As Berman’s predecessor in the job, Preet Bharara tweeted, “Why does a president get rid of his own hand-picked US Attorney in SDNY on a Friday night, less than 5 months before the election?” President of the Center for American Progress Neera Tanden noted: “To attempt a Friday night massacre 5 months before an election means there’s a pretty big investigation they are trying to kill.”
You may not be the stupidest fuck on this forum, but you are definitely the biggest pussy.
You would get your ass fucking kicked by just about anyone, you fucking pussy. You are the only person I have on ignore. Tons of people have told you to stop with this fucking acronym bullshit and say what the fuck you mean, but you just can't do it, you fucking pussy fuck.
I'm guessing you are on more people's ignore list than anyone on this forum.
Get a life, loser.
Yesterday’s standoff between Attorney General William Barr and the interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman, whom Barr was trying to fire, was only one of today’s significant stories.
Last night, Barr announced Berman was “stepping down.” Berman retorted he was doing nothing of the sort and that Barr had no authority to fire him. This morning, Berman showed up for work. Then Barr wrote Berman a letter saying he was “surprised and disappointed by the press statement you released last night…. Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so.” Barr gave no reason for the firing.
Because Berman was an interim U.S. Attorney, appointed by the court rather than confirmed by the Senate, it was not clear if Trump had the authority to fire him (although it was clear Barr did not). But that point became moot quickly, when Trump told reporters: “That’s his department, not my department…. I’m not involved.” The president’s disavowal of Barr’s declaration means Barr, the Attorney General, has lied in writing twice in the past two days.
And Berman had gained his point. Barr’s letter said he would not replace Berman with an outside candidate—which was highly irregular—but would follow normal procedure and permit Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, to become acting U.S. Attorney in his place. With this win for the Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s office, Berman said he would leave his post. A former SDNY prosecutor said: “After all this what did they gain by getting rid of Berman? Nothing.”
Berman’s office has been handling a number of cases involving Trump and his allies, including one involving Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and political operatives Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who are charged with funneling Russian money to Republican candidates for office. The three have also been involved in the attempt to smear Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden by digging up witnesses in Ukraine who are willing to testify against the Bidens, although after repeated investigations there is no evidence either Biden committed any wrongdoing.
It may be these cases, or others, that the Trump administration is eager to quash. My guess is that we have not heard the end of its attempt to stifle the SDNY, but there is yet another roadblock in their way. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and usually a staunch Trump supporter, said he had not been consulted on the proposed replacement for Berman. He added that he would follow Senate tradition, and permit the Senators from New York, where the office is based, to veto the nomination if they wished. Nominee Jay Clayton has never been a prosecutor, and New York's Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrats both, will almost certainly not accept his candidacy.
There was another loss for the administration today. A federal judge decided against Trump’s attempt to stop the release of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s memoir of his days in the Trump administration. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said it would be impossible to stop the distribution of the book, which has already begun to circulate.
The judge also blasted Bolton for moving ahead with publication without an official government sign-off on the book certifying that it did not reveal classified information. He warned that Bolton might face prosecution if he has exposed national security secrets in the book. Bolton’s lawyer welcomed the decision and said “we respectfully take issue… with the Court’s preliminary conclusion at this early stage of the case that Ambassador Bolton did not comply fully with his contractual prepublication obligation to the Government…. The full story of these events has yet to be told—but it will be.”
The other big story today was, of course, Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, designed to jumpstart his campaign and reunite him with the crowds that energize him. His campaign manager, Brad Parscale, along with the president himself, has spent days crowing that almost a million tickets had been reserved, and the campaign had built an outside stage for overflow crowds.
But far fewer than the 19,000 people Tulsa’s BOK Center could hold showed up: the local fire marshal said the number was just under 6,200. Young TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music (so-called “K-Pop stans”), along with Instagram and Snapchat users, had quietly ordered tickets to prank the campaign. The technological savvy of their generation has turned political: they knew that the Trump campaign harvests information from ticket reservations, bombarding applicants with texts and requests for donations. So they set up fake accounts and phone numbers to order the tickets, then deleted the fake accounts. They also deleted their social media posts organizing the plan to keep it from the attention of the Trump campaign.
The poor turnout after such hype was deeply embarrassing for the campaign. Trump’s people took down the outside stage and Trump blamed “protesters” who had kept supporters out of the venue for the small size of the rally, but there were few reports of any interactions between Trump supporters and protesters and no one was turned away.
The rally itself did not deliver the punch Trump’s people had hoped. The speech was disjointed as the president rambled from one topic to another, rehashing old topics that no longer charged up the crowd, many of whom were caught on camera yawning or checking their phones. It was clear that The Lincoln Project’s needling of his difficulty raising a glass to his mouth and walking down a ramp at last week’s West Point graduation has gotten under Trump's skin: he spent more than ten minutes pushing back on those stories—the ramp was “like an ice skating rink,” he claimed-- which, of course, only reinforced them.
Much more damning, when discussing coronavirus, he told the audience falsely that the recent spikes in infections are because there has been more testing: “When you do more testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases. I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’”
This is an astonishing admission. More than 120,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 so far, and while in some states hard hit early on numbers of cases are declining, cases are right now spiking in a number of other states in far higher numbers than increased testing would show. Experts agree that the administration’s odd reluctance to test for coronavirus cost American lives. Within hours of his statement, it was being used in a political ad against the president.
Far from energizing Trump’s 2020 campaign, the rally made Trump look like a washed-up performer who has lost his audience and become a punchline for the new kids in town. According to White House reporter Andrew Feinberg, a Trump campaign staffer told him that Biden “should have to report our costs to the [Federal Election Commission] as a contribution to his campaign.”
-HCR -6/20
Last night, Barr announced Berman was “stepping down.” Berman retorted he was doing nothing of the sort and that Barr had no authority to fire him. This morning, Berman showed up for work. Then Barr wrote Berman a letter saying he was “surprised and disappointed by the press statement you released last night…. Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so.” Barr gave no reason for the firing.
Because Berman was an interim U.S. Attorney, appointed by the court rather than confirmed by the Senate, it was not clear if Trump had the authority to fire him (although it was clear Barr did not). But that point became moot quickly, when Trump told reporters: “That’s his department, not my department…. I’m not involved.” The president’s disavowal of Barr’s declaration means Barr, the Attorney General, has lied in writing twice in the past two days.
And Berman had gained his point. Barr’s letter said he would not replace Berman with an outside candidate—which was highly irregular—but would follow normal procedure and permit Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, to become acting U.S. Attorney in his place. With this win for the Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s office, Berman said he would leave his post. A former SDNY prosecutor said: “After all this what did they gain by getting rid of Berman? Nothing.”
Berman’s office has been handling a number of cases involving Trump and his allies, including one involving Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and political operatives Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who are charged with funneling Russian money to Republican candidates for office. The three have also been involved in the attempt to smear Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden by digging up witnesses in Ukraine who are willing to testify against the Bidens, although after repeated investigations there is no evidence either Biden committed any wrongdoing.
It may be these cases, or others, that the Trump administration is eager to quash. My guess is that we have not heard the end of its attempt to stifle the SDNY, but there is yet another roadblock in their way. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and usually a staunch Trump supporter, said he had not been consulted on the proposed replacement for Berman. He added that he would follow Senate tradition, and permit the Senators from New York, where the office is based, to veto the nomination if they wished. Nominee Jay Clayton has never been a prosecutor, and New York's Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrats both, will almost certainly not accept his candidacy.
There was another loss for the administration today. A federal judge decided against Trump’s attempt to stop the release of former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s memoir of his days in the Trump administration. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said it would be impossible to stop the distribution of the book, which has already begun to circulate.
The judge also blasted Bolton for moving ahead with publication without an official government sign-off on the book certifying that it did not reveal classified information. He warned that Bolton might face prosecution if he has exposed national security secrets in the book. Bolton’s lawyer welcomed the decision and said “we respectfully take issue… with the Court’s preliminary conclusion at this early stage of the case that Ambassador Bolton did not comply fully with his contractual prepublication obligation to the Government…. The full story of these events has yet to be told—but it will be.”
The other big story today was, of course, Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, designed to jumpstart his campaign and reunite him with the crowds that energize him. His campaign manager, Brad Parscale, along with the president himself, has spent days crowing that almost a million tickets had been reserved, and the campaign had built an outside stage for overflow crowds.
But far fewer than the 19,000 people Tulsa’s BOK Center could hold showed up: the local fire marshal said the number was just under 6,200. Young TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music (so-called “K-Pop stans”), along with Instagram and Snapchat users, had quietly ordered tickets to prank the campaign. The technological savvy of their generation has turned political: they knew that the Trump campaign harvests information from ticket reservations, bombarding applicants with texts and requests for donations. So they set up fake accounts and phone numbers to order the tickets, then deleted the fake accounts. They also deleted their social media posts organizing the plan to keep it from the attention of the Trump campaign.
The poor turnout after such hype was deeply embarrassing for the campaign. Trump’s people took down the outside stage and Trump blamed “protesters” who had kept supporters out of the venue for the small size of the rally, but there were few reports of any interactions between Trump supporters and protesters and no one was turned away.
The rally itself did not deliver the punch Trump’s people had hoped. The speech was disjointed as the president rambled from one topic to another, rehashing old topics that no longer charged up the crowd, many of whom were caught on camera yawning or checking their phones. It was clear that The Lincoln Project’s needling of his difficulty raising a glass to his mouth and walking down a ramp at last week’s West Point graduation has gotten under Trump's skin: he spent more than ten minutes pushing back on those stories—the ramp was “like an ice skating rink,” he claimed-- which, of course, only reinforced them.
Much more damning, when discussing coronavirus, he told the audience falsely that the recent spikes in infections are because there has been more testing: “When you do more testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases. I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’”
This is an astonishing admission. More than 120,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 so far, and while in some states hard hit early on numbers of cases are declining, cases are right now spiking in a number of other states in far higher numbers than increased testing would show. Experts agree that the administration’s odd reluctance to test for coronavirus cost American lives. Within hours of his statement, it was being used in a political ad against the president.
Far from energizing Trump’s 2020 campaign, the rally made Trump look like a washed-up performer who has lost his audience and become a punchline for the new kids in town. According to White House reporter Andrew Feinberg, a Trump campaign staffer told him that Biden “should have to report our costs to the [Federal Election Commission] as a contribution to his campaign.”
-HCR -6/20
Last Wednesday, the new CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, Michael Pack, purged four top officials from the media organizations the U.S.
government funds to provide factual, unbiased news to world populations that do not have access to a free and independent press.
The US Agency for Global Media oversees Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund. These organizations have a budget of almost a billion dollars, and make up one of the world’s largest media networks. The two women in charge of the fifth organization—Voice of America—had resigned in anticipation of Pack’s arrival.
By law, the news agencies are independent of political influence, with editors calling the shots of what to cover and how to cover it. The law “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news.” The idea is that the US media stations will exhibit the democratic value of a free press in form as well as in function. Listeners will not only hear a wide range of stories, but also see a nation where politicians keep their hands off the information that goes to the people.
Since at least 2014, Republicans have sought to rein in the independence of the US network to make it reflect official policy more closely. After Trump was elected, Republicans consolidated control of the VOA by replacing a bipartisan executive board with a CEO appointed by the president. In 2018, Trump nominated for the position Michael Pack, a documentary filmmaker with close ties to Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon took over Breitbart News after its founder, Andrew Breitbart, died of a sudden heart attack at age 43. Bannon gave what was already a right-wing outlet a hard-right turn.
Senators were in no hurry to confirm Pack, both because of his ties to Bannon and because his film company is under investigation by the Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office for financial improprieties. But VOA has been critical of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and he got angry enough at the organization that he called VOA the “voice of the Soviet Union” and “communists” at a private lunch with Senate Republicans. The administration ordered staff at the Centers for Disease Control not to speak with any VOA reporters.
Under pressure from Trump, the Senate approved Pack on June 4. On June 15, before his anticipated arrival, the heads of VOA resigned. The day after his arrival, he fired the heads of the other four agencies and replaced them with Trump loyalists. The firing drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, for one of the heads had been an aide to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). There is deep concern that, with Pack's help, Trump plans to turn the US Agency for Global Media into the sort of state media he admires in countries run by autocrats.
But, so far, reporters at VOA say nothing much has changed in their daily routine. If it does, and American overseas media outlets become the US version of a Ministry of Information, the USAGM will no longer be a powerful tool of American soft diplomatic power; it will be the opposite. As Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said, the agency might never recover from such a political transformation. “Once the credibility is gone, no one will ever trust a report from Radio Free Europe, Radio Marti, nor trust the tools of the Open Technology Fund.”
Trump's packing of positions at USAGM, and the FBI, and the DOJ, and the State Department—crucial positions all—threatens to destroy our non-partisan civil service, made up of smart, experienced people whose loyalty is to the Constitution and the country rather than to any individual. The administration’s actions recall the worst days of the 1890s, when party loyalty was paramount and corrupt party cronies had the skills to pocket money but not to govern.
But the American people turned against that government, and it increasingly looks as if that sort of rejection is happening now.
Today, in an interview, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of treason, based in the debunked story that the president had illegally spied on Trump’s campaign. Although Trump had previously declined to cite the crime he repeatedly attributes to his predecessor, today he spoke up: “Treason. Treason. It’s treason,” he said. This claim is so utterly preposterous it feels desperate.
And Trump has reason to worry that his power is waning. News broke tonight that shortly before Attorney General William Barr fired interim U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, Berman refused to endorse a Department of Justice letter attacking New York Mayor Bill de Blasio for imposing restrictions on religious gatherings but not protests. “The message to the public from New York City’s government appears to favor certain secular gatherings and disfavor religious gatherings,” the letter said. Berman dismissed it as a political stunt.
What role Berman’s refusal played in the weekend’s standoff is unclear, but it is clear that Barr and Trump did not gain their point—Berman’s replacement with a more pliable official—and instead heightened scrutiny of any future interference in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. It is only the latest in a string of losses: the disappointing turn out for Trump’s Tulsa rally, the distribution of John Bolton’s book, criticism from U.S. military and national security officials.
There was another sign tonight that the popular mood in America is turning from Trump’s divisive vision of the nation. Over the weekend, a member of Black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s team found a noose in Wallace’s garage stall, and Sunday night, as the Talledega [Alabama] Superspeedway track reopened, a plane flew overhead dragging a Confederate flag banner that read “Defund NASCAR.”
Monday, 82-year-old racing legend Richard Petty, who is the co-owner of the company which runs Wallace’s car, said: “I’m enraged by the act of someone placing a noose in the garage stall of my race team. There is absolutely no place in our sport or our society for racism…. This filthy act serves as a reminder of how far we still have to go to eradicate racial prejudice and it galvanizes my resolve to use the resources of Richard Petty Motorsports to create change…. The sick person who perpetrated this act must be found, exposed, and swiftly and immediately expelled from NASCAR. I believe in my heart this despicable act is not representative of the competitors I see each day in the NASCAR garage area. I stand shoulder to shoulder with Bubba, yesterday, today, tomorrow and every day forward.”
Tonight, Petty returned to the track for the first time since the pandemic broke out, and stood beside Wallace for the National Anthem. A long parade of NASCAR drivers and crews pushed Wallace’s car to the front of the grid before the night’s race, in front of fans wearing T-shirts that said “Black Lives Matter” and “I Can’t Breathe.” Wallace, NASCAR's only Black full-time driver, had recently gotten NASCAR to prohibit Confederate flags. Tonight he said, "the sport is changing."
Back in Washington, Secret Service asked reporters to leave the White House grounds tonight. They gave no reason for the unusual request. Lots of speculation about what prompted it, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out more.
-HCR -6/22
government funds to provide factual, unbiased news to world populations that do not have access to a free and independent press.
The US Agency for Global Media oversees Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund. These organizations have a budget of almost a billion dollars, and make up one of the world’s largest media networks. The two women in charge of the fifth organization—Voice of America—had resigned in anticipation of Pack’s arrival.
By law, the news agencies are independent of political influence, with editors calling the shots of what to cover and how to cover it. The law “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news.” The idea is that the US media stations will exhibit the democratic value of a free press in form as well as in function. Listeners will not only hear a wide range of stories, but also see a nation where politicians keep their hands off the information that goes to the people.
Since at least 2014, Republicans have sought to rein in the independence of the US network to make it reflect official policy more closely. After Trump was elected, Republicans consolidated control of the VOA by replacing a bipartisan executive board with a CEO appointed by the president. In 2018, Trump nominated for the position Michael Pack, a documentary filmmaker with close ties to Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon took over Breitbart News after its founder, Andrew Breitbart, died of a sudden heart attack at age 43. Bannon gave what was already a right-wing outlet a hard-right turn.
Senators were in no hurry to confirm Pack, both because of his ties to Bannon and because his film company is under investigation by the Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office for financial improprieties. But VOA has been critical of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and he got angry enough at the organization that he called VOA the “voice of the Soviet Union” and “communists” at a private lunch with Senate Republicans. The administration ordered staff at the Centers for Disease Control not to speak with any VOA reporters.
Under pressure from Trump, the Senate approved Pack on June 4. On June 15, before his anticipated arrival, the heads of VOA resigned. The day after his arrival, he fired the heads of the other four agencies and replaced them with Trump loyalists. The firing drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, for one of the heads had been an aide to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). There is deep concern that, with Pack's help, Trump plans to turn the US Agency for Global Media into the sort of state media he admires in countries run by autocrats.
But, so far, reporters at VOA say nothing much has changed in their daily routine. If it does, and American overseas media outlets become the US version of a Ministry of Information, the USAGM will no longer be a powerful tool of American soft diplomatic power; it will be the opposite. As Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said, the agency might never recover from such a political transformation. “Once the credibility is gone, no one will ever trust a report from Radio Free Europe, Radio Marti, nor trust the tools of the Open Technology Fund.”
Trump's packing of positions at USAGM, and the FBI, and the DOJ, and the State Department—crucial positions all—threatens to destroy our non-partisan civil service, made up of smart, experienced people whose loyalty is to the Constitution and the country rather than to any individual. The administration’s actions recall the worst days of the 1890s, when party loyalty was paramount and corrupt party cronies had the skills to pocket money but not to govern.
But the American people turned against that government, and it increasingly looks as if that sort of rejection is happening now.
Today, in an interview, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of treason, based in the debunked story that the president had illegally spied on Trump’s campaign. Although Trump had previously declined to cite the crime he repeatedly attributes to his predecessor, today he spoke up: “Treason. Treason. It’s treason,” he said. This claim is so utterly preposterous it feels desperate.
And Trump has reason to worry that his power is waning. News broke tonight that shortly before Attorney General William Barr fired interim U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, Berman refused to endorse a Department of Justice letter attacking New York Mayor Bill de Blasio for imposing restrictions on religious gatherings but not protests. “The message to the public from New York City’s government appears to favor certain secular gatherings and disfavor religious gatherings,” the letter said. Berman dismissed it as a political stunt.
What role Berman’s refusal played in the weekend’s standoff is unclear, but it is clear that Barr and Trump did not gain their point—Berman’s replacement with a more pliable official—and instead heightened scrutiny of any future interference in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. It is only the latest in a string of losses: the disappointing turn out for Trump’s Tulsa rally, the distribution of John Bolton’s book, criticism from U.S. military and national security officials.
There was another sign tonight that the popular mood in America is turning from Trump’s divisive vision of the nation. Over the weekend, a member of Black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s team found a noose in Wallace’s garage stall, and Sunday night, as the Talledega [Alabama] Superspeedway track reopened, a plane flew overhead dragging a Confederate flag banner that read “Defund NASCAR.”
Monday, 82-year-old racing legend Richard Petty, who is the co-owner of the company which runs Wallace’s car, said: “I’m enraged by the act of someone placing a noose in the garage stall of my race team. There is absolutely no place in our sport or our society for racism…. This filthy act serves as a reminder of how far we still have to go to eradicate racial prejudice and it galvanizes my resolve to use the resources of Richard Petty Motorsports to create change…. The sick person who perpetrated this act must be found, exposed, and swiftly and immediately expelled from NASCAR. I believe in my heart this despicable act is not representative of the competitors I see each day in the NASCAR garage area. I stand shoulder to shoulder with Bubba, yesterday, today, tomorrow and every day forward.”
Tonight, Petty returned to the track for the first time since the pandemic broke out, and stood beside Wallace for the National Anthem. A long parade of NASCAR drivers and crews pushed Wallace’s car to the front of the grid before the night’s race, in front of fans wearing T-shirts that said “Black Lives Matter” and “I Can’t Breathe.” Wallace, NASCAR's only Black full-time driver, had recently gotten NASCAR to prohibit Confederate flags. Tonight he said, "the sport is changing."
Back in Washington, Secret Service asked reporters to leave the White House grounds tonight. They gave no reason for the unusual request. Lots of speculation about what prompted it, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out more.
-HCR -6/22
It’s just the facts. Not like she takes turns. She’s not a democrat and she’s not a Republican. She has been asked this question and says she is neither. She’s a historian.
I don’t know anyone who is doing all this work every single night and putting everything together in context every single day like this for CURRENT news. It’s pretty amazing and there is no attacking anyone. It’s just straight facts. If you can’t take the facts of the Republican Party maybe you should reevaluate
Heard today was a must read......
Just before midnight tonight, the Department of Justice filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act-- also known as Obamacare—the health care law that has enabled millions of Americans to get health insurance.
In addition to making healthcare affordable, the law prohibits discrimination because of pre-existing conditions and allows young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance policies until they are 26. In 2020, about 11.4 million people signed up for Obamacare policies, while nearly 12.7 million adults are covered by the law’s expansion of Medicaid. The law has increased the number of Americans covered by health insurance and slowed the rise of health care costs across the board.
Republicans have vowed to get rid of the ACA since it became a law in 2010. Their opposition is based in their larger objection to an activist government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, and promotes infrastructure. Such a government, today’s Republicans argue, is essentially socialism: it prohibits an individual’s ability to control one’s business without government interference, and it redistributes wealth from the haves to the have-nots through taxes.
In 2014, Fox News Channel personality Bill O’Reilly explained: “Obamacare is a pure income redistribution play. That means President Obama and the Democratic Party want to put as much money into the hands of the poor and less affluent as they can and the healthcare subsidies are a great way to do just that. And of course, the funds for those subsidies are taken from businesses and affluent Americans who have the cash…. Income redistribution is a hallmark of socialism and we, in America, are now moving in that direction. That has angered the Republican Party and many conservative Americans who do not believe our capitalistic system was set up to provide cradle to grave entitlements…. Obamacare is much more than providing medical assets to the poor. It's about capitalism versus socialism.”
For their part, Democrats believe that regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, and promoting infrastructure is not socialism; it is simply keeping unfettered capitalism from destroying society, and it is precisely what government should do. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tonight said “President Trump and the Republicans’ campaign to rip away the protections and benefits of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the coronavirus crisis is an act of unfathomable cruelty.” Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is proposing to expand the law, said "I cannot comprehend the cruelty that's driving him to inflict this pain on the very people he's supposed to serve.”
The Trump administration has taken the unusual step of using the DOJ not to defend a law in court, as is its normal role, but to oppose it. Such a position is not unheard of, but it’s rare. To kill the law, DOJ lawyers had to file a legal brief by midnight tonight in support of a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act brought by Republican-dominated states.
The exact timing of this filing was not up to the DOJ, but the move to destroy the Affordable Care Act altogether at this particular moment is nonetheless interesting for two reasons.
First of all, we are in the midst of a global pandemic, and it’s not going well. Today America set another record for new coronavirus cases: 39,327. The previous single-day record was the day before, when we had 38,115 new cases. The death toll also jumped to about 2,500. Director of the Centers for Disease Control Robert Redfield told reporters today that antibody tests suggest that the number of Americans who have been infected with the virus is probably ten times what we knew. He estimated that at least 24 million Americans have been infected, about 5 to 8 percent of the population.
America’s struggle with the virus stems in part from the unwillingness of the Trump administration to use federal resources to fight it, maintaining that it is not the job of the federal government to underwrite social welfare. Instead, Trump has urged states to reopen and people to go back to work, in part to keep people off unemployment benefits. The administration’s insistence on hard-core individualism has prompted Trump and his supporters to reject the use of masks, which we now know are key to slowing the spread of the virus, and to ignore social distancing guidelines.
And now, just as the effects of such toxic individualism have become clear—America has 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s deaths from Covid-19—the administration is doubling down on that individualism. In the midst of a pandemic that has revealed just how shaky our healthcare system is, the administration is asking the Supreme Court to destroy the law that enables 23 million Americans to afford healthcare insurance. White House spokesman Judd Deere dismissed criticism about killing the Affordable Care Act during the pandemic, saying, “A global pandemic does not change what Americans know: Obamacare has been an unlawful failure and further illustrates the need to focus on patient care.”
There is a second reason the timing of this request is interesting. As recently as last month, Attorney General William Barr, who oversees the DOJ, privately urged senior officials to moderate their opposition to the Affordable Healthcare Act, not on principle, but because it is popular, and killing it entirely could hurt the Republican Party badly in an election year… especially in an election year in the midst of a pandemic. That the Department of Justice is taking this strong stance right now, as Trump’s polling numbers continue to slide, suggests that Republican leaders are eager to kill the law while a Republican president still controls the DOJ.
There were two big indicators today that the Trump campaign is nervous about the upcoming election. First, CNBC ran a story about finance executives shifting their support to Biden, despite their fear he will raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% (it was 36% before Trump’s tax cuts) and restore regulation. According to the article, financiers are furious with Trump’s handling of the pandemic, which is both crippling the economy and making America look pathetic compared to the European Union. With their switching loyalty—or at least their changing view of the likely outcome of the 2020 election—financiers are donating to Biden’s campaign, injecting cash where it will further hurt the Trump campaign.
Even more telling was the conversation Trump had tonight with Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity. After repeating his usual attacks on Biden, saying he was old and declining mentally, Trump said “And he is going to be president because some people don’t love me, maybe. And all I’m doing is doing my job.”
-HCR -6/25
Just before midnight tonight, the Department of Justice filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act-- also known as Obamacare—the health care law that has enabled millions of Americans to get health insurance.
In addition to making healthcare affordable, the law prohibits discrimination because of pre-existing conditions and allows young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance policies until they are 26. In 2020, about 11.4 million people signed up for Obamacare policies, while nearly 12.7 million adults are covered by the law’s expansion of Medicaid. The law has increased the number of Americans covered by health insurance and slowed the rise of health care costs across the board.
Republicans have vowed to get rid of the ACA since it became a law in 2010. Their opposition is based in their larger objection to an activist government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, and promotes infrastructure. Such a government, today’s Republicans argue, is essentially socialism: it prohibits an individual’s ability to control one’s business without government interference, and it redistributes wealth from the haves to the have-nots through taxes.
In 2014, Fox News Channel personality Bill O’Reilly explained: “Obamacare is a pure income redistribution play. That means President Obama and the Democratic Party want to put as much money into the hands of the poor and less affluent as they can and the healthcare subsidies are a great way to do just that. And of course, the funds for those subsidies are taken from businesses and affluent Americans who have the cash…. Income redistribution is a hallmark of socialism and we, in America, are now moving in that direction. That has angered the Republican Party and many conservative Americans who do not believe our capitalistic system was set up to provide cradle to grave entitlements…. Obamacare is much more than providing medical assets to the poor. It's about capitalism versus socialism.”
For their part, Democrats believe that regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, and promoting infrastructure is not socialism; it is simply keeping unfettered capitalism from destroying society, and it is precisely what government should do. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tonight said “President Trump and the Republicans’ campaign to rip away the protections and benefits of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the coronavirus crisis is an act of unfathomable cruelty.” Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is proposing to expand the law, said "I cannot comprehend the cruelty that's driving him to inflict this pain on the very people he's supposed to serve.”
The Trump administration has taken the unusual step of using the DOJ not to defend a law in court, as is its normal role, but to oppose it. Such a position is not unheard of, but it’s rare. To kill the law, DOJ lawyers had to file a legal brief by midnight tonight in support of a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act brought by Republican-dominated states.
The exact timing of this filing was not up to the DOJ, but the move to destroy the Affordable Care Act altogether at this particular moment is nonetheless interesting for two reasons.
First of all, we are in the midst of a global pandemic, and it’s not going well. Today America set another record for new coronavirus cases: 39,327. The previous single-day record was the day before, when we had 38,115 new cases. The death toll also jumped to about 2,500. Director of the Centers for Disease Control Robert Redfield told reporters today that antibody tests suggest that the number of Americans who have been infected with the virus is probably ten times what we knew. He estimated that at least 24 million Americans have been infected, about 5 to 8 percent of the population.
America’s struggle with the virus stems in part from the unwillingness of the Trump administration to use federal resources to fight it, maintaining that it is not the job of the federal government to underwrite social welfare. Instead, Trump has urged states to reopen and people to go back to work, in part to keep people off unemployment benefits. The administration’s insistence on hard-core individualism has prompted Trump and his supporters to reject the use of masks, which we now know are key to slowing the spread of the virus, and to ignore social distancing guidelines.
And now, just as the effects of such toxic individualism have become clear—America has 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s deaths from Covid-19—the administration is doubling down on that individualism. In the midst of a pandemic that has revealed just how shaky our healthcare system is, the administration is asking the Supreme Court to destroy the law that enables 23 million Americans to afford healthcare insurance. White House spokesman Judd Deere dismissed criticism about killing the Affordable Care Act during the pandemic, saying, “A global pandemic does not change what Americans know: Obamacare has been an unlawful failure and further illustrates the need to focus on patient care.”
There is a second reason the timing of this request is interesting. As recently as last month, Attorney General William Barr, who oversees the DOJ, privately urged senior officials to moderate their opposition to the Affordable Healthcare Act, not on principle, but because it is popular, and killing it entirely could hurt the Republican Party badly in an election year… especially in an election year in the midst of a pandemic. That the Department of Justice is taking this strong stance right now, as Trump’s polling numbers continue to slide, suggests that Republican leaders are eager to kill the law while a Republican president still controls the DOJ.
There were two big indicators today that the Trump campaign is nervous about the upcoming election. First, CNBC ran a story about finance executives shifting their support to Biden, despite their fear he will raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% (it was 36% before Trump’s tax cuts) and restore regulation. According to the article, financiers are furious with Trump’s handling of the pandemic, which is both crippling the economy and making America look pathetic compared to the European Union. With their switching loyalty—or at least their changing view of the likely outcome of the 2020 election—financiers are donating to Biden’s campaign, injecting cash where it will further hurt the Trump campaign.
Even more telling was the conversation Trump had tonight with Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity. After repeating his usual attacks on Biden, saying he was old and declining mentally, Trump said “And he is going to be president because some people don’t love me, maybe. And all I’m doing is doing my job.”
-HCR -6/25
Today the United States registered 44,702 new coronavirus cases, a single-day record. Six states-- Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho, and Utah-- also set new single-day highs. In an attempt to stop the spread of the virus, officials in Florida and Texas, where governors have been aggressive about reopening, have both reversed course, announcing that bars must close immediately.
Incredibly, that’s not the day’s biggest story.
This evening, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both broke extraordinary news. Months ago, American intelligence officials concluded that during peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan, a Russian military intelligence group offered to Taliban-linked fighters bounties for killing American troops. They paid up, too, although it is unclear which of the twenty U.S. deaths happened under the deal.
The military intelligence unit officials judge to be behind this program, the G.R.U., is the same one that is engaged in a so-called “hybrid war” against America and other western countries, destabilizing them through disinformation, cyberattacks, and covert military operations and assassinations. Urging deadly attacks on American and other NATO troops is a significant escalation of that hostility. New York Times reporter Michael Schwirtz tweeted “it’s hard to overstate what a major escalation this is from Russia. Election meddling and the occasional poisoning are one thing. Paying the Taliban to kill American troops, that’s something entirely new.”
According to the New York Times, the National Security Council discussed the intelligence finding in late March and came up with a range of responses, none of which has been deployed. The NSC can include a number of different officials, but by law it includes the president, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. It usually also includes Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, and Director of National Intelligence, who in March was acting DNI Richard Grenell (it is now John Ratcliffe).
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) took to Twitter to note that Congress had not been informed of the information. “Congress should have been told,” he said. “And not just leadership or the Intel Committee.”
Instead of addressing this extraordinary intelligence, Trump strengthened U.S. ties to Russia, which have been rocky since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. In response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on the country. After Russia attacked the 2016 U.S. election, the U.S. government expanded those sanctions. The eagerness of Russian leaders, especially President Vladimir Putin, to have the sanctions lifted was key to Russian support for Trump in the 2016 election.
Just after the NSC discussed the intelligence findings, on April 1, a Russian plane brought ventilators and other medical supplies to the United States. The shipment was such a propaganda coup for Russia that the state television channel RT carried the plane’s arrival in New York live. Not only was it a show of strength for Russia to provide aid to the U.S., but also the equipment Russia sent was produced by a state-run company that is under U.S. sanctions. This was evidently intended to be a demonstration that sanctions did not mix well with a global pandemic. Just days before, Putin had publicly called for ending sanctions to enable the world to combat the coronavirus more effectively.
On April 25, 2020, Trump raised eyebrows by issuing a joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin commemorating the 75th anniversary of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops on the bridge of the Elbe River in Germany that signaled the final defeat of the Nazis. Their statement said “The “Spirit of the Elbe” is an example of how our countries can put aside differences, build trust, and cooperate in pursuit of a greater cause.”
On May 3, Trump called Putin and talked for an hour and a half, a discussion Trump called “very positive.” He tweeted: “Had a long and very good conversation with President Putin of Russia. As I have always said, long before the Witch Hunt started, getting along with Russia, China, and everyone else is a good thing, not a bad thing.”
On May 21, the U.S. sent a humanitarian aid package worth $5.6 million to Moscow to help fight coronavirus there. The shipment included 50 ventilators, with another 150 promised for the next week.
On June 1, Trump called Putin and talked about including Russia in the G7, the international organization of seven major countries with the largest advanced economies in the world. Russia had become part of the organization in 1998 despite its smaller economy-- making the group the G8-- but was expelled in 2014 after it invaded Ukraine. Trump told reporters Russia should be in the group “because a lot of the things we talk about have to do with Russia,” and the old organization was “outdated” and doesn’t represent “what’s going on in the world.”
On June 15, news broke that Trump has ordered the removal of 9,500 troops from Germany, where they support NATO against Russian aggression. The removal leaves 25,000 troops there.
All of these friendly overtures to Russia were alarming enough when all we knew was that Russia attacked the 2016 U.S. election and is doing so again in 2020. But it is far worse that those overtures took place when the administration knew that Russia had actively targeted American soldiers.
This news is bad, bad enough that it apparently prompted worried intelligence officials to give up their hope that the administration would respond to the crisis, and instead to leak the story to two major newspapers.
-The goat - 6/27
Unreal shit. Russia provoking America and Trump sitting on his hands. Trump really does work for Putin. Crazy shit.
Incredibly, that’s not the day’s biggest story.
This evening, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both broke extraordinary news. Months ago, American intelligence officials concluded that during peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan, a Russian military intelligence group offered to Taliban-linked fighters bounties for killing American troops. They paid up, too, although it is unclear which of the twenty U.S. deaths happened under the deal.
The military intelligence unit officials judge to be behind this program, the G.R.U., is the same one that is engaged in a so-called “hybrid war” against America and other western countries, destabilizing them through disinformation, cyberattacks, and covert military operations and assassinations. Urging deadly attacks on American and other NATO troops is a significant escalation of that hostility. New York Times reporter Michael Schwirtz tweeted “it’s hard to overstate what a major escalation this is from Russia. Election meddling and the occasional poisoning are one thing. Paying the Taliban to kill American troops, that’s something entirely new.”
According to the New York Times, the National Security Council discussed the intelligence finding in late March and came up with a range of responses, none of which has been deployed. The NSC can include a number of different officials, but by law it includes the president, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. It usually also includes Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, and Director of National Intelligence, who in March was acting DNI Richard Grenell (it is now John Ratcliffe).
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) took to Twitter to note that Congress had not been informed of the information. “Congress should have been told,” he said. “And not just leadership or the Intel Committee.”
Instead of addressing this extraordinary intelligence, Trump strengthened U.S. ties to Russia, which have been rocky since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. In response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on the country. After Russia attacked the 2016 U.S. election, the U.S. government expanded those sanctions. The eagerness of Russian leaders, especially President Vladimir Putin, to have the sanctions lifted was key to Russian support for Trump in the 2016 election.
Just after the NSC discussed the intelligence findings, on April 1, a Russian plane brought ventilators and other medical supplies to the United States. The shipment was such a propaganda coup for Russia that the state television channel RT carried the plane’s arrival in New York live. Not only was it a show of strength for Russia to provide aid to the U.S., but also the equipment Russia sent was produced by a state-run company that is under U.S. sanctions. This was evidently intended to be a demonstration that sanctions did not mix well with a global pandemic. Just days before, Putin had publicly called for ending sanctions to enable the world to combat the coronavirus more effectively.
On April 25, 2020, Trump raised eyebrows by issuing a joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin commemorating the 75th anniversary of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops on the bridge of the Elbe River in Germany that signaled the final defeat of the Nazis. Their statement said “The “Spirit of the Elbe” is an example of how our countries can put aside differences, build trust, and cooperate in pursuit of a greater cause.”
On May 3, Trump called Putin and talked for an hour and a half, a discussion Trump called “very positive.” He tweeted: “Had a long and very good conversation with President Putin of Russia. As I have always said, long before the Witch Hunt started, getting along with Russia, China, and everyone else is a good thing, not a bad thing.”
On May 21, the U.S. sent a humanitarian aid package worth $5.6 million to Moscow to help fight coronavirus there. The shipment included 50 ventilators, with another 150 promised for the next week.
On June 1, Trump called Putin and talked about including Russia in the G7, the international organization of seven major countries with the largest advanced economies in the world. Russia had become part of the organization in 1998 despite its smaller economy-- making the group the G8-- but was expelled in 2014 after it invaded Ukraine. Trump told reporters Russia should be in the group “because a lot of the things we talk about have to do with Russia,” and the old organization was “outdated” and doesn’t represent “what’s going on in the world.”
On June 15, news broke that Trump has ordered the removal of 9,500 troops from Germany, where they support NATO against Russian aggression. The removal leaves 25,000 troops there.
All of these friendly overtures to Russia were alarming enough when all we knew was that Russia attacked the 2016 U.S. election and is doing so again in 2020. But it is far worse that those overtures took place when the administration knew that Russia had actively targeted American soldiers.
This news is bad, bad enough that it apparently prompted worried intelligence officials to give up their hope that the administration would respond to the crisis, and instead to leak the story to two major newspapers.
-The goat - 6/27
Unreal shit. Russia provoking America and Trump sitting on his hands. Trump really does work for Putin. Crazy shit.
This evening, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both broke extraordinary news. Months ago, American intelligence officials concluded that during peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan, a Russian military intelligence group offered to Taliban-linked fighters bounties for killing American troops. They paid up, too, although it is unclear which of the twenty U.S. deaths happened under the deal.
This is fascinating. Trump admin knows Russia is paying the Taliban bounties to take out US soldiers and Trump does nothing.
They say he loves this country? BAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
This is fascinating. Trump admin knows Russia is paying the Taliban bounties to take out US soldiers and Trump does nothing.
They say he loves this country? BAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
There’s nothing fake about this thread. If you were smart enough you would see that.
I’m an educated white man talking to the white trash of the world like Enflameo who grew up on a trailer park. That’s what this is.
I mean we had people from Texas here touting that we were 100% reopened. What did I tell you guys? It all relates. YOURE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING
BAHAHAHHAHAHAH. Two biggest issues this country has faced in the last decade and you guys are wrong about both of them. Comical shit.
Go take your meds, stock. You’re off your rocker today.
