Brother Phil writes, "The Public Defender's Office in Missouri is chronically underfunded by a governor who can always find money for his pet projects. However, they do have the power to draft any lawyer to serve as the defense in a case if they don't have one spare.Guess who just happens to be a lawyer..." (more…)
You were sent a Center/Right, Southern, Christian white guy with a 200 I.Q. who could quote the Bible from memory and who gave you 70% of everything you asked for,.
And you spent six years working tirelessly to destroy him.
At the your darkest hour -- at the nadir of the foreign and domestic disasters you created -- you were sent you the calmest, most rational President in modern memory, who offered you unlimited opportunities for genuine cooperation and collaboration over and over again,
And from the first day of his administration you lied and slandered him, turned your racist mob on him and plotted how best to cripple and ruin him behind closed doors. No traitor was too off-the-grid to be denied a seat on Fox News. No failure was too comprehensive to keep you from staging another round of useless show trials and empty gestures.
As a final gesture of goodwill, you were sent the chance to step up and appoint a well-qualified, universally respected, straight-down-the-middle jurist to replace the late and unlamented Antonin Scalia.
Instead you told told the President of the United States to pound sand. That once again you would rather abdicate the most basic function of self-government and leave the seat vacant for a year so that this guy could fill it.
The former national security adviser for both Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney let loose this morning on the irresponsibility of giving Donald Trump the keys to nuclear warfare. John Noonan, a devout #NeverTrumper who is now a national security analyst and commentator, tweeted that electing Trump as president has consequences that threaten global peace.
Read his take below:
1. I cant get this in one tweet. So bear with me as I air some laundry here on Scarborough's claim Trump's interested in nuclear First Use
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
2. Pulled 300 nuclear alerts, 100 ft under the Wyoming turf. Job is serious and full of serious people.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
3. When we went into ICBM training, we went through a battery of tests and interviews. Are you sane? Are you willing to turn your key?
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
4. I see how those might sound at odds.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
5. But the whole idea behind nuclear deterrence is that you don't use the damn things. So I thought the mission credible and worthy.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
6. There are a hell of a lot of bad actors out there who have nukes. They are restrained only by our ability to instantly lay waste to them.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
7. The nuke triad, which Trump doesn't have a clue about, has been the single greatest contributor to global peace for decades. You heard me
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
8. I dont know if Scarborough is telling whole truth here. Anonymous sources suck. BUT... if he is... buckle the hell up.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
9. Because Trump would be undoing 6 decades of proven deterrence theory. The purpose of nukes is that they are never used. Trump disagrees?
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
10. This would be the single greatest strategic shift in US national security in decades. In a Trump Presidency, our foreign policy
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
11. ....would be this. "Leave our alliances, fall back on a nuclear first use policy." Does he understand just how F'ing dangerous that is?
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
12. But what really concerns me, as a former nuke guy, is the idea of a narcissist walking around with nuclear authenticators.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
13. I could sit 100ft underground, on alert, knowing that the POTUS would not make me do my duty -- not unless it was absolute last resort
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
14. But imagine having to turn launch keys not knowing if we were under attack or if it was b/c foreign leader said a mean thing on twitter
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
15. The power is there to kill millions. Permanently alter the geopolitical landscape. It is a sacred, sobering responsibility.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
16. Idea that nukes would be used, say over Raqqa or Mosul, simply because we have no more allies and it's a simple, easy fix is nauseating
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
17. Simply signaling that you're open to using strategic weapons as a tactical solution rewrites the rule book. Russia, China, others will
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
18. respond. Nuclear deterrence is about balance. Trump is an elephant jumping up and down on one side of the scale. So damn dangerous.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
19. But geopolitics aside, I can't get my mind off the young officers on nuke alert right now. Wondering if they'll soon answer to a madman.
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
20. And be asked to do a duty that should morally be asked of no human being, ever. //end
— John Noonan (@noonanjo) August 3, 2016
The Wall in Trump project is looking for enough money to rent the sandbags they'll require to build a 4' tall, 3' wide, quarter-million pound "wall of solidarity" around Trump Towers, using volunteer labor that will be welcomed regardless of whether you can prove US citizenship. (more…)
I was watching CNN tonight, and couldn’t believe my ears. There was Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s national spokesperson, Katrina Pierson, claiming — incredibly — that President Obama and Hillary Clinton had killed U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who died at the age of 27, during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004.
Khan is the son of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose appearance at the Democratic Convention last week has been a source of unending pain for Donald Trump.
Trump national spokesperson Katrina Pierson.
Let me repeat what Pierson just alleged on national TV: that Obama and Clinton killed Humayun Khan, who died in June of 2004, while George Bush was president, and while Hillary Clinton was still a US Senator from New York, and Barack Obama was still a state senator from Illinois.
(For those who don’t believe, I watched it live — Politico saw it too.)
Here’s what Pierson told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “It was under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that changed the rules of engagement that probably cost his life.”
U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in 2004 in a car bomb in Iraq at the age of 28.
Not really, Katrina. Unless Barack Obama was an exceptionally powerful state senator that he was able to influence US military policy in Iraq all the way from Springfield, Illinois.
And in a move that was particularly tasteless, Pierson also made the bizarre claim that the dead American hero’s father embraces Sharia law. Khan explained on Anderson Cooper’s show tonight that he most certainly does not.
Have these people no shame?
Follow me on Twitter: @aravosis
ElectrikmonkrjsPaul Ryan could have looked like a genius had he withheld his endorsement. Instead, he put party before country and endorsed trump
Bret Stephens, deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal's extremely right-wing editorial page, says that Republican big wigs who support and excuse Donald Trump's sadistic bullying will be lumped with supporters of "the foul names of America’s 20th century," such as "Huey Long, Charles Coughlin, Alger Hiss, Joe McCarthy, and Bull Connor." Despite his dislike of Clinton, Stephens thinks Clinton should and will win the election and that Americans will dump her after one term.
What makes Mr. Trump’s remarks so foul is their undisguised sadism. He took a woman too heartbroken and anxious to speak of her dead son before an audience of millions and painted a target on her. He treated her silence as evidence that she was either a dolt or a stooge. He degraded her. “She was standing there. She had nothing to say,” Mr. Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”
In this comment there was the full unmasking of Mr. Trump, in case he needed further unmasking. He has, as Humayun’s father Khizr put it, a “black soul.” His problem isn’t a lack of normal propriety but the absence of basic human decency. He is morally unfit for any office, high or low.
Most of the commenters on the WSJ page are very mad at Stephens for not being nice to Mr. Trump, the only person saving them from the unimaginable horror of a Clinton presidency.
Until the election, we're bringing you "The Trump Files," a daily dose of telling episodes, strange-but-true stories, or curious scenes from the life of GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Donald Trump isn't the only Trump in the world, but that fact apparently came as a surprise to Donald in 1984. That's when Trump got a letter from the publisher of Drug Store News welcoming him to the fraternity of chain drug store owners. But Trump hadn't bought Duane Reade or CVS. The letter was intended for a business called the Trump Group, run by South African-born developers Eddie and Jules Trump, which had recently bid for the Pay 'n Save chain.
Donald, to put it mildly, was not pleased. "The defendants are South Africans whose recent entrance in the New York area utilizing the name 'the Trump Group' can only be viewed as a poorly veiled attempt at trading on the goodwill, reputation and financial credibility of the plaintiff," read a lawsuit he quickly filed against the Trump Group. He lost that case but did succeed in having the Trump Group's trademark revoked in 1988.
That didn't hurt the other Trumps too much. The Real Deal, a New York real estate publication, noted in 2009 that Eddie and Jules, who still use the Trump Group name, have "quietly built an empire on luxury real estate development" in Florida and other places. Eddie was even placed 35th on a 2013 list of the world's 50 most "influential" rich people, a list on which Donald did not appear.
But there's no bad blood between the Trumps, even if Jules was an early $25,000 donor to Marco Rubio's super-PAC, according to Gawker. "I'm friends with them," Donald told the New York Times. "They're quality guys. They do quality developments."
"We're very boring," Jules told the Real Deal. "We're very different from Mr. Trump. He's much more interesting. Go write about him."
Read the rest of "The Trump Files":
When a woman who'd been arrested for failing to complete a diversion course stemming from a shoplifting charge was brought before Louisville, KY judge Amber Wolf with no pants on, the judge was horrified to learn that the arrestee had been held in custody for three days without a shower, without access to feminine hygiene products, and without pants. (more…)
2001 Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz has a long history of being on the right side of history. For example: pricing the Iraq war at $3T; raising the alarm about sovereign wealth funds acquiring US debt; nailing the double-standard on bailouts for debt crises (and the way that this destabilizes poor countries); sounding the alarm about austerity in times of recesssion; coming out early and strong over wealth concentration; calling for the imprisonment of the top executives at Barclays bank; and damning the TPP as "the worst trade deal ever." (more…)
It's been more than 16 years since faulty voting machine technology called into question a US presidential election, and in the ensuing 1.6 decades, the voting machine industry has used bafflegab, intimidation and salesmanship to continue selling faulty goods, whose flaws surface with despressing regularity. (more…)
There has already been more sustained protest activity in Philadelphia on the first day of the Democratic convention than there was during the entire Republican convention in Cleveland last week. Hundreds marched through blistering heat in downtown Philly on Sunday afternoon, and hundreds more marched Monday morning in favor of immigration reform and in support of Bernie Sanders. In Cleveland, despite predictions of greater unrest, no more than a couple of hundred protesters marched at any given time, and only 24 were arrested.
Perhaps the relative quiet in Cleveland was because of the overwhelming police presence there, or because estimates that "thousands" would protest at the Republican National Convention were wildly inflated—or both. But an additional factor could be that before and during the convention, the FBI intervened to make sure that any potential rabble-rousers remained quiet.
In late June, Mother Jones reported that FBI agents had stopped by the homes of several local Black Lives Matter and Occupy Cleveland activists to ask about their plans for the RNC. An FBI spokesperson told a Cleveland newspaper that the agents were conducting "community outreach as part of their security planning." Activists in other cities who have been prominent in speaking out against police killings of African Americans told the Washington Post that they had been visited as well.
The FBI apparently continued to call upon activists throughout the week of the RNC. Last Wednesday, the Ohio chapter of the National Lawyers Guild released a statement claiming that eight special agents from the FBI, with officers from a metro Cleveland police department, "raided a home without consent or presenting a warrant." The NLG said the raid appeared to be "part of a series of raids conducted" that morning.
When asked if the FBI activity had possibly quashed protests at the RNC, Jacqueline Green, co-coordinator of the NLG Ohio chapter and a Cleveland area civil rights and criminal defense attorney, replied, "I certainly think it had an effect." She noted that some reports to the NLG included law enforcement telling people not to go downtown to protest. An FBI spokesperson told Mother Jones that the agency never told participants not to go downtown.
Video has surfaced on YouTube of one of the raids that apparently took place on July 20, showing what appear to be FBI agents, Elyria Police, and Homeland Security investigators entering a home and forcing the occupants outside in their underwear:
"We can get a search warrant for this place if you want to," one of the law enforcement officers said (at 4:41 in the video). One of the men in the video was Rod Webber, a peace activist who had tried to calm tensions during the more heated debates in downtown Cleveland outside the RNC by offering everybody flowers.
Here's another view from that same interaction captured on the front porch of the house:
Special Agent Vicki Anderson, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Cleveland field office, told Mother Jones that the FBI and other agencies were following leads from the previous day that indicated that people in that house were throwing bottles of water and "possible bottles of urine" at law enforcement officials during mild protests in downtown Cleveland. She also said they had shoved and pushed law enforcement agents.
Law enforcement entered the house as part of a "protective sweep," she said, to make sure everybody in the house was accounted for and that any weapons in the home were secured. At least one of the men in the home said on the video that he had a gun and a concealed-carry permit; Anderson says someone else also had a weapon but "no search was conducted and no arrests were made."
She added that she didn't know the number of visits the FBI made to potential protesters before and during the convention and that no group had been targeted, but "numerous individuals from various groups were visited" to "encourage a safe and secure RNC event." She explained, "We [were] speaking to numerous groups with the same purpose in mind, maintaining an environment where all can assemble peacefully and exercise their right to free speech."
Juss, a local activist who preferred not to share her full name, told Mother Jones that she thinks the FBI came to her house because of her past activism around prison reform and the Occupy Cleveland movement. She says she didn't talk to the agent, who left a business card in her door, but expected the visit and said it seemed like an effort to intimidate activists.
"They visited people who aren't doing anything" and didn't pose a threat, she said. "They really don't know what they're doing. They're just wildly stabbing into the dark."
This morning on MSNBC, Rob Reiner presented a magnificent un-sugarcoated view of the Trump / Russia disaster:
ROB REINER: We talk about somebody coming from a reality show, running for President isn't a reality show, it's actual reality. And this man is the single most unqualified person to run for President in my lifetime.... (cheers from crowd) Just to hear what you just said, I mean, we had an entire Presidency taken down in the 70's over Watergate, and that was a break-in, to the National Democratic Headquarters, that didn't amount to anything! Because they didn't get anything! Here we have a break-in, to the Democratic National Headquarters where everything is stolen, and there's a conceivable connection to the Trump campaign. That to me, is just, off-the-charts insane! I mean, I can't believe we are having this conversation here. This is off-the-charts crazy. We're in Crazy Land, here.
TAMERON HALL: "Yes we are," someone here just yelled behind us.
Because Tameron Hall is not allowed, as an on-air cable news personality, to declare that there is a large steaming pile of dog turd infecting this Presidential race called Donald Trump. She has to bring on a comedian, and then repeat what some heckler says, in order to retain "objectivity."
At some point the media is going to have to admit, on air, and in real time, that hey, we just can't do this anymore.
We have been in "Crazy Land" before.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump today urged Russia to intervene in the US presidential election by stealing classified information.
As Hillary Clinton’s spokesman just noted on MSNBC, Trump openly invited Russia to engage in cyberattacks against the United States.
The goal: To obtain classified US intelligence information, and then use that information in order to help Trump win the presidential election.
Here’s the video, it just happened:
.@RealDonaldTrump on @HillaryClinton‘s emails: Russia, ‘I hope you find the 33,000 emails that are missing.’ pic.twitter.com/zlOhFme3X1
— POLITICO (@politico) July 27, 2016
Here’s the text of what Trump said:
“By the way, if they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do. they probably have her 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted. I will tell you this — Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
And lest anyone think Trump misspoke, he just doubled-down on his comments by issuing a tweet:
And then, MSNBC’s reporter Katy Tur asked Trump about this, three times — whether he didn’t have a problem asking a foreign government to intervene in our election. Trump told the reporter, a woman, to “be quiet,” and reiterated that he had no problem making the demand. This was no joke.
TPM has the back and forth between Trump and the reporter:
Later on in the presser, NBC News reporter Katy Tur asked Trump to clarify his remarks.
“Do you have any qualms about asking a foreign government, Russia, China, anybody, to interfere, to hack into a system of anybody’s in this country?” she asked.
“It’s up to the President. Let the President talk to them. Look, here’s the problem, here’s the problem, Katy. He has no respect –” Trump replied.
“You said, ‘I welcome them to find those 30,000 emails,’” Tur said before the mogul cut her off.
“Well, they probably have them. I’d like to have them released,” Trump said.
Tur asked again: “Does that not give you pause?”
“Nope, gives me no pause,” Trump fired back. “If they have them, they have them.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan is already putting some distance between himself and Trump:
What’s particularly disturbing is that this scenario is exactly what intelligence experts already think has happened — Russia has already committed a cyberattack against the Democratic National Committee, and is now slowly releasing the emails they stole in order to maximize the harm to Hillary Clinton, and maximize the benefit to Donald Trump’s campaign.
Follow me on Twitter: @aravosis — Win a pony! (not really)
ElectrikmonkrjsSomeone please ask him why thinks America isn't great.
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President, has announced plans to do an AMA on Reddit. Unlike most "ask me anything" events, however, this one is unofficial and unmoderated by Reddit's usual team on the r/IAMA subreddit. Instead, it will occur in a fan group, r/The_Donald, notorious for its users' fractious behavior and general abundance of seething meme-fueled pretend-laughter. (more…)
A Texas jailer tasked with watching Sandra Bland in her jail cell recently testified under oath that he lied about checking on her, and about a dozen other inmates, about an hour before she was found dead when in fact he did not, according the the Houston Chronicle.
Bland’s death was ruled a suicide.
Special prosecutors working the case reportedly knew the jail log records were falsified.
A PINAC News special investigation concluded last year that Bland’s death was the fault of her Texas jailers northwest of Houston, regardless of the actual cause of death which was officially ruled a suicide by hanging, because she was not treated for her epilepsy, for which she took the drug Keppra.
An attorney representing Waller County told the Chronicle the guard’s falsification of records was taken out of context and just “a small portion of that testimony.”
“Numerous depositions have been taken in the case involving dozens of hours of testimony,” Larry Simmons, an attorney for Bland’s mother, stated. “It is a gross miscarriage of justice and misinterpretation for any party to cherry-pick or mischaracterize a small portion of that testimony, and take it out of context.”
Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, is currently pursuing a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging Bland’s death was a result of willful and wanton negligence by Waller County and its officials, among other allegations.
Bland was arrested and jailed over a failing to signal a turn, which normally involves a simple citation, by Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia.
Encinia since been fired and charged with perjury, after a grand jury did not believe his story claiming he removed Bland from her vehicle to ‘conduct a safer traffic stop’.
Dashcam video shows Encinia enraged at Bland and holding a stun gun at her yelling, “I will light you up!” after she refused to get out of her car and put out her cigarette.
Encinia later falsely alleged in his report that Bland assaulted him in order to justify arresting her, which is a common tactic police use for contempt of cop.
Video evidence showed that to be false.
Last June, two Williamson County Texas Jailers were arrested for tampering with government records after they falsified Suicide Watch Logs by initialing the logs and falsifying the times without actually performing checks on the inmates.
In that case, Theodore Hodges, 22, and Jose Hodgers-Lizarraga, 23 allegedly violated state law and the Sheriff’s Office policy and were each issued a $20,000 bond.
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards cited Waller County jail last July for not checking on inmates but didn’t say if the citation was related to Bland’s death.
In Texas, all inmates must be observed once every 60 minutes.
And any inmate determined suicidal must be observed in person every 30 minutes, Executive Director Brandon Wood said.
As of yet, no one has been charged in relation to Bland’s death at the jail.
Below is dash cam footage of Bland’s arrest, which shows Texas Trooper Brian Encinia becoming engaged after Bland refused to put out her cigarette.
Texas Law Enforcement is to Blame for Sandra Bland’s Death (Podcast)
The post Texas Jailer Responsible for Sandra Bland Testified Under Oath he Falsified Jail Log appeared first on PINAC News.
In a new working paper from the Center for Economic Policy Research, scholars look at the trading records of shareholders, directors and top executives of major financial institutions in the runup to the crash of 2007, and find that the sell-offs by the top five executives at a bank strongly correlated with that bank's losses in the crash, but that other stakeholders' trading do not correlate: in other words, the very top brass of banks knew that they were sitting on piles of worthless paper and sold before anyone else knew about it, and kept their shareholders, direct reports, and the board of directors in the dark. (more…)
The House Homeland Security Committee Majority Staff Report has just published its investigation on aviation security, and the title really tells you everything you need to know: MISCONDUCT AT TSA THREATENS THE SECURITY OF THE FLYING PUBLIC. (more…)
For my money, this is the best video of the morning for this particular Sunday.
Fareed Zakaria takes apart the Republican Party's view of America as somehow collapsing as compared to the 1950's and 60's. He points out that in terms of energy production, the terrorism rate, the homicide rate, victimization of children, the unemployment rate...
...and EVEN the migration from Mexico into the United States, which is now ZERO...
The United States is far better off than it was in the so-called "golden age" that Republicans promise will rise again if they are in power.
"I know that fed on a diet of hype, hysteria, and relentless attacks, people don't feel this way, but it is time to point out, that doesn't make it true. Facts are facts. There is no "golden age" to go back to. What America do we want to return to? The 1950's when marginal tax rates were 91%, and in many states women could not become doctors and lawyers, and African Americans couldn't sit at the same lunch counters as whites? The 1960's where the country was consumed by war and crises? The 1970's where stagflation robbed the average American of income and opportunity?
America IS great. A country of openness, diversity, tolerance, and innovation. Of course it has problems, as do all countries, of course it can be greater still. But not if it succumbs to anger, hatred, division, and despair."
Zakaria expands upon these thoughts, tying them directly to Trump's Republican Convention, in The Washington Post:
Big news in sports and civil rights. The US’ National Basketball Association (NBA) has decided to move next year’s All-Star basketball game from the city of Charlotte, North Carolina because of a draconian anti-LGBT law recently passed in that state.
The impact of the NBA’s decision cannot be overstated. This could cost Charlotte $100 million in revenue from the game, and it will likely fuel other events to now pull out of the state, as the boycott had already been gaining ground even before this news.
The law at the heart of the controversy, HB2, does a number of distasteful things:
The transgender provision is especially silly, and offensive.
It’s a bit complicated, but in a nutshell, your “gender identity” is how you self-identify your gender. Do you see yourself as male or female? Your gender identity is not based on what gender you look like, male or female, or what sex organs you may or may not possess. It is based on who you know, in your hearts of hearts, that you are.
Thus, the new law is going to require that trans women, who have not had sexual reassignment surgery, use men’s bathrooms. And vice-versa for trans men. And that gets particularly problematic in the case of, say, a trans man who has not had sexual reassignment surgery — so his birth certificate says “female” — but who is undergoing hormone replacement therapy (aka receiving testosterone). That trans man is going to look like every other man. And when he enters a woman’s bathroom in accordance with North Carolina law, all bearded and hair-chested, women are going to freak out. (Though it does offer some delicious opportunities for civil disobedience, or rather, civil obedience.)
It’s really amazing the extent to which this move has backfired on North Carolina. It was only a few month’s ago that the LGBT rights movement was scratching its collective head trying to figure out how to effectively respond to the new law. Now, it’s clear that the law is toxic, and corporate America, and others, are on our side.
Follow me on Twitter: @aravosis — Win a pony! (not rea
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has just filed a lawsuit that challenges the Constitutionality of Section 1201 of the DMCA, the "Digital Rights Management" provision of the law, a notoriously overbroad law that bans activities that bypass or weaken copyright access-control systems, including reconfiguring software-enabled devices (making sure your IoT light-socket will accept third-party lightbulbs; tapping into diagnostic info in your car or tractor to allow an independent party to repair it) and reporting security vulnerabilities in these devices. (more…)
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The Republican Party's 2016 platform, released on Monday at its national convention in Cleveland, has sections called "A New Era in Energy" and "Environmental Progress." Both titles are inaccurate. Perhaps they're meant sarcastically?
If you want a guide to what Republicans would do with full control of the federal government, you couldn't get a better one than this 2,400-word part of the platform. Like the EPA/Department of Interior spending bill House Republicans passed last week, it makes the GOP's incredibly radical agenda crystal clear: deregulate pollution, halt any action to prevent climate change, and expand fossil fuel use.
Here are the 11 biggest lowlights:
Cancel the Clean Power Plan. This plan—the EPA's program to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants—is the most important piece of President Barack Obama's climate agenda. The GOP platform dismisses it as part of "the President's war on coal": "The Democratic Party does not understand that coal is an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource. Those who mine it and their families should be protected from the Democratic Party's radical anti-coal agenda." As Grist's Rebecca Leber noted, this language comes almost verbatim from a pro-coal lobbying group. To call coal "clean" is just a falsehood. In addition to its massive carbon footprint, the burning of coal leads tons of conventional pollution such as smog, soot, and acid rain.
Build the Keystone XL pipeline and more like it. "We intend to finish that pipeline and others as part of our commitment to North American energy security." Republicans have long been fixated on how awesome Keystone would be, even though current gasoline prices might make it not worth building. If gas prices spike, though, Keystone approval could have major consequences for the climate as it would help bring more super-dirty tar-sands oil to market. This plank is basically the opposite of the Democratic platform's call for the next administration to use a "Keystone test" and reject infrastructure projects that will exacerbate climate change.
Kill federal fracking regulations. Because nothing should stand in the way of fossil fuel development.
"Oppose any carbon tax." Many conservative policy wonks support a carbon tax as the most market-friendly, efficient way to reduce carbon emissions. The Republican Party, though, is determined to quash anyone's hopes of a bipartisan compromise on climate action.
Expedite export terminals for liquefied natural gas. To liquefy gas, ship it across the ocean, and re-gasify it uses a lot of energy and results in a huge carbon footprint. Republicans want more of this.
Abolish the EPA as we know it. The platform calls for turning the EPA into "an independent bipartisan commission" and shifting responsibility for environmental regulation to the states. This would remove the federal government's ability to study the effects of pollution and establish safe standards. In a particularly Orwellian touch, the Republicans promise that a kneecapped EPA would adhere to "structural safeguards against politicized science." That actually means safeguards against scientific findings they don't like. In other words, they would politicize the science.
Stop environmental regulatory agencies from settling lawsuits out of court. Huh? Republicans have been pushing this for a while. Here's what it's about: When an agency doesn't do its job of enforcing a law like the Clean Air Act—often the case, especially under Republican administrations—environmental groups sue to force it to. If the agency thinks it will lose, it may then reach a settlement and agree to do its job going forward. That's what the platform aims to prevent. Fighting in court until every last appeal is dead can make cases drag on for years, and Republicans want to get away with not regulating polluters for as long as possible.
"Forbid the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide." This one pretty much speaks for itself. It would wipe out the agency's ability to reduce emissions and slow climate change.
Turn federal lands over to states. "Congress should give authority to state regulators to manage energy resources on federally controlled public lands within their respective borders," the platform declares. The federal government controls huge swaths of land in the West and already leases much of it for oil, gas, and coal extraction. The platform is quite open about the fact that Republicans think states will extract more rapaciously. That's precisely the point. And ultimately they want the land entirely under state control: "Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing for a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to states." It's unclear which lands they are talking about, but it's a safe bet that they mean those that could generate the most money through their despoiling.
Revoke the ability of the president to designate national monuments. The platform calls for amending the Antiquities Act of 1906 to require congressional approval for new national monuments, and it also calls for state approval of new monuments or national parks. So there would be no more Democratic presidents protecting a sensitive, beautiful, or historically significant area from development if Republicans control Congress or the state where it is located.
Halt funding for the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UNFCCC is the treaty system through which the world's 195 nations work together to avoid catastrophic climate change. To defund it would undermine the Paris Agreement that was struck last December and throw a huge wrench into global climate progress. That's the point. The platform explicitly states, "We reject the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement."
There's also some random small-bore stuff, like opposition to listing the gray wolf or the lesser prairie chicken as endangered species. There are a ton of right-wing talking points, like declaring the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution." And there are additional paeans to the virtues of increased fossil fuel extraction.
In one particularly impressive rhetorical backflip, after the platform calls for virtually eliminating all environmental protections, it then says, "The environment is too important to be left to radical environmentalists." But most Americans support regulations for clean air, clean water, and reducing climate pollution. The real radicals are the anti-government extremists who would reverse 45 years of environmental progress.
This is a document aimed squarely at appeasing the party's base. If nothing else, you have to credit the Republicans for their audacity. No wonder most of the GOP members of Congress who accept climate science are skipping the convention this year.
Smiling voters unfolded chairs or stretched on the grassy slope overlooking the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland Monday. They were there to participate in the first big pro-Trump rally of the GOP convention and to listen to speakers such as far-right luminary Roger Stone and conspiracy shock jock Alex Jones.
Trump's famous slogan is obviously "Make America Great Again," but I wanted to know from his most die-hard fans: Exactly when did America stop being great? The video above paints a picture of voters who feel like the very idea of "America" as they know it is slipping away—voters who worry that their values and freedoms are under attack from politicians and the press. "The mainstream media wants to tell us that somehow we're racist or we're discriminatory or we're misogynist," said Rhona Welsch, a 55-year-old food and beverage worker at a Hawaii resort. "It's just not true."
Jane Mayer has once again written the must-read article of the 2016 election season, this time about Tony Schwartz, the writer who ghost-wrote Trump's Art of the Deal. It is a chilling, devastating and revealing interview.
Here's a taste, but just read the whole thing.
“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”
If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”
Schwartz also expressed his concern about Trump's fitness for office. “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes, there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization,” he said.
Schwartz also appeared on ABC's Good Morning America this morning to reinforce his regret and his concern.
Right after tonight's convention festivities were over, people on social media began to notice that Melania Trump's speech was oddly familiar.
CORRECTION: Melania stole a whole graph from Michelle's speech. #GOPConvention
WATCH: https://t.co/8BCOwXAHSy pic.twitter.com/zudpDznGng— Jarrett Hill (@JarrettHill) July 19, 2016
As you'll see from MSNBC's mashup above, they are identical with the exception of two words. Melania left out the words "and dignity" from her speech. Otherwise, they're exactly the same.
MSNBC pundits jumped on it. Lawrence O'Donnell outright called it plagiarism. Steve Schmidt said it was incompetent. Meanwhile, Joy Ann Reid absolutely ripped the campaign and the pundits for giving Melania Trump a pass on this, given that she volunteered that she wrote the speech herself. Reid pointed out that no media would have given Michelle Obama a pass on that, but they seem to be willing to gloss over her claim of writing it in favor of blaming some unnamed speechwriter.
Regardless, that portion of the speech was lifted from their arch-rival's wife -- the current First Lady of the United States.
Well played. That's what they'll talk about tomorrow. Not the hatefest. Melania Trump's speech plagiarism.
On Monday morning in Cleveland, as the Republican National Convention prepared to convene and nominate Donald Trump for president, a group of Democratic lawmakers and lawyers hosted their own event a mile up the road to highlight Republican efforts to curtail the right to vote around the country—and to make sure that all Democrats who are eligible to vote turn up to cast a ballot.
"This is the most consequential election in my lifetime," said Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.). He stressed the importance of this election in terms of the Supreme Court, immigration and the DREAM Act, women's rights, and voting rights. He urged the nearly 100 people attending the rally to vote, even if their preferred candidate hadn't made it through the primaries.
"They can sit back if they want to and pout and be mad because 'my person didn't win the primary,'" Clyburn said. "Well, let me tell you something: Being from South Carolina, I've been voting for the lesser of two evils all my life. It's time for y'all to vote for the lesser of two evils."
Ohio has been especially hard hit by efforts to restrict voting. In late May, a federal judge blocked a law that halted state Republican efforts to curtail "Golden Week," a week during which voters can register to vote and submit early ballots at the same time. That measure was one of at least nine bills proposed in the Ohio legislature since 2013 that made it harder to register to vote or have a ballot counted in the case of an innocent mistake such as transposing numbers in a zip code or misprinting one's birthday on a voter registration form. One bill would have pulled state funding to public universities if those schools provided students with a voter ID.
Clyburn was joined by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Ohio State Rep. Stephanie Howse, former US Department of Justice voting rights lawyer Julie Fernandes, Mike Brickner of the ACLU of Ohio, and Camille Wimbish, the election administration director for Ohio Voice, an advocacy organization for underrepresented populations. The group gathered for "the United State of Voting," a town hall meeting on voting rights hosted by Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) at Cleveland State University, about a mile from the Quicken Loans Arena where the convention is being held. Moderated by MSNBC's Joy Reid, the event focused on efforts in Ohio and other places around the country to limit access to the polls, particularly for African Americans and other minority communities.
Access to the ballot is a key issue in 2016. It's the first presidential election since the Supreme Court gutted the pre-clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, which required some states with a history of racial discrimination to submit to federal review before making any changes to voting laws or procedures. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 17 states will have new voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election this fall. These restrictions include requirements for voter IDs, reductions in early voting times, and restrictions on counting ballots that were cast in the wrong precinct.
This year, a federal judge upheld a sweeping set of voting restrictions that North Carolina passed in 2013, which local advocates said disenfranchised minority communities. In Texas, a federal appeals court is set to rule any day on whether state Republicans can push through a strict voter ID law. And in Virginia, state Republicans are suing the governor after he used an executive action to restore the right to vote for more than 200,000 convicted felons.
Several panelists noted that because elections are run by the states, many restrictions were passed in state legislatures. Ohio State Rep. Stephanie Howse said that in her state, party registration is divided equally, but representation in the state legislature is roughly two-thirds Republican overall. She said that was the reason why a series of bills aimed at restricting the right to vote have been brought up in the legislature over the last few years, and why attempts to work across the aisle to prevent harmful voting restrictions were unsuccessful.
"You could have all the data that you want, you could have all the facts that says this is good for the people, but then they say, 'Okay, tabled, tabled, tabled, tabled,'" Howse said. "Or it doesn't even go through the process."
Fernandes, the former Justice Department lawyer, said helping voters is about changing the mindset. "What is voting anyway?" she asked. "Is it a right, or is it a privilege?"
Clyburn said that to him, it's clear where congressional Republicans stand. "As recently as yesterday, I heard a few of my friends on the other side emphasizing that voting is not a right, it's a privilege," he said. "That is being emphasized throughout this entire campaign."
When the Supreme Court struck down the Voting Rights Act in 2015, we learned that the 2016 election would be the first in two generations without the basic protections for equal voting rights for all people. (more…)
Fox Business' Stuart Varney, a much beloved and frequent guest on many Fox News programs, flailed around like a twitter troll trying to upend Occidental College political scientist Caroline Heldman's arguments that the real immorality in our economic system is income inequality.
She made the point that Republican administrations are responsible for debt and deficits much more so than Democratic ones which didn't go over well for Varney.
Varney never used any facts as he wailed like an injured baboon, his defense of the uber wealthy came from nothing more than him repeating how immoral it is to tax the wealthy over 50% of their income.
When Heldman gave him examples of how high taxation didn't stunt growth or hurt the economy, Varney sounded like a child and said basically, "No he didn't."
Varney, "Where has this ever worked? Can you show me an economy which does what you have said it should do..."
"Yes, the 90's. The 90's and Bill Clinton." She followed by saying, "If you look at Obama's economy, he's not only pulled us out of a catastrophic liquidity crisis. We also have remarkable growth given what he inherited."
"He didn't pull us out of market liquidity crisis, alright...I can see we're failing on this one.."
"He certainly did."
"No, he didn't. It was the federal reserve which pulled us out of the liquidity crisis, not President Obama."
"Who do you think runs the national government? The president."
