile, meet the new boss:
"White House says Trump is ‘not discussing’ firing special counsel Mueller" Associated Press August 06, 2017
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — Vice President Mike Pence pushed back against a news report suggesting he is laying the groundwork for a possible presidential bid in 2020 if Trump does not run.
I'm almost afraid to ask where this report came from.
In a statement released by the White House, Pence said Sunday’s story in The New York Times ‘‘is disgraceful and offensive to me, my family, and our entire team.’’ He added that ‘‘the allegations in this article are categorically false.’’
Wow, that's a weird sensation, expostulating a snort.
The formal rebuttal of a news report by the vice president was an unusual move. In it, Pence also said his team will ‘‘focus all our efforts to advance the president’s agenda and see him reelected in 2020.’’
The report details efforts of several Republicans looking ahead to 2020, calling it a ‘‘shadow campaign.’’ It notes Pence’s political schedule and active fund-raising, though it also says unnamed advisers have signaled that he'd run only if Trump doesn't.
He's courting the Kochs this month, and that shadow is the Deep State and its media mouthpieces.
The article noted Pence has set up a fund-raising committee. Called the Great America Committee, it can accept checks of up to $5,000 from individual donors.
Pence raised about $1 million at a Washington fund-raiser last month, attended by dozens of lawmakers and featuring remarks from White House adviser Ivanka Trump.
It's all standard things any White House campaign would be doing in looking forward to the next election, and the NYT twisted into something it is not -- which is standard for them!
Trump has not suggested he won’t seek a second term. But his first six months in office have been turbulent, marked by staff infighting, legislative struggles, and a series of investigations.
Some people sure are hoping!
In a separate development Sunday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Sunday on ABC’s ‘‘This Week,’’ Conway said that the White House will cooperate with Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller is reportedly using a grand jury in Washington as part of that inquiry.
Conway said Trump believes the Russia investigation is a ‘‘complete false and fabricated lie.’’ But she said the president ‘‘has not even discussed’’ firing Mueller.
The Senate warned him off it and Trump knows when a fight not worth it.
Senators introduced bipartisan bills last week creating judicial review procedures that could shield Mueller from being fired by Trump.
Like he is in danger of being assassinated or something because "the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election will remain a distraction for the administration."
Or not, now that even the pre$$ have been forced to concede that it was a leak from inside the DNC, and "whenever the political elite joins to embrace a single narrative, the press is supposed to question it. Instead, shamefully, it is doing the opposite." That's why we now have coverage of white nationalism™ from pillar to post in my paper as they press forward.
Mueller’s investigation is not a “fishing expedition,” said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who launched it.
In his first Sunday news show appearance, Rosenstein declined to comment on whether Mueller is using a grand jury to help collect information. He said that if Mueller finds evidence of a crime within the scope of the inquiry, he can investigate.
Mueller is there to keep the constant nibbling at him, and this is the first time a special prosecutor has ever been appointed before there was evidence of a crime. The only criminal acts so far are the Obama administration spying and unmasking of the Trump campaign and transition. Media won't dare go there.
In general, the presence of a grand jury doesn’t say anything about the likelihood of an indictment, Rosenstein said. “It’s just a tool that we use like any other tool in the course of our investigations,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Rosenstein also said prosecutors don’t intend to go after reporters for doing their jobs but could more forcefully try to get them to reveal their sources.
What do you mean by force? Jail? Torture?
‘‘We’re after the leaker, not the journalist. We’re after people who are committing crimes,’’ Rosenstein said. His comments come two days after officials pledged to clamp down on government leaks they believe undermine US security.
Still, Rosenstein left open the possibility that reporters could be investigated for breaking other, unspecified laws.
He goes on TV to tell them this?
That's not a veiled threat, that's an overt one.
And the ma$$ media dutifully turn tail, drop trou, and bend.
Conway also dismissed the Pence report and said he is readying to run in 2020 ‘‘for reelection as vice president.’’
‘‘Vice President Pence is a very loyal, very dutiful, but also incredibly effective vice president, and active vice president, with this president,’’ she said. ‘'He is a peer to the president in the West Wing.’’
That's reassuring, although he isn't a peer. The President has no peer.
New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said, ‘‘We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting and will let the story speak for itself.’’
They must not have watched This Week.
I'm sure sources are being investigated as I type.
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Related: Pence tries to
I wasn't laughing the day before:
"Gap between Trump and GOP becoming a chasm" by Matt Viser Globe Staff August 04, 2017
(Thhhhhwwokk)
WASHINGTON — President Trump increasingly appears isolated, unable to rally allies to his legislative agenda. Republican senators, meanwhile, feel increasingly free to openly ignore him, unafraid of political repercussions as they dismiss his pleas.
They criticize his demeanor, his tweets, his frequent obfuscations and unfounded claims. They rallied to defend their former colleague, Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
There was a tense if polite GOP honeymoon period after the election, when party regulars thought winning the White House would be a salve for a GOP that was shaken by Trump’s unexpected rise and the divisive 2016 campaign, but Republicans are failing, six months into Trump’s tenure, to deliver on their promise of a functioning government that could make conservatives’ long-deferred dreams real, and Trump has shown little desire to temper his erratic impulses. The result is a party that increasingly seems unmoored and ineffective, unable to coalesce around a central vision.
Just like the Democrats, who are not even a national party anymore. The governor of West Virginia just switched parties and I never saw a word in my Globe.
Trump has purged top-level White House aides who came from the Republican National Committee — ranging from an assistant press secretary to the chief of staff. When he tweets, he often talks about Republicans in the third person — as if he’s not one of them, much less the party’s de facto leader.
Well, I wouldn't be proud of it, either, but beyond that he is simply using the tried-and-true approach of Bill Clinton back in 1996. It's called political triangulation. You set yourself up as the check on the other two. Won him reelection (over Dole).
As for the purges, who can you trust?
When asked whether Trump’s slipping credibility in Congress was hurting his ability to get things done, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week practically pointed her finger down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House podium: “I think what’s hurting the legislative agenda is Congress’s inability to get things passed.”
The party that controls all the levers of power in Washington seems, at least for now, powerless to get out of its own way.
Wait until you see the tax plan.
“It’s devastating,” said Rick Tyler, a longtime Republican strategist who has worked for Newt Gingrich and Ted Cruz. “I don’t really know who speaks for the conservative party anymore. There’s no one to look to; there’s no one leading it. The party has to stand for something. It can’t be based on personality.”
“He doesn’t resemble the party,” he added of Trump, referring to the president’s position on conservative issues. “In the long term, it’s going to hurt the party. And he’s already proven that, in the short run, there’s no demonstrable benefit to having Donald Trump lead the party. None.”
Like someone might want to get him out of the way?
Imagine if you will:
[It is a Tuesday night, you are ensconced in your easy chair watching your latest favorites from the barren wasteland that is television. A little after 8 p.m., a Breaking News bulletin across all channels: President Trump has been rushed to Bethesda Naval Hospital with chest pains. For the next hour there are talking heads on the television discussing his health, weight, diet, etc.
Then, at precisely 9:11 p.m., Lester Holt appears saying "The flash, apparently official. President Trump died of a heart attack at 7 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. He was 70 years old. (clears throat) Vice President Mike Pence will be taking the oath of office.....]
Quite an ending to his term, and it won't require a messy gunman and all that conspiracy talk like last time. Who can argue with a 70-year-old man having a heart attack, 'ey?
Some of these tensions are spilling out into the states, as members of Congress head home for their summer recess after failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
The what?
In interviews on Capitol Hill last week, Republican senators hesitated when asked a fundamental question: Is Trump the leader of the Republican Party?
Ask next week.
The Republican Party under Trump has become a loose collection of fragmented interest groups that at times overlap, but at other times are diametrically opposed.
Even though Trump did not win over the Chamber of Commerce Republicans and the country-club Republicans in his populist-fueled campaign, there was a notion that Republicans would accede to Trump’s unconventional style as a trade-off for getting their long-held policy beliefs enacted into law. For the first seven months of his presidency, Republicans may have privately rolled their eyes at his govern-by-tweet style but they largely avoided open warfare with him and his 35 million Twitter followers.
That is beginning to change.
Given a huge shove after Charlottesville.
“Most Republicans wanted Trump to succeed, understood he was new to governing, and were willing to give him a chance to get his bearings,” said Trump critic Ana Navarro, a longtime Florida-based Republican consultant who has advised John McCain and Jeb Bush. “But more than six months have now gone by. I think there’s a significance to that number in people’s minds.”
“Six months and he keeps lying, he keeps attacking Republicans, he keeps incessantly tweeting crazy rants, he blames Congress, and doesn’t take ownership of his failures,” she added. “People are losing patience. Six months is not an insignificant amount of time for people to . . . put up with such dysfunction.”
OMG!
The split is most emblematic in Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona who is running for reelection. Last week he published a book called “Conscience of a Conservative” that excoriates Trump and the damage Flake believes he is doing to the Republican Party. He says that Republicans made a “Faustian bargain” in hitching their future to Trump’s, and compared the party to a “tranquilized elephant’’ that has lost its way on economic growth and free trade.
Why bring opioids into this, and is that how they are going to kill him?!
“Never has a party so quickly or easily abandoned its core principles as my party did in the course of the 2016 campaign,” writes Flake. “And when you suddenly decide that you don’t believe what had recently been your most deeply held beliefs, then you open yourself to believing anything — or maybe nothing at all.’’
And yet they won because Democrats were even worse abandoning principles, had they anyway!!
Flake is among the more mild-mannered senators, making his strong words all the more striking. He has never been a firm Trump supporter, but over the past seven months, he had generally refrained from being overly critical.
Now, Flake faces reelection and primary challengers who will test the future of the party. Trump has said that he will try to unseat him, and his latest comments have triggered a backlash among conservatives.
Laura Ingraham said she looks forward to campaigning for one of Flake’s GOP opponents. “Stand by for the fireworks!”
“Jeff Flake is a liberal,” Mark Levin said on his radio show, even though Flake has strong ratings among conservative groups like FreedomWorks and the National Rifle Association.
And there is not yet any widespread sense he will be joined by other GOP senators in publicly bashing Trump. Last week, as senators roamed the hallways, many were reluctant to associate themselves with Flake’s remarks.
That flies in the face of this entire article!
A graver danger for the party may be signs that Trump’s base is shifting away from him. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that just 33 percent of voters approve of his job performance, the lowest rating he has had in that survey since being sworn into office, and 7 percentage points lower than it was a month earlier.
I didn't know polls could kill you.
Among Republicans there was an 8-point drop in Trump’s approval rating from a month earlier, from 84 percent in late June to 76 percent in late July.
As if I would believe any poll cited in the pre$$.
One of the few consolation prizes for Republicans is that Democrats, too, have yet to find their way. The opposition party is still riven by the split between liberals and centrists that marked last year’s campaign, and it still hasn’t hatched an effective strategy to counteract Trump’s appeal to working-class voters in the heartland.....
That's Obama's legacy, the complete destruction of the Democratic Party, and had they not stolen the nomination from Sanders he would be president now.
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Been a hell of a vacation, huh?
"Trump settles in for 17 days at his secluded N.J. club" by John Wagner Washington Post August 05, 2017
BEDMINSTER, N.J. — With the Russia investigation gaining steam and looming crises in North Korea and other hot spots, no one expects a truly quiet couple of weeks.
In fact, within hours of arriving, President Trump felt compelled to issue a statement defending his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, who has been under fire from conservative groups for pushing out several hard-liners on the national security staff and renewing the security clearance of former president Barack Obama’s last national security adviser, among other things.
The clearance was for Susan Rice, one of the unmaskers.
"General McMaster and I are working very well together," Trump said. "He is a good man and very pro-Israel. I am grateful for the work he continues to do serving our country."
I'm starting to think he's an American-firster. He cleaned out the Iran war hawks and called Israel an occupying power. Now Trump has to defend him to the mob, and one can only regarding this piece as disinformation now -- especially after Trump yelled at his generals (and then comes Charlottesville).
McMaster has been given more power to shape the National Security Council under newly minted chief of staff retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, who officially started in the job on July 31.
Conservatives loyal to Trump’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn — who was fired for lying about his meeting with Russians during last year’s election — have chastised McMaster for shunting aside some of Flynn’s hand-picked deputies and for assuming more conventional foreign policy positions.
He a father yet?
On Wednesday, the White House said an NSC staff member caught up in a controversy over the release of intelligence material to a member of Congress is leaving his job.
McMaster had previously sought to remove Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a Flynn ally who led the NSC’s intelligence directorate, but had been blocked by other senior advisers to Trump, mainly chief strategist and former Breitbart News executive Stephen Bannon.
Some close to Trump hope that his time in this 8,200-person township about 45 miles west of New York City will provide as much of an August respite as possible from his first six months in the White House.
‘‘It’s good for everyone,’’ Barry Bennett, a Trump adviser during the campaign, said of the break. ‘‘It’s good for the president, and it’s good for Washington. I hope it’s a few hard days of nothingness.’’
So much for that hope.
Trump has no public events scheduled over the weekend and planned to remain on his 535-acre property, where he has already spent four weekends since arriving in office and which some locals have taken to calling ‘‘Camp David North.’’
The calm before the storm.
A series of meetings and phone calls are expected with several lawmakers, who face a weighty agenda next month, including a request from the administration to increase the nation’s debt ceiling, as well as promised action on tax reform, and it’s possible Trump’s time away could include a couple of day trips elsewhere to highlight initiatives or rally supporters.
Like visiting Trump Tower?
Deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters attributed Trump’s relocation in part to long-planned renovations taking place in the West Wing, including an overhaul of the 27-year-old heating and air-conditioning system, which have forced staff to temporarily move to another building.
So he was right!
Trump’s trip, nevertheless, is very much in keeping with a tradition of presidents escaping Washington during the late summer.
Martha’s Vineyard, known for its affluence, became the summer presidential vacation spot for both Bill Clinton and Obama.
President George H. W. Bush spent his vacation time at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. President George W. Bush would usually take breaks on his ranch in Crawford, Texas, sometimes drawing criticism for the length of his getaways.....
And for his dismissing of intelligence reports in August of 2001, right?!
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Also see:
Editorial President Trump’s cycle of flimflammery The stream of falsehoods coming out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. has created a new paradigm: the lie cycle.
Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is.
On transgender troops, Trump misjudges the military
Trump read the public mood right as the "left" embraces military leaders who are pushing back.
How political correctness led to Islamophobia
As well as the war-mongering, Muslim-hating jew$papers.
Who is writing this stuff?
*******************
Time to rewire the brain:
"Demands build to end uncertainty in health marketplace" by Amy Goldstein Washington Post August 06, 2017
WASHINGTON — With the next sign-up period for the federal health program due to start Nov. 1, the government appears to be operating on contradictory tracks, according to insurers, state officials, health policy analysts, and leaders of groups that have worked to enroll patients.
Despite the failure of Senate Republicans to abolish much of the law, President Trump and his top aides have not entirely relinquished hopes of a victory in Congress this fall.
Trump continues to meet at the White House and on travels with people he terms ‘‘Obamacare victims.’’ The Health and Human Services Department is issuing weekly bulletins on the few dozen counties that might lack Affordable Care Act coverage for next year.
As the future of the law dangled in the Senate, the Trump administration abruptly canceled contracts with two companies that have helped thousands of Americans in 18 cities find health plans under the law.
The suspension of the $22 million contracts, which ends enrollment fairs and insurance sign-ups in public libraries, is one of the few public signs of how an administration eager to kill the law will run the fifth enrollment season.
Yet many layers down in the government, the part of HHS that directly oversees the ACA’s insurance marketplaces and the federal enrollment website has been carrying out much, if not all, of its regular work.
So all he's done is saved $22 million that was being wasted and they have him killing it.
The department convened its annual meeting in June with ‘‘navigators’’ who help steer consumers toward ACA health plans and telling them their grants would continue, according to three participants.
But with roughly 10 million people across the country now depending on ACA coverage, the uncertainty in Washington about the future of subsidies to insurers has prolonged turmoil in the insurance market.
Need a TARP.
A week after his attempt to repeal the law failed, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday that he would consider a bipartisan effort to continue the payments to insurers that reimburse them for limiting copayments and deductibles for people with modest incomes, the Associated Press reported.
McConnell said there was ‘‘still a chance’’ to address a repeal and replacement of President Barack Obama’s law but it is becoming more unlikely.
The Senate Health Committee will begin bipartisan hearings in early September on stabilizing and strengthening the individual insurance market, Republican Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and top Democrat Patty Murray of Washington said Aug. 1.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said he would be obligated to consider a bipartisan approach.
‘‘We have got a destabilized market where insurance rates are going to go up 20, 30, 40 percent next year,’’ Tillis said Sunday on ABC’s ‘‘This Week.’’ ‘‘Anything that we can do to prevent that and the damage that that will have on people who need health care I think is something I have to look at.’’
He is for an insurance company bailout.
During the June meeting with program navigators, HHS officials provided no assurances about whether the administration would continue the government’s other usual enrollment activities or promotion. (In January, it had halted most advertising aimed at encouraging consumers to sign up in the final crucial days before the deadline for 2017 coverage.)
Oooh, that's why no more commercials during Jerry and Maury.
‘‘Every time the question was brought up . . . the only answer we received is they were working on it, and they hadn’t made a final decision about whether they were going to have a marketing campaign this year,’’ said Daniel Bouton, manager of a consortium that helps people enroll across North Texas.
The internal dissonance and information vacuum reflect the profound political shift that occurred in January when the Obama administration ended.
The most practical test of the Trump administration’s intent is whether it will help or hinder the marketplaces, designed for people who cannot get affordable health benefits through a job.
Just a week ago, HHS Secretary Tom Price twice said in a television interview that ‘‘our responsibility is to follow the law’’ — before again badmouthing it.
Also see: With Tom Price in charge, doctors are winning again in D.C.
That's good, right?
For now, the largest mystery looming over the upcoming enrollment season is whether the president will carry out his stated resolve to end payments made to insurers.
Related: Amid uncertainty, state delays approval of 2018 insurance rates
Yeah, blame him.
Without those subsidies — the subject of a federal lawsuit from House Republicans — policy premiums are widely predicted to spike for 2018, and more insurers may defect.
White House aides had said a decision would be made last week, but none was announced.
There are other unknowns: So far, federal health officials declined to answer those and other questions.....
It's August; they have 90 days or more to come up with something.
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Also see: Drugmakers deserved to be publicly shamed for thwarting competition from generics
Trump did that.
"Nurses at two Western Massachusetts hospitals plan an informational picket outside their parent company’s corporate headquarters. Nurses at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield and Baystate Noble Hospital in Westfield are scheduled to picket Monday outside Baystate Health offices in Springfield. The union nurses have been involved in a dispute with management and say they want corporate executives to allow local management to negotiate new contracts. Baystate Franklin’s nurses say the hospital is understaffed and they are overworked, putting patient safety at risk. The sides are also at odds over health insurance costs. The nurses staged a one-day strike in June and were locked out an additional two days. Hospital administrators have said staffing levels are proper and they have been negotiating in good faith."
Related:
Brigham and Women’s falls out of top 20 in US News hospital rankings
See what you nurses did?
Minuteman Health won’t relaunch as for-profit
Maybe you can put a band aid on that broken heart.
*******************
On the heels of the article above claiming the gap between Trump and GOP becoming a chasm is this:
"Trump International Hotel changed Washington’s culture of influence" by Jonathan O’Connell Washington Post August 07, 2017
WASHINGTON – On a June morning, in the grand ballroom, hundreds of bankers discussed their industry’s future under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who lived in the hotel for six months at his own expense, according to a spokesman, after Trump picked him for the job.
The scenes illustrate a daily spectacle of Washington influence at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., the city’s newest luxury hotel that has quickly become a kind of White House annex. Since Trump’s election, the Trump International Hotel has emerged as a Republican Party power center.
HA-HA-HA!
Two days ago the party was fractured because of him!
This is nothing Washington has ever seen. For the first time in presidential history, a profit-making venture touts the name of a US president in its gold sign. And every cup of coffee served, every fund-raiser scheduled, every filet mignon ordered feeds the revenue of the Trump family’s private business.
In conversations with The Washington Post, the hotel’s management described its strategy to capitalize on the president’s popularity. It markets the hotel to Republican and conservative groups that embrace Trump’s politics but takes care not to solicit business from fringe groups that would embarrass the president.
In light of current events.... ha-ha-ha.
Trump supporters in red “Make America Great Again” caps get a chance to rub elbows with White House officials against an American flag backdrop at the Benjamin Bar, where a signature concoction of winter wheat vodka, oysters, and caviar goes for $100.
It is difficult to see comings and goings at the hotel. There are no signs in the lobby to direct guests to daily events, velvet ropes block the public from meeting areas, and some groups holding conventions and banquets omit references to Trump’s name in their promotional materials. Many decline to answer questions about why they chose the Trump hotel from the many similar luxury Washington venues.
The Washington Post spent part of every day in May in the hotel’s bars, restaurants, and lobby.
They STAKED OUT the hotel! What a GREAT JOB!
What reporters saw ranged from events hosted by foreign groups with policy priorities to Republican glitterati.
They spotted Rudy Giuliani, among others.
The parade included out-of-town tourists gawking in the lobby; bartenders hawking $2,500-per-bottle champagne; a light artist at nightfall projecting a protest message on the gray stone facade that read “Pay Trump Bribes Here.”
Business from foreign customers is brisk, the hotel says, but as an ethical precaution, it says it does not market directly to foreign embassies, but groups with foreign interests have found that the location helps attract Washington star power.
Since Trump’s election, his critics have charged that anyone seeking favor from the White House has an incentive to stay in posh rooms that can be booked on the Internet for $400 per night or more.
Trump tried to address ethical concerns by turning over the hotel’s management to his two eldest sons and vowing to take no hotel profits during his tenure. But he retained his ownership interest, allowing him to eventually profit from the holdings.....
--more--"
Maybe you could stay at Mar-a-Lago next time:
"Mar-a-Lago seeks out US workers — but only briefly" by David A. Fahrenthold and Lori Rozsa Washington Post August 09, 2017
The ad was an underwhelming way to attract local job-seekers. But that wasn’t the point. The ads were actually part of Mar-a-Lago’s efforts to hire foreign workers for those 35 jobs.
About a week before the ads ran, the president’s club asked the Labor Department for permission to hire 70 temporary workers from overseas, government records show. Beside the 35 waiters, it asked for 20 cooks and 15 housekeepers.
To get visas for those workers, Mar-a-Lago, like other businesses that rely on temporary employees each year, must first take legally mandated steps to look for US workers. That includes placing two ads in a newspaper.
Typically, this attempt to recruit US workers is a ritualized failure. Its outcome is usually a conclusion that there are no qualified Americans to hire.
The club’s request for visas stood out because it came in the middle of ‘‘Made in America Week’’ at the White House, as Trump and his administration sought to highlight his push to remake US trade policy. Even as Trump urged other US businesses to ‘‘hire American,’’ his business was gathering evidence to prove that it couldn’t.....
That all you got on him, WaPo?
HA-HA-HA!
--more--"
They found a chef to work back there, and did you hear gunshots?
"Emergency declared in New Orleans as flood threat looms" Associated Press August 11, 2017
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana’s governor declared a state of emergency in New Orleans on Thursday, less than a week after a flash flood from torrential rain overwhelmed the city’s pumping system and inundated neighborhoods.
Trump's Katrina?
Governor John Bel Edwards described his emergency declaration as a precautionary measure. He and Mayor Mitch Landrieu tried to calm the jangled nerves of residents still angry about the city’s response to last weekend’s flooding.
‘‘Obviously this is a serious situation, but it’s not something to be panicked about,’’ Edwards said at a City Hall news conference.
Is his living room filling up with water?
Landrieu urged residents of some waterlogged neighborhoods to prepare for another possible round of flooding by moving vehicles to higher ground. All of the city’s public schools were closed Thursday and were scheduled to be closed again on Friday.
Landrieu’s office said in a news release early Thursday that the city has lost service to one of its turbines, which powers most of the pumping stations that service the East Bank of New Orleans. Landrieu said that means the system’s capacity to drain storm water from the streets has been diminished.
The mayor said the city is bringing in generators to back up the system and hoped to have them installed within 48 hours. Earlier, Landrieu said the power available early Thursday wouldn’t be adequate to protect the city from another massive rainfall.
WTF?
Are you tired of official promises and excuses down there?
--more--"
Related:
"With debris from last weekend’s flash flood still piled up on sidewalks and their city under a state of emergency, New Orleans residents looked ahead warily on Friday to the prospect of more rain to tax the city’s malfunctioning pump system. The city scrambled to repair fire-damaged equipment at a power plant and shore up its drainage system less than a week after a flash flood from torrential rain overwhelmed the pumping system and inundated many neighborhoods. A control panel on one of two working turbines had been fixed by Friday morning, but the system remains well below full power, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said at a news conference....."
I didn't know a hurricane came through, and they better fix things quick with the Saints kicking off the season soon.
Maybe they can fine someone:
"The biggest penalty imposed during the first six months of George W. Bush’s administration was a $9.5 million fine on oil refiners Motiva, Equilon, and Shell. The Clinton administration imposed a $11.1 million fine on Louisiana Pacific and Kirby Forest Industries for air pollution violations at wood product plants. The largest civil penalty imposed by the Obama administration in its first six months was a $12 million fine imposed on BP, whose large Texas City refinery suffered fires and explosions that killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others in 2005. The largest civil penalty imposed so far by the Trump administration came on May 17, when the EPA and the state of Texas imposed a $2.5 million penalty on the owner of Vopak Terminals North America Inc. for air pollution violations at its terminal along the Houston Ship Channel, the EIP said....."
Did those fines help cut carbon emissions?
"California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has sued the US Environmental Protection Agency on Friday for not providing records he contends could show conflicts of interest by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. The Democrat requested the documents in April. Pruitt is now reviewing numerous regulations that he opposed while serving as Oklahoma’s attorney general. He took part in legal actions against the EPA 14 times (AP)"
Now about your house:
"The report blamed growing competition for a shrinking supply of affordable residences for the increase, a result of declining home ownership and rising rents, in addition to a widening gap between the number of renters in need and the availability of federal assistance......"
Trump's fault, right?
Waltham apartment complex fire was arson
I suspected sabotage the first day but was dismissed, and they already have more security measures (cameras, guards, signs) ready to roll. When have we seen that before?
WinnCompanies picked to expand, rebuild Southie housing complex, a $1.6b project
"Invitation Homes and Starwood Waypoint Homes on Thursday announced a $4.3 billion stock deal, which the companies called a merger of equals. The merger would create a landlord with about 82,000 homes in more than a dozen big markets....."
Is that more than Trump and family?
*****************
"Analysts say Trump takes political lying to new levels" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg New York Times August 07, 2017
HA-HA-HA-HA!
He's dethroned the all time champion, huh?
WASHINGTON — Fabrications have long been a part of US politics. Politicians lie to puff themselves up, to burnish their résumés and to cover up misdeeds, including sexual affairs. (See: Bill Clinton.) Sometimes they cite false information for what they believe are justifiable policy reasons. (See: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam.)
George W and Iraq?
Oh, right, the Times front paged them for him.
More than 50 years later and they still haven't learned.
But President Trump, historians and consultants in both political parties agree, appears to have taken it to an entirely new level.
Trump is trafficking in hyperbole, distortion, and fabrication on practically a daily basis.
Just like what I'm reading every morning.
He has peddled the false notion that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, inflated claims about how many people attended his inaugural, and just last week, he described two phone calls — one from the president of Mexico and another from the head of the Boy Scouts — that never happened.
As I pointed out earlier, it was the Clinton's that came up with it first -- but hey, what is another distortion coming from the NYT?
Related:
"Two Boy Scouts were killed when a sailboat struck an overhanging power line on a lake east of Dallas over the weekend, and a third later died from injuries, officials said Monday. It wasn’t clear Monday why the power line was overhanging the water, in proximity to watercraft....."
Trump gave the eulogy.
In part, this represents yet another way that Trump is operating on his own terms, but it also reflects a broader decline in standards of truth for political discourse.
Look who is f***ing talking!
A look at politicians over the past half-century makes it clear that lying in office did not begin with Trump.
Still, the scope of Trump’s falsehoods raises questions about whether the brakes on straying from the truth and the consequences for politicians’ being caught saying things that just are not true have diminished over time.
Pffffffffft!
One of the first modern presidents to wrestle publicly with a lie was Dwight D. Eisenhower in May 1960, when an US U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace.
Yeah, Roosevelt and those before him could wrestle with them privately and let Japan bomb Pearl Harbor.
Yup, lying you into war goes way back.
The Eisenhower administration lied to the public about the plane and its mission, claiming it was a weather aircraft, but when the Soviets said that the pilot had been captured alive, Eisenhower reluctantly acknowledged that the plane had been on an intelligence mission — an admission that shook him badly, the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said. “He just felt that his credibility was such an important part of his person and character, and to have that undermined by having to tell a lie was one of the deepest regrets of his presidency,” Goodwin said.
How deliciously ironic that a plagiarist was called in as an expert on presidential lying.
In the short run, Eisenhower was hurt. But the public eventually forgave him, Goodwin said, because he owned up to his mistake.
In 1972, at the height of the Watergate scandal, President Richard M. Nixon was accused of lying, obstructing justice, and misusing the Internal Revenue Service, among other agencies, and resigned rather than face impeachment.
Obama used the IRS and spied on his political opponents, too.
Over the past two decades, institutional changes in US politics have made it easier for politicians to lie.
The proliferation of television political talk shows and the rise of the Internet have created a fragmented media environment. With no widely acknowledged media gatekeeper, politicians have an easier time distorting the truth.
OMG!
(Blog editor shakes head at the utter inaneness of this)
And in an era of hyperpartisanship, where politicians often are trying to court voters at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, politicians often lie with impunity. Even the use of the word “lie” in politics has changed.
“There was a time not long ago when you could not use the word ‘lie’ in a campaign,” said Anita Dunn, once a communications director to Obama. “It was thought to be too harsh, and it would backfire. So you had to say they hadn’t been honest, or they didn’t tell the truth, or the facts show something else, and even that was seen as hot rhetoric.”
That is where my print copy ended it.
With the rise of fact-checking websites, politicians are held accountable for their words. In 2013, the website PolitiFact declared that Obama had uttered the “lie of the year” when he told Americans that if they liked their health care plan, they could keep it. (Trump won “lie of the year” in 2015.)
“I thought it was unfair at the time, and I still think it’s unfair,” Dunn said, referring to Obama. Obama later apologized to people who were forced off their plans “despite assurances from me.”
It's okay because Obama thought the right way.
--more--"
Sorry, New York Times, you are not earning any points with me, and I know the Globe loves to criticize him, but c'mon.
Where exactly is that ‘drug-infested den’ Trump referenced?
Right here. And here. And here.
Can't see it because of the haze, right?
********************
"Back home, Speaker Ryan can’t escape questions about GOP" by Scott Bauer Associated Press August 07, 2017
MUKWONAGO, Wis. — With a dysfunctional Congress on recess, House Speaker Paul Ryan has turned his focus back home, touring flood-damaged areas and visiting local businesses in Wisconsin.
But he can’t escape the questions about why Republicans in charge of Washington aren’t delivering.
And though he’s won reelection easily for years, Ryan faces the prospect of challenges from left and right and an energized Democratic base in next year’s midterm elections.
Sensing the angst, Ryan has been much more visible in his southeast Wisconsin district as Republicans failed to deliver on their years-long promise to scrap the health care law and new polling numbers show the speaker is less popular among Republicans in Wisconsin than President Trump.
Trump won Wisconsin by less than a percentage point, but he carried Ryan’s district by 10 points.
In the remaining months of the year, Ryan and the Republican-led Congress are determined to deliver major legislation, elusive so far due to GOP infighting, and the top priority is overhauling the nation’s tax code.
Failure to produce could cost Republicans their House majority in the 2018 midterms and, for Ryan, his job as speaker and Republican leader.
The election has already been rigged, 'er, decided.
‘‘This is the third time in 100 years we’ve had this alignment of government that we’ve got to get it done or else I really worried our country will continue down a bad path,’’ Ryan said after his tour of wire manufacturer Banker Wire, in Mukwonago, Wis.
Ryan angered some conservatives during the campaign with comments critical of then-candidate Trump. But in the first six months of Trump’s term, Ryan has been far less critical of the president than other Republican lawmakers who have challenged a number of Trump moves, including his criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former senator.
Beating Ryan will not be easy.
No Democrat has represented the district since 1995. Ryan has cruised to reelection ever since he joined Congress in 1999 — winning by 35 percentage points last year. He has $11.5 million in the bank and is a familiar face in Janesville where he was born and raised and still lives with his wife and three children.
Democrats are pinning their hopes on Randy Bryce, an Army veteran and union iron worker who promises to fight for the working man. Bryce is trying to capitalize on disenchantment over Ryan’s role in the health care bill as he mounts a long-shot campaign.
His announcement video in June has been viewed more than 550,000 times. It begins with a clip of Trump praising Ryan’s attempts to undo Democrat Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and then shows Bryce getting emotional as his mother details her struggle with multiple sclerosis.
--more--"
I wonder how Foxconn is going to impact the election (so what is the carbon footprint of that damn bus?).
Meanwhile, over in the Senate:
"President Donald Trump's tweet endorsing Luther Strange is welcome news for the recently appointed senator, but it's shaking up Alabama's contentious GOP primary, where all the major candidates have tried to lay claim to Trump's message of disruptive change. Strange's leading opponents are Roy Moore, who was twice removed as Alabama's chief justice, and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, a member of the House Freedom Caucus. Brooks said Wednesday that he's more aligned with Trump's agenda than Strange....."
That's strange.
If the guy is so unpopular and hated why are candidates grasping for his coattails?
"10 Commandments judge forces runoff in Alabama Senate race" by Kim Chandler Associated Press August 16, 2017
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama’s Ten Commandments judge, Roy Moore, has forced President Trump’s chosen candidate, Senator Luther Strange, into a September primary runoff that pits cultural conservatives against the Republicans now running Congress.
Evangelical voters cherish Moore as a culture-war icon and on Tuesday, the firebrand jurist rode a tide of anti-establishment sentiment to secure more votes than Strange for the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
This is a career-defining moment for him.
Despite millions of dollars in advertising by a super political action committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Strange trailed Moore by about six percentage points, which was about 25,000 votes in the low-turnout election, according to unofficial returns.
‘‘This is a great victory. The attempt by the silk stocking Washington elitists to control the vote of the people of Alabama has failed,’’ Moore said at his victory party in downtown Montgomery.
The winner of the Sept. 26 runoff between Moore and Strange will face Democratic nominee Doug Jones in a December election.
While President Trump endorsed Strange, Moore tried to present himself as the better carrier of Trump’s outsider appeal.
‘‘The takeaway is that Washington is very unpopular,’’ said Greg Strimple, a Republican pollster for a political action committee aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan.
‘‘Voters still want change,’’ Strimple said, and Trump cannot simply ‘‘transfer his brand’’ to candidates who fail to establish their own outsider credentials.
Strange emphasized Trump’s endorsements, delivered via Twitter and in recorded phone calls to voters — in the state where Trump remains deeply popular among GOP voters.
Just there though, right?
‘‘He knows I’m the person in this race who is going to help him make this country great again,’’ Strange said, thanking Trump Tuesday night. He said the runoff will show ‘‘who is best suited to stand with the people of this country — with our president — to make sure we make America great again.’’
Trump tweeted congratulations Wednesday to both Moore and Strange ‘‘for being the final two.’’
‘‘Exciting race!’’ the president wrote.
Strange was Alabama’s attorney general before being appointed to the Senate by Governor Robert Bentley, who soon resigned in scandal. Strange said he did Bentley no favors, but his challengers questioned the ethics of seeking the appointment while investigating the governor.
Moore has a loyal following among evangelicals, but is a polarizing figure. His harshest critics call him the ‘‘Ayatollah of Alabama’’ and accuse him of intertwining his personal religious beliefs and judicial responsibilities.
Moore wore his ousters from the bench as badges of honor, telling Republican voters they are like battle scars.
‘‘He’s the only one who hasn’t been talking crap about the others,’’ said Jimmy Wright, who voted for Moore in rural Gallant in northeast Alabama, but in Montgomery, retired teacher Tommy Goggans said he voted to try to keep Moore from winning. ‘‘He’s been kicked out of everything he’s done.’’
Jones, the Democratic nominee, served as a US attorney during the Clinton administration and is backed by former Vice President Joe Biden. He’s perhaps best known for leading the prosecution that finally resulted in convictions for two Klansmen in the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four little girls.
Alabama hasn’t sent a Democrat to the US Senate in 20 years, but Jones says they can’t concede without a fight.
‘‘I think there are enough people in the state who are yearning for new leadership and a change,’’ Jones said.
--more--"
Still can't ride the buses down there.
Also see:
"Republican lawmakers and governors around the country targeted the organization after several videos were released by the antiabortion Center for Medical Progress. The center said the videos showed that Planned Parenthood illegally sells fetal tissue for profit. Planned Parenthood said the videos were heavily edited and denied seeking any payments beyond legally permitted reimbursement of costs. A Texas grand jury that looked into the videos cleared Planned Parenthood of misusing fetal tissue....."
They literally flushed it down the toilet (what are those kids doing in there anyway?), and America’s liberal abortion agenda looks a lot like Nazi Eugenics (an unusual outgrowth to the Charlottesville conversation, but an important one).
Related:
"The repeal of the law that allowed rapists to avoid prison by marrying their victims, which had been in place since the 1940s, follows years of campaigning by women’s rights advocates. Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt have canceled similar ‘‘marry the rapist’’ clauses over the years, and Jordan’s parliament recently repealed a similar law. The clause remains on the books in Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, the Palestinian territories, and Syria, as well as several countries in Latin America and in the Philippines and Tajikistan, according to Human Rights Watch. Conservatives in the Middle East who support such laws argue that marriage salvages the honor of the woman and her family. Human Rights Watch welcomed the move by Lebanon’s parliament but said more should be done to ensure women’s rights....."
Gives all you women hope, doesn't it?
**********************
"Trump shows no sign of ending attacks on his own party" by John Wagner Washington Post August 11, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump showed no interest Friday in backing off his feud with Senate Republicans, even as some members of his own party warned he could be undermining his agenda on Capitol Hill.
Taking to Twitter, Trump retweeted a pair of Fox News stories recounting his rhetorical battle with the Senate majority leader, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, and other members of the GOP caucus.
‘‘Senators learn the hard way about the fallout from turning on Trump,’’ read the first headline.
The second one said: ‘‘Trump fires new warning shot at McConnell, leaves door open on whether he should step down.’’
The president has been smarting from the Senate’s failure to pass an overhaul of the Affordable Care Act, a long-standing priority for the GOP and a campaign promise from Trump last year.
In a series of tweets and public statements in recent days, Trump has taken shots at McConnell for comments earlier this week suggesting that Trump’s lack of political experience had led to ‘‘excessive expectations’’ for passing major legislation.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Trump declined to say whether McConnell should resign. But Trump said they should ask the question again if the Senate leader doesn’t deliver on the president’s leading priorities. Besides a health care bill, those include tax cuts and new infrastructure spending.
One of the Fox News stories amplified by Trump on Twitter on Friday notes that two GOP senators who have spoken out against Trump and his policies — Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada — have now drawn primary challenges.
‘‘Republican senators who have been a thorn in President Trump’s side are beginning to see the political consequences of opposing the White House as pro-Trump activists start to mobilize,’’ according to the story retweeted by the Trump.
In the wake of Trump’s comments Thursday, several Republicans said his words could instead backfire, making it more difficult to get his agenda passed on Capitol Hill, where McConnell is still popular among fellow GOP senators.
So far, Republicans have achieved few major legislative victories, despite control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump adviser, said on Fox News that the president bears some responsibility for the Republican failure to repeal the Obama health law.
‘‘The fact is with a very narrow margin — 52 people — Mitch McConnell got 49 out of 52,’’ Gingrich said. ‘‘I think the president can’t disassociate himself from this. [Trump] is part of the leadership team. He is not an observer sitting up in the stands. He is on the field. It was a collective failure.’’
In a separate development Friday, some Twitter users, including actor and former Barack Obama aide Kal Penn, demanded that Trump be suspended from Twitter for using the service to threaten to attack another country.
Trump tweeted Friday morning that ‘‘military solutions are now fully in place, locked, and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.’’
Russia and China say no.
Critics of the president’s tweet say the rhetoric reflects a threat of violence against North Korea that violates Twitter’s rules and terms of service.
You have to go through a newspaper instead.
In a separate development, a White House official said Trump administration tax negotiators and congressional leaders are still planning to release a document in September outlining a framework for a tax overhaul bill.
The document is expected to expand on a two-page press release last month from the so-called Big Six involved in tax discussions, said the official who asked not to be named because negotiations are private.
Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which drafts tax bills, said in an interview Friday on Bloomberg TV that House and Senate tax officials were continuing to work on the details of a revamp over the August recess.
--more--"
Related:
The New Minority
Monday's Minority Report
Boston Globe Dog Whistles
Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right
It's a triple play today, no hallucination:
"Trump comments on race open breach with CEOs, military, and GOP" by Michael D. Shear, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman New York Times August 16, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump found himself increasingly isolated in a racial crisis of his own making on Wednesday, abandoned by the nation’s top business executives, contradicted by military leaders, and shunned by Republicans outraged by his defense of white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, Va.
The breach with the business community was the most striking. Titans of American industry and finance revolted against a man they had seen as one of their own, concluding Wednesday morning they could no longer serve on two of Trump’s advisory panels.
He's done.
But before Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the Blackstone Group and one of Trump’s closest business confidants, could announce a decision to disband Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum — in a prepared statement calling “intolerance, racism and violence” an “affront to core American values” — the president undercut him and did it himself, in a tweet.
“Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both,” Trump wrote. “Thank you all!”
Made me smile, and GE sees no gray in the case -- as they continue to supply the war machine that has murdered millions of black and brown people.
The hypocrisy of these $cumbag CEOs is beyond belief.
All five armed services chiefs — of the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marines, and the Coast Guard — posted statements on social media condemning neo-Nazis and racism. They did not mention Trump by name, but their messages were a highly unusual counter to the commander in chief.
See: Armed services leaders denounce racist violence
The forces are loaded with them, a problem that is minimized in the face of the myth of militaristic harmony and model for integration, and I haven't heard anyone complaining the last 125 years when the good old boys were dying in wars based on lies and deceptions.
Vice President Mike Pence abruptly cut short a trip in South America as his aides announced he would return home early to attend meetings on Friday and through the weekend at Camp David. The White House insisted that the topic of the meetings would be South Asia. During his travels, Pence stood by the president but declined to defend Trump.
Haven't seen anything about them the last couple days.
In a tweet on Wednesday night, Trump urged supporters to “join me” at a campaign rally scheduled for Aug. 22 in Phoenix. But the Phoenix mayor, Greg Stanton, said in his own tweet that he was “disappointed” that the president would hold a political event “as our nation is still healing from the tragic events in Charlottesville.” He urged Trump to delay the visit.
The president’s top advisers described themselves as stunned. Several said they were unable to see how Trump’s presidency recovered, and others expressed doubts about his capacity to do the job.
(Blog editor shaking head. Now they are trying to get him on mental illness)
In contrast, the president told close aides that he felt liberated by his news conference. Aides said he seemed to bask afterward in his remarks, and viewed them as the latest retort to the political establishment that he sees as trying to tame his impulses.
Most incensed among Trump’s top advisers, according to three people familiar with the situation, was Gary D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, who told people around him that he was offended, as a Jew and as an American, by the president’s reaction to the violence in Charlottesville.
He crossed a red line.
Related:
"Jewish members of President Trump’s administration remained largely silent Wednesday after Trump came to the defense of nationalist and right-wing protesters in Charlottesville, Va., who had chanted anti-Semitic slogans and demeaned the president’s Jewish son-in-law. Gary D. Cohn, the director of the president’s National Economic Council, who is Jewish, was described by several people close to him as “disgusted” and “deeply upset” by the president’s remarks. But Cohn has not publicly expressed such views. Steven Mnuchin, the secretary of the Treasury and also Jewish, stood silently behind Trump on Tuesday as the president said there were “very fine people on both sides” at the Virginia incident. Mnuchin has not said anything since about the president’s remarks. And Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who is also Jewish, has been silent about Trump’s comments. Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife, who converted to Judaism, said in a tweet on Sunday, “There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis.” Requests for comment on Wednesday from Kushner, Cohn, and Mnuchin were not answered. "
That was also New York Times.
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
One aide who felt energized by the president’s actions was the embattled White House chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who shares Trump’s anger at the efforts of local governments to remove monuments honoring prominent Confederate figures like Robert E. Lee. The proposed removal of a Lee statue on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville spurred the demonstrations last weekend.
The rumor is he is resigning tomorrow, so the NYT tore his statue down.
Many in the White House said they still held on to the hope, however slim, that the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, could impose order on the disarray even as Trump hopscotches from one self-destructive episode to the next.
Leaders of the Republican Jewish Coalition called on Trump to “provide greater moral clarity in rejecting racism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism.” They added: “There are no good Nazis and no good members of the Klan.’’
David Shulkin, the secretary of veterans affairs, delivered an emotional statement to reporters on Wednesday, saying: “Well, I’m speaking out, and I’m giving my personal opinions as an American and as a Jewish American. And for me in particular, I think in learning history, that we know that staying silent on these issues is simply not acceptable.”
He's in charge of the VA!?
Related: After family outcry, sick vet gets room at VA hospital
So that is what it takes to get action!
Also see:
"President Trump on Saturday signed an emergency spending bill that will pump more than $2 billion into a program that allows veterans to receive private medical care at government expense. The law addresses a budget shortfall at the Department of Veteran Affairs; provides $2.1 billion to continue funding the Veterans Choice Program, which allows veterans to seek private care; and adds $1.8 billion for core VA health programs (AP)."
You wonder who cares about them more, huh?
--more--"
So what team are you on?
"Analysis: What Trump’s words say about him" by Astead W. Herndon Globe Staff August 16, 2017
Another dog whistle article!
WASHINGTON — Americans are confronting profoundly uncomfortable questions.
Was President Trump giving a sign that he subscribes to the ideology of white supremacy? Or was he attempting to enable the movement because it feeds his political base?
At an angry press conference Tuesday, Trump blamed “both sides’’ — white nationalists and their counterprotesters — for the violence that left one protester dead. He called those who were marching to Nazi chants “very fine people.” And he pulled a page from the white supremacist playbook when he referred to the removal of Confederate monuments as a changing of American “history” and “culture.”
Beyond the immediate shock his statements caused, an intensifying chorus of academics, politicians, and a biographer said years of accumulating evidence indicates that the Trump on display Tuesday was indeed the real Donald Trump, someone who is at the very least accepting of ethnic hatred and white bigotry.
They cite everything from his past derogatory statements about Latino and Muslim immigrants to bizarre declarations of his own family’s genetic superiority.
Trump “has a racist point of view of the world. He has demonstrated resentment for every group except white men over the years,” said Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio, who spent long hours with the president, his advisers, and his family in preparation for his 2015 book, “The Truth about Trump.”
Norm Ornstein, political scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said, “The press conference reflects who [Trump] really is.
“From the beginning, Trump has made it clear he is only the president of the people who voted for him,” Ornstein said. “And those who voted for him don’t include many who aren’t white people.”
In a short statement Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “The president has condemned these groups over and over.”
Indeed, throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly denied harboring any resentment toward minority groups.
“I am the least racist person that you have ever met,” Trump told a black church in September 2016.
You “can speak to Don King” about it.
On Wednesday, Trump’s small cadre of prominent minority supporters offered statements defending him through their Twitter accounts. But even Trump’s most ardent backers had trouble articulating why they believe the president is not racist.
During his career as a developer, Trump settled a lawsuit after the federal government accused him of systematically discriminating against black tenants in his real estate holdings.
In 1989, he took out a full-page advertisement in four New York newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty in the case of the so-called Central Park Five and refused to apologize after DNA evidence proved the five black and Latino teenagers were not guilty of rape.
He once suggested a season of his NBC show, “The Apprentice,” be set up so white contestants would square off against blacks.
“Whether people like that idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world,” Trump said in 2005, according to an article that appeared on the NBC’s “Today” show’s website.
That's the best they can do, huh?
Why wasn't this all brought out during the campaign?
On his rise to the White House, Trump peddled the lie that then-President Barack Obama was born in Kenya. During the campaign, he took days to denounce the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan.
Yeah, the Clinton's started that lie but you know.... $hit media.
“He rode that racist horse to the White House,” said Carol Anderson, a black studies professor at Emory University. “Enabling white supremacy means, at some point, you’re cool with it.”
How about the U.S. government enabling of Jewish supremacy?
You cool with that?
Tuesday’s press conference was another example of Trump’s willingness to use racially inflammatory language for political gain, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. But Sabato said he did not believe Trump harbored white supremacist leanings.
You know, like war lies peddled on the front page.
“Trump has exactly one principle: Donald Trump. That’s it,” Sabato said. “So as far as him being racially tolerant or racially intolerant, I don’t know. He just does what’s in his interest as any given moment.”
In Sabato’s calculations, Tuesday’s combative press conference was in Trump’s interest for two reasons: It allows him to further portray himself as a victim of unfair media criticism, and, more importantly, it’s a “wink and nod” to the large voting bloc of racially resentful white voters.
That wouldn't be a lie because it is true.
“Nobody is making this distinction,” Sabato said. “Neo-nazis aren’t big enough as a voting group. But whites with racial resentment, you better believe that’s a big bloc.”
Richard Painter, a Republican who was an ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, said he now has been forced to reconsider his assumptions after previously believing Trump was not a racist but merely employed discriminatory rhetoric to win votes.
“He may actually believe some of this. He may be talking so much he’s believing his product,” Painter said. “Someone tells you to sell a product to get ahead, and then you sell it for a year or two, and you start to believe it.”
Like the war lies peddled by newspapers, and the photo just below the paragraph is exhibit A:
Related:
"One after another, the nation’s most powerful Republicans responded to President Trump’s extraordinary remarks about white supremacists. Yet few mentioned the president. The nuanced statements reflect the party establishment’s delicate dance. Few top Republican officeholders defended the president in the midst of an escalating political crisis. Yet they are unwilling to declare all-out war against Trump and risk alienating his loyalists. And as the 2018 elections begin to take shape, the debate over Trump’s words appears to be taking hold in GOP primaries. Former Republican presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, usually silent on current political developments, released a joint statement....."
Remember Katrina?
Yeah, W ain't a racist.
As for the father and grandfather of those cretinous pukes above.... yeah, he helped the Nazis!
Also see: "President Trump’s Tuesday news conference earned him another wave of backlash from world leaders Wednesday....."
Who gives a damn what other world leaders think?
On Twitter, Republican political strategist Ana Navarro, a frequent Trump critic, said, “Trump is either a racist or peddling to racism or both.”
D’Antonio, the Trump biographer who chronicled the real estate mogul’s rise into business and politics, contends that the president’s connection to white supremacy is deep.
His connection to the Jewish Mafia via New York and New Jersey real estate is even deeper.
D’Antonio pointed to Trump’s statements concerning his supposed genetic superiority over the years, including public statements over the years he’s a “gene believer” and that he has “great genes.”
You know, every day I think the Bo$ton Globe can't go any lower, and every day they set a new record.
Meanwhile, the new eugenists are CRISPRing cells to edit genes. Hitler would have had an orgasm if what we are told about the man is to be believed.
The biographer said Trump, and his son, Donald Trump Jr., personally told him that the family believes that there are gradations of genetically superior and inferior people, a bedrock principle of those who subscribe to white supremacist ideology.
Yeah, DJT Jr. is supposed to be the White House contact for white nationalists, blah, blah.
Trump has also cited the exceptional genes of his late uncle, an MIT professor named John G. Trump, but while the political center, and some of the American public, are now becoming increasingly vocal about Trump’s relationship with white nationalists, two groups have long identified this connection: scholars in racial politics — and white supremacists themselves.
Anderson, the professor at Emory, said she had one question for people who, only after Tuesday’s press conference, were considering the idea that Trump harbored racial resentment: “Where have you been?”
To this point, she found an unlikely ally, avowed white supremacists on online hate forums such as Stormfront and Daily Stormer. While much of the country was shocked at Tuesday’s press conference, the message boards were abuzz with support.....
Trump being undermined by false friends.
--more--"
He should just let it go, and as for other side:
"Who are ‘antifa’ activists and how do they operate?" by Michael Levenson Globe Staff August 16, 2017
The rise of white supremacist groups since the election of President Trump has fueled another aggressive militant force: brigades of black-clad left-wing activists who believe peaceful protest is not potent enough to stamp out fascism.
Bunch of clowns!
The willingness of these professed antifascist activists to embrace violent opposition to the far-right stands in stark contrast to the traditions of pacifism, civil disobedience, and vigils that the left normally venerates. It has also given critics like Trump an opening to blame both sides.
“It feeds into the narrative of the white supremacists who regularly portray themselves as victims,” said Robert Trestan, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Boston office. He said he wants Bostonians to ignore a far-right rally planned for Saturday and march elsewhere.
“Leave the bigots alone in the Boston Common with no audience and no one to hear their hateful rhetoric,” he said.
That reminds me, I gotta stop purchasing and reading the Globe.
But antifascist organizers argue that white supremacism is so dangerous that it has to be confronted directly with force or it will spread further into the mainstream.
They don't have much faith in the rest of us, do they?
What makes them think this outdated and reprehensible argument could win us over?
The coded language of the white supremacist playbook has been displayed in abundance since Charlottesville.
I highlight it in the pre$$ when I see it.
Many point to the spread of Nazism in Germany in the 1920s and ’30s — a period, they argue, that shows how rational argument and parliamentary government were not enough to stop the rise of Hitler, said Mark Bray, a lecturer at Dartmouth College and author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” due out next month.
“Their response is that ignoring white supremacists and fascists has a bad historical track record,” Bray said. “They argue if we ignore these kinds of demonstrations and events, they could recruit more people and present themselves as more family-friendly.”
This over the top hyperbole is really getting old.
On Tuesday, Trump pointed to the left-wing activists who opposed the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville to argue there is “blame on both sides” for the bloodshed there. He said the “alt-left” was “very, very violent.”
“Do they have any problem?” Trump said. “I think they do.”
Such arguments have been echoed by many on the far right after Charlottesville.
“If it weren’t for antifa, it would’ve been just a bunch of white dudes in a field with torches, but people went in and provoked it,” said Joe Biggs, a speaker and activist from Austin, who worked until recently for Infowars, a website run by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
That is what they are paid to do.
Antifa, pronounced an-TEE-fa, traces its roots to the leftists who battled fascists in the streets of Italy, Germany, and Spain between World War I and World War II, and to the militants who fought skinheads in Britain in the 1980s and neo-Nazis in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bray said.
More recently, some have taken part in the Occupy Wall Street movement and the massive protests that have greeted Group of 20 summits in Europe. They’ve also been linked to violent clashes with right-wing groups in Berkeley, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; and other cities.
Now the pre$$ loves them!
Many are anarchists, socialists, and communists who reject the notion embraced by liberals that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment and should be debated in the public square.
Rather, they seek to block fascists from organizing or speaking out about their politics, by using physical force or online attacks, Bray said.
“It’s an illiberal politics,” he said. “It doesn’t view fascism as a competing opinion that needs to be debated, but rather an enemy that needs to be destroyed.”
One that needs to be shut up (proving he's nothing but a bullshitter).
Bray said the influence of such thinking can be seen in the growing belief on college campuses and among liberals that hate speech should not be countered through protests, but shut down entirely.
Ah, the intolerant snowflakes.
That notion that it’s “OK to punch a Nazi” was crystallized by a video that went viral of the white supremacist leader Richard Spencer being attacked by a black-clad protester at Trump’s inauguration.
He's in the middle of it all, huh?
Many antifa activists hide their identities, saying they fear being targeted by the police or white supremacists.
But they will out the other side to the point of getting them fired from their jobs!
Miguel, a 35-year-old antifascist activist who splits his time between Washington, D.C., and New York, said the movement seeks — by any means necessary — to stop fascists from threatening immigrants, LGBT people, and minorities.
Splits time, huh?
Soros picking up the tab?
“We’re going to make sure it’s harder for them to exist than the marginalized groups they’re trying to attack and terrorize,” said Miguel, who asked that his full name not be used.
The left-wing militants have vowed to show up on Boston Common on Saturday if far-right groups gather there for a “free speech rally,” as planned.
“We believe violence is actually a pretty good tool to use against people who don’t agree with our worldview,” said a spokesman for the Boston Antifa group, who identified himself only as Cermen.
Now, THAT DESERVES CONDEMNATION, and yet there is NONE FORTHCOMING from the Globe.
Related: The Moral Equivalency Question: Justifying Violence Against People Who THINK THE WRONG WAY
The video contains strong language; however, it accurately describes the tone and tenor of this article from the Globe.
Also see: Moral superiority
More wisdom here.
John Medlar, a 23-year-old Fitchburg State University student, who is helping to organize Saturday’s rally, said he is concerned because the antifascists “do not believe violence is immoral.”
Still, he noted that there were no clashes between right-wing activists and antifascists during a similar rally on the Common in May. Boston police have vowed to keep both sides separate to prevent violence.....
That means “no weapons, no backpacks, no sticks,’’ and that goes for everyone.
--more--"
Look at all the bought off, controlled opposition pukes.
They are the Pawns of the New World Order, and have you seen antifa's flag?
The Globe gives you short glossary regarding the people who will be showing up. I would advise you and anyone else not to.
Related:
"Protests planned at Google offices around the country over the firing of an employee who questioned company diversity efforts have been postponed. A statement on the ‘‘March on Google’’ website says Saturday’s protests were being canceled because of threats from what it called ‘‘Alt Left terrorist groups.’’ The planned events in nine locations were in reaction to Google’s firing of a software engineer who argued that biological differences helped explain why women are underrepresented at the company. Protest organizers didn’t respond to requests for information about the alleged threats. A Pittsburgh public safety spokeswoman says organizers had informed them ‘‘of plans to cancel and why they were cancelling,’’ but she wouldn’t elaborate. Organizers said the protest had been unfairly characterized despite their statements denouncing ‘‘bigotry and hatred.’’ "
Based on the placement, the Globe doesn't want to talk about it.
Also see: The biggest threat to free speech? It’s the left
"Civil rights activists, noting the extreme, white nationalist views of some of the speakers who were initially invited, criticized the coalition for offering a platform to people who spew hate and racial violence....."
They are the ugliest Americans, but at least they won't spoil the self-serving HUBweek and the robot block party as you drink before you think.
Where are Boston’s most educated neighborhoods?
They are white; the least educated are black!
Where is Reince Priebus when you need him most?
Let's hope there are no helicopter accidents or anyone killed in Bo$ton this weekend, 'eh?
Now about making those movies:
"AMC Entertainment Holdings, the world’s largest theater chain, is weighing legal action against MoviePass over its low-cost cinema subscription, saying the service is unsustainable and bad for the industry. MoviePass on Tuesday dropped the price of its monthly theater pass to $9.95 a month from $30 or more, offering consumers admission to one show every day at any cinema that takes debit cards, excluding Imax and 3-D screens. The company plans to pay exhibitors full price. AMC, which charged moviegoers an average of $9.33 a ticket last quarter, said in a statement it’s consulting with attorneys about barring the service in US theaters. The company said the plan was setting up consumers for disappointment if or when the product can no longer be fulfilled. MoviePass chief executive Mitch Lowe called the AMC statement ‘‘bluster’’ and said that the only way the theater chain could refuse to work with MoviePass would be to decline the Mastercard debit cards that MoviePass subscribers use to buy tickets. The cards link to accounts controlled by MoviePass and are used to pay for tickets at full price."
The box offices are that bad, huh?
More Celebrity News:
Injury to Tom Cruise puts sixth ‘Mission: Impossible’ film on hiatus
Daniel Craig will be back as Bond
Amy Schumer films on Salisbury Beach then performs a benefit for Charlottesville victim
How much tax loot she getting for it?
Casey Affleck says brother Ben won’t return as Batman
Former Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford ain’t getting that ring back
Big Freedia shakes her booty in P-Town
Drumming legend Omar Hakim joins Berklee as percussion department chair
He was just falsely arrested, and Billy Bush was spotted on Nantucket.
*********************
"University of Florida says no to white nationalist event" by Jason Dearen Associated Press August 16, 2017
GAINESVILLE, Fla. —University of Florida president W. Kent Fuchs said in a statement that the decision was made after assessing risks to the campus, community, and law enforcement following last weekend’s deadly violence during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Fuchs said UF is dedicated to free speech and public discourse, but the First Amendment does not require risk of imminent violence to students.
That is such a non-sequitur.
Janine Sikes, a UF spokeswoman, said this is the first time that officials can recall the university denying such a request due to fears of violence or hate speech.
The move comes after Texas A&M University canceled a planned September white nationalist protest on its campus due to security concerns.
Richard Spencer, a leading figure in the white nationalist movement, has popularized the term ‘‘alt-right’’ to describe a fringe movement that is a mix of white nationalist, white supremacist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigration beliefs. Spencer has advocated for an ‘‘ethno-state’’ that would be a ‘‘safe space’’ for white people.
And it turns out he's a Zionist Jew agitator!
After Donald Trump was elected president, Spencer hosted a conference in Washington that ended with audience members mimicking Nazi salutes after Spencer shouted ‘‘Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!’’
With "friends" like those.... he doesn't need Deep State enemies.
Jesse Choper, a University of California Berkeley constitutional law professor, said that even the ugliest of free speech is protected by the First Amendment. However, UF has a good argument in any court challenge for denying the group’s event given the recent violence in Virginia, he said.
‘‘It’s a good reason,’’ Choper said. ‘‘You’ve got to have a real fear, and a good reason to believe that something’s going to happen and it would be difficult to prevent it or regulate it.’’
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who got her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, praised the decision of her alma mater to block Spencer.
She has turned on Trump!!
--more--"
Related: Charlottesville Signals Dystopian Times
It's all staged and orchestrated and we are being bullshitted six ways from Sunday by “journalists.”
Hundreds mourn for Heather Heyer, killed during protest in Charlottesville
The Washington Post says she said ‘‘They tried to kill my child to shut her up, but guess what, you just magnified her’’ and to wear purple in protest (the same color Hillary wore for her concession speech, and at the time it was considered a signal to agitate)?
Tried to kill?
Looks like the crisis actor they hired screwed up her lines!
Related: Chicago 9
That's the weekend death toll there, ignored by the ma$$ media as they focus on a single solitary death in Charlottesville.
Baltimore removes four Confederate monuments
This as others go up and the smashing of statues is seeding strife when "monuments are just that, symbols. They are important symbols to be sure, but in the end they are still just symbols. What’s significant is [w]hat they represent....."
Eyewitnesses: James Fields' Car Was 'Attacked,' Police Set Up Rally-Goers To Be Assaulted
Why Was This 'Crowd Hire' Company Recruiting $25 An Hour 'Political Activists' In Charlotte Last Week?
FBI Admits Federal Informants Linked to Deadly Charlottesville Riots; Unlikely To Face Charges
Chaos in Charlottesville: No One Gave Peace a Chance, Including the Police
Police stood aside again, huh?
Fired NSC Aide Reveals Political Warfare Operation Targeting Trump
Time to fight back:
"DOJ Demands 1.3 Million IP Addresses Of Visitors To Antifa Website Used To Coordinate Riots" by Tyler Durden, Aug 15, 2017
Submitted by iBankCoin.com
In what is shaping up to be a contentious battle over privacy rights and free speech, the Department of Justice has formally requested that web hosting firm ‘DreamHost’ turn over 1.3 million IP addresses and other information to ‘unmask‘ visitors to the anti-Trump Antifa website ‘disruptj20.org,’ as part of the investigation into crimes committed on and around January 20 by protesters. DreamHost has challenged the request, claiming the scope of data requested violates the first and fourth amendments because it is too broad.
DisruptJ20.org was registered in October of 2016 by the ‘DC Anti-fascist Coalition,’ and promoted along with the hashtag #DisruptJ20, as a central resource for anti-Trump protesters to coordinate various plots over social media intended disrupt the presidential inauguration on and around January 20. The website connected users through mailing lists and planned meet-ups, and provided a calendar of anarchistic events as well as resources to help people prepare for the mayhem. The site also provides a ‘legal guide’ for those arrested.
Following the inauguration riots, the Department of Justice served DisruptJ20 website host, DreamHost, with a search warrant – requesting over 1.3 million IP addresses, as well as contact information, emails, photos, and browsing habits of visitors to the Antifa website.
DreamHost is currently challenging the request in court, and has hearing scheduled for Friday. In its most recent filing, the company claims “That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment”.
Unsettling precedent
While authorities need to be able to gather evidence used in to help prosecute crimes - especially against violent leftists who have committed countless crimes in the name of tolerance, scooping up a shotgun blast of personal information from up to 1.3 million people sets a dangerous precedent – as it effectively opens the door to targeted data collection on all Americans, right down to browsing habits.
“In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website,” said DreamHost General Council Chris Ghazarian in a legal filing opposing the request.
Given recent revelations of the Obama administration’s illegal unmasking of thousands of Americans during the 2016 election, people are more aware than ever of the risk of government malfeasance when it comes to collecting, storing, and misusing the information of private citizens and organizations. Even if the Trump administration (packed with holdovers) promises to treat personal information with the utmost discretion, and somehow we could trust that promise – history has shown that the next despot to come along would gladly use it to target groups of people via illegal surveillance, tax records, or court-ordered production of a website’s user data - even the one you're on right now...
Perhaps the DOJ is attempting to use a hammer when a scalpel would suffice?
DEMOCRATS MOVE TO CENSURE TRUMP... MCCONNELL PUSHES BACK ON PREZ... FOXNEWS SHEP SMITH: NO REPUBLICANS WILL DEFEND via WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
"There is a palpable frenzy in the mainstream news media around the Trump Presidency. Reports have morphed from being merely biased into outright and direct abuse against every word he utters. There is a terror abroad and it isn't a fear of nasty Muslims or Russians or demented North Korean leaders. One can only conclude that these media people are terrified that Trump might be winning the war in which they are directly and frantically engaged.
The forces of (let's call them) the establishment don't seem to understand that Trump is merely a symptom of a problem THAT IS NEVER GOING TO GO AWAY now that the public at large are waking up to the nature of our fraudulent 'Democracy'. Impeach Trump and they will get something more powerful, more plain-speaking and, possibly, much more horrible.
The usual suspects are very busy creating the conflicts that serve them so well. The 'Alt Right' protest in Charlottsville was organised by one Jason Kessler, on record as a supporter of Obama and Clinton and also an ex-member of the 'leftist' 'radical' Occupy movement..... i.e. the 'Nazi White Supremacist' protest was led by an establishment phoney. He has a Jewish-sounding name but hey, maybe the man a Mexican.
What Trump called "The Alt-Left", the Antifa and other assorted leftists are famously funded by Communist Statist (i.e. globalist) NGOs owned by the likes of George Soros. Therefore both sides of the Charlottsville confrontation were led by the same people.
The protest and the tragic death that ensued has been UNIVERSALLY used by the media to screech abuse at Trump. CNN is a comical spectacle of wall-to-wall Trump hatred. The presentation gets doubly hysterical when the orange demon steps forward and speaks obvious truth.
The enemy is the finance parasite that ALWAYS attacks its host. It cares nothing for the indigenous people of any country. no more than the blood-thirsty anti-Christian Bolsheviks cared for the peoples of the old Soviet Union that they slaughtered in their tens of millions. It cares nothing for the ethnic minorities whose causes it espouses in order to destroy any coherence in the core population. It hates white culture in the USA and Europe and black culture in Africa. It invades, occupies and steals the loot. It goes by the name of AngloZionism, International Finance, The Military/Industrial Complex, Globalism, Imperialism.....
--MORE--"
Maybe Barcelona will take your mind off it?
You know who is feeling a lot like Trump these days?
"A liberal Israeli think tank has filed a lawsuit against the son of the prime minister for a Facebook post it claims is libelous. Molad’s lawyers filed the libel suit at a Tel Aviv court on Tuesday over Yair Netanyahu’s comments on social media that the organization was ‘‘radical and anti-Zionist’’ and funded by foreign interests. The younger Netanyahu was responding to a post on social media by Molad that criticized him after he reportedly refused to pick up after the family dog at a public park. Molad’s lawyers seek a public apology from the prime minister’s son and $39,000 in damages."
"Netanyahu rips media, opposition in face of corruption case" by Ami Ben Tov Associated Press August 09, 2017
TEL AVIV — Israel’s embattled prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, lashed out at the media and his political opponents in an animated speech to hundreds of enthusiastic supporters on Wednesday, seeking to deliver a powerful show of force as he battles a slew of corruption allegations that have threatened to drive him from office.
Yeah, Jewish supremacism is okay.
Netanyahu’s Likud Party organized Wednesday’s rally in response to a swirling police investigation into suspected corruption, bribery and fraud by the longtime Israeli leader.
Party leaders described the gathering as an attempt to counter what they believe is a campaign by a hostile media and overzealous police and prosecutors. But the gathering was also seen as a test of Netanyahu’s popularity and control over his party. For now, Likud appears to be firmly behind its leader, and any internal opposition remains in check.
Unlike Trump.
Addressing the packed convention hall, Netanyahu accused the ‘‘leftist’’ media and political opposition of pushing for an indictment to topple him because they cannot defeat him at the ballot box.
That's TRUMP!
‘‘The left and the media, and they’re the same thing, you know, they are mustering an obsessive, unprecedented hunt against me and my family to carry out a regime change,’’ he said.
HA-HA-HA!
This is really so upside down silly.
Black is white, up is down.
Netanyahu also blamed the media for ousting two right-wing Israeli governments in the 1990 and held them responsible for the ‘‘disaster’’ of the Oslo Accords signed with the Palestinians in 1993, suicide bombings on public buses in the 1990s, and the second intifada in the early 2000s.
The speech resorted to a familiar strategy to Netanyahu. During a three-decade political career, he has frequently attacked the media, political opposition, Israel’s Arab minority, and the Palestinians in an attempt to rally Likud and portray himself as a victim.
This stuff is making me sick.
Yair Lapid, a former finance minister under Netanyahu who heads the Yesh Atid party, tweeted after the prime minister’s speech that it ‘‘crossed every line.’’
Netanyahu made no mention of the police or prosecutors handling the investigation. But he warned the Palestinians against hoping for his political demise. Palestinian leaders ‘‘will be disappointed too, because it won’t happen,’’ he said. I'm not expecting it to, either.
He would have been gone before this, and it doesn't really matter.
Likud leaders put heavy pressure on party activists to attend the rally. The gathering had a festive, at times raucous atmosphere, with activists hoisting Israeli flags, banners criticizing the media and chanting ‘‘Bibi, King of Israel,’’ using his nickname. One banner read, ‘‘enough with the putsch attempt’’ and a second decried the ‘‘fake news’’ with an English expletive.
HA-HA-HA!
Netanyahu, the second-longest serving leader in Israeli history, is engulfed in a series of scandals relating to alleged financial misdeeds and supposed illicit ties to executives in media, international business, and Hollywood.
But not Kushner?
Israeli police investigators say they suspect Netanyahu of being involved in bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in a pair of cases.
Netanyahu’s former chief of staff and longtime confidant, Ari Harow, recently signed a settlement connected to a separate case in which he agreed to testify against his former mentor. This has raised speculation that Netanyahu could be indicted soon, and has sparked opposition calls for him to step down.
They are already calling for Trump's resignation here!
Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and called the accusations a witch hunt.
Israel’s justice minister has said Netanyahu would not have to step down even if he is indicted. That means his short-term future will likely depend on whether he can maintain political and public backing.
Avraham Diskin, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, said there is no immediate threat and the goal of Wednesday’s rally was to quash any thoughts of trying to challenge him.
‘‘Netanyahu is tightening the bolts and exerting his authority,’’ he said. ‘‘The whole point it to scare any of the ‘pretenders’ against getting ideas in their head. He’s conveying that he is still powerful and everyone should keep their knives holstered.’’
Netanyahu has escaped several scandals before, but the scope of the latest accusations appears to pose his stiffest challenge yet.
--more--"
Pray for him, right?
