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“…jury awarded a Glen Burnie family $1.26 million Tuesday after deciding that an Anne Arundel County police officer wrongly shot and killed their dog in 2014, attorneys for the family said.
Attorney Cary J. Hansel called the shooting of Michael Reeves’ dog, Vernon, by Officer Rodney Price “senseless, unnecessary and unconstitutional.”
“The verdict sends a strong message to the police about … community expectations,” Hansel said in a prepared statement. “The duty to serve and protect extends to our animal family members as well.”
Anne Arundel County officials declined to comment. In 2014, an internal investigation exonerated Price and found that the dog was aggressive. Price is still an officer with the department, according to a police spokesman.
Vern was shot on Feb. 1, 2014. Price said he was attacked by Vern at the Reeves home. The jury found that the officer was not attacked by the dog, and that the shooting violated Vern’s owner’s constitutional rights and was committed with gross negligence, Hansel said.
At the time, police said Price shot and killed the dog while investigating a burglary. Price, a one-year veteran of the force at the time, was canvassing the neighborhood looking for witnesses..
When Price went to a home in 900 block of Lombardee Circle in Glen Burnie, the dog — a male Chesapeake Bay retriever — “confronted” the officer in the front yard, police said. Price then fired his weapon twice, killing the dog.
The police department promised a full investigation and acknowledged that the shooting was a traumatic incident for the family.
Kevin Davis, who was then Anne Arundel County police chief, met with the Reeves family and offered his condolences.
The $1.26 million verdict includes $500,000 in monetary damages. Reeves works as a defense contractor, Hansel said, and the shooting caused him to miss a significant amount of time from work. The remaining $760,000 in damages was for the anguish caused by the shooting.
http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/for_the_record/ph-ac-cn-vern-lawsuit-0510-20170509-story.html
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVnsd7tB_Gk/
YES; because ANIMALS LIVES MATTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did you read where the police chief went over and apologized..and even acknowledged the ‘pain’ caused…
No such luck for black families of their numerous
victims..
Here’s Mr. anti-war, anti-surveillance…pro-whistleblowers…Advocating for Putin and the war and killings in Syria…and talking about fishing out who ‘leaked’ about Russian interference in our elections…And sympathetic with Trump over how he’s been treated… and the attempts to ‘delegitimize’ him..
What’s funny is that I’ve watched several interviews where they ask him if he’s spoken to Trump recently…he NEVER really answers directly, only offering that he ‘directed him in a movie’…and distracting by talking about how much of it ended up on the cutting floor…He NEVER does answer the question beyond this same slick response – in every instance when he’s asked..
Beware your ‘heroes’, ‘allies’…and all manner of faux-self-righteous and dubious types operating under the general and variously convenient and selective umbrella of ‘progressive’…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mTmWCYj-mlE
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-H6YRitVj3g
“…there is a significant component of muslims in Russia…there is a possibility that the young people may be affected by muslims preaching hatred and this form of terrorism…that’s what concerns Russia..”
Oliver Stone alt-rightsplaining Putin’s war on behalf of Syrian…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eiuplgzbCC4
Oliver Stone vouches for Putin and Russia, and even Putin’s war in Syria to ‘prevent’ those bloody ‘Muslims’ in his country from being ‘affected’ by the ‘Muslim hate and that form of terrorism’ that could seep in otherwise..
And oh, the Human Rights Organization according to Stone, is little more than ‘propaganda’ by the United States to advance and justify their wars..
But, Oliver Stone is also just so disillusioned by the lack of criticism of ‘the Obamas’…and the focus only on ‘the republicans and Trump’..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nBKiqhJpDQk
https://youtu.be/vt89rP2BxI0?t=1m17s
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NMg—JD86U
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvMWBP7d2RU
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k6XQOD-7VhA
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nG8mRoXGAjU
These Putin/Stone vids are a revelation into the Sordid, Pathetic, Continuous, ass-kissing, White-plaining fuckery of white men. Stone’s a conspiracy theorist, loser, who is looking to score attention and $$$$ in the age of #45 & GOP THUGGERY.
WHITE SUPREMACY TALKING POINTS.
Thank you!
And not only the worst sort of flagrant hypocrisy, but an unbelievably arrogant display of faux self-righteousness of the warped, manipulative, sociopathic, entitled white supremacist persuasion..
Micah got his negro wake up call last night on OWN’s “Queen Sugar.”
night 2 premiers at 9 tonite!
https://youtu.be/eBeWrDWzV2Q?t=1m
“…Donald Trump apparently doesn’t have many friends in Alphabet’s executive ranks.
Speaking during an employee meeting at Alphabet’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. last week, Schmidt reportedly took aim at Trump and his administration, saying that it’s “going to do these evil things as they’ve done in the immigration area and perhaps some others.” Schmidt’s comments came alongside similarly sharp words from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, among other executives…”
http://fortune.com/2017/01/31/eric-schmidt-trump-evil-things/
“…In just a few short months, the Trump wrecking ball has pounded away at rules and regulations in virtually every government agency. The men and women the president has appointed to the Cabinet and to head those agencies are so far in sycophantic lockstep, engaged in dismantling years of protections in order to make real what White House strategist Steve Bannon infamously described as “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”
The Federal Communications Commission is not immune. Its new chair, Republican Ajit Pai, embraces the Trump doctrine of regulatory devastation. “It’s basic economics,” he declared in an April 26 speech at Washington’s Newseum. “The more heavily you regulate something, the less of it you’re likely to get.”
His goal is to stem the tide of media reform that in recent years has made significant progress for American citizens. Even as we rely more than ever on digital media for information, education and entertainment, Pai and his GOP colleagues at the FCC seek to turn back the clock and increase even more the corporate control of cyberspace.
Net neutrality, the guarantee of an internet open to all, rich or poor, without preferential treatment, was codified by the FCC in 2015. Pai — a former lawyer for Verizon — wants net neutrality reversed and has taken the first steps toward its elimination. He has abandoned media ownership rules and attacked such FCC innovations as the Lifeline program that subsidizes broadband access for low income Americans. Among other rollbacks, he also has opposed rules capping the exorbitant cost of prison phone calls (that cap was overturned on June 13 by the US Court of Appeals).
A veteran of the FCC, Michael Copps vehemently opposes Pai’s master plan to strengthen the grip of big business on our media. Copps served two terms as a commissioner, including a brief period as interim chair. He also has taught history..
The transcript that follows has been edited for length and clarity:
Michael Copps: [CBS CEO Les] Moonves said it best: “I don’t know if Donald Trump is good for the country. but he’s damn good for CBS.” The election was just a glorified reality show and I do not think it was an aberration. Until we get that big picture straightened out and we get a civic dialogue that’s worthy of the American people and that actually advances citizens’ ability to practice the art of self-government — that informs citizens so they can cast intelligent votes and we stop making such damn-fool decisions — we’re in serious trouble.
MW: So how do you characterize the Trump administration’s attitude toward communications issues?
True journalism can do more than anything else to push aside fake news.
MC: This is not populism; this is a plutocracy. Trump has surrounded himself with millionaires and billionaires, plus some ideologues who believe in, basically, no government. And the Trump FCC already has been very successful in dismantling lots of things — not just the net neutrality that they’re after now, but privacy, and Lifeline, which is subsidized broadband for those who can’t afford it. And just all sorts of things up and down the line. The whole panoply of regulation and public interest oversight — if they could get rid of it all, they would; if they can, they will.
I think the April 26 speech that Ajit Pai gave at the Newseum, which was partially funded, I think, by conservative activist causes, was probably the worst speech I’ve ever heard a commissioner or a chairman of the FCC give. It was replete with distorted history and a twisted interpretation of judicial decisions. And then, about two-thirds of the way through, it became intensely political and ideological, and he was spouting all this Ronald Reagan nonsense — if the government is big enough to do what you want, it’s big enough to take away everything you have, and all that garbage. It was awful.
It’s maybe the worst FCC I’ve ever seen or read about.
MW: How much of all this do you think is just simply the idea of destroying anything supported by the Obama White House? Is it that simple?
MC: Well, I think that some of it is the ego problem, but I think it goes beyond that. I think there is that right wing, pro-business, invisible hand ideology, and then there’s just the unabashed and unprecedented and disgusting level of money in politics. I don’t blame just the Republicans; the Democrats are just about as beholden to it, too.
MW: What are the implications for free speech?
MC: They are huge. If you have an internet service provider [ISP] that’s capable of slowing down other sites, or putting other sites out of business, or favoring their own friends and affiliates and customers who can pay for fast lanes, that’s a horrible infringement on free speech. It’s censorship by media monopolies.
It’s tragic: here we have a technology, the internet, that’s capable really of being the town square of democracy, paved with broadband bricks, and we are letting it be taken over by a few gatekeepers. This is a first amendment issue; it’s free speech versus corporate censorship…”
http://billmoyers.com/story/michael-copps-fcc-ajit-pai-worst-ever/
“…Donald Trump apparently doesn’t have many friends in Alphabet’s executive ranks.
Speaking during an employee meeting at Alphabet’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. last week, Schmidt reportedly took aim at Trump and his administration, saying that it’s “going to do these evil things as they’ve done in the immigration area and perhaps some others.” Schmidt’s comments came alongside similarly sharp words from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, among other executives, according to BuzzFeed News, which obtained a copy of the meeting’s transcript from an unidentified source…”
http://fortune.com/2017/01/31/eric-schmidt-trump-evil-things/
“..And then they go and create competitors to our companies…”
It’s never going to be about the country or the general good…It’s always going to be about self-interest, them and their bottom lines and tax breaks and cushy lives…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVnmGw3Djlw/
KING: We’re losing the battle against police brutality in America
Shaun King
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, June 21, 2017, 2:05 PM
It’s hard for me to write this, but we must be honest about our status in the fight against police brutality in America. We are losing. I have two primary metrics for that conclusion. First, 2017 is on pace to be the deadliest year ever measured for the number of people killed by police in our country. We can never claim to be winning the battle against police brutality if American police are killing more and more people. Period. Secondly, even the most egregious officers, in the most heinous cases of police violence, with the most overwhelming evidence, are still beating the charges against them.
I can get granular about it. I monitor nearly 50 different metrics regarding police brutality and injustice in America. All of them matter — from the introduction of new policies in local police departments, to the election of district attorneys who are willing to aggressively prosecute police. The battle to reduce police violence in America is a complicated one. But at the end of the day, if more people are being killed by police this year than any other year and the most rotten apples among America’s police still aren’t being held accountable, then we are losing.
I am losing. This isn’t me pointing the fingers at activists or organizations. I am right in the middle of this fight. I’ve marched. I’ve protested. I’ve organized. I’ve taught. I’ve petitioned. I’ve donated. I’ve lobbied. I’ve voted. I’ve campaigned. I’ve presented. I’ve written. I’ve tweeted. I’ve Facebooked. I’ve strategized. I’ve televised. I’ve radioed. For three straight years, I’ve thrown everything I’ve known to throw at the problem of police brutality in America, and by all measures, the problem is now worse than it was before I did any of those things.
We are losing. We are being outspent, out-organized, and out-maneuvered by an unjust system that is so deeply entrenched and so well fortified with the principles of white supremacy, racism and classism that in spite of all of our collective efforts, injustice marches on. It isn’t skipping a beat.
…The odds of an officer being convicted for murder in a police shooting is approaching lottery ticket levels. It’s that bad.
I did not say all of this to lament or wallow in self-pity — never that. I said all of that to say that we need a change of direction. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say that anything we’ve done is wrong. We should protest. We should petition and march and vote. We should do all of those things, but they just aren’t enough to make a systemic shift in the problem. Maybe if we weren’t doing all of those things the problem would’ve spiraled even farther out of control — we’ll never know — but what I do know if that families who deserve justice don’t have it and the threat of police brutality is more problematic than ever.
…
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-losing-battle-police-brutality-america-article-1.3266056
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVnpB-xBDjf/
Wow. What are they going for here? Another Freddie Gray?
Breathtaking scene from Moonlight. The break, when someone got pushed too far for too long…
The boiler -plate RAGE is the end product of built up frustrations, fears, anxiety, and anger. That mix of emotions are a recipe for extreme stress, illness, and finally DEATH.
It’ a vicious cycle of victims taking on the assault of other victims. There are no winners either way. It just adds more fuel to the inferno of anger, unless these emotions are processed and transformed one cannot be spiritually FREE
Yanez, the jurors in Castile murder and trial, they are agents for the negative forces, as is #45.
Agreed. On every point.
GOP falsely claims Dems did ‘exactly the same thing’ on health care
06/21/17 10:46 AM
By Steve Benen
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has raised concerns about his party’s approach to health care and the process in which the GOP bill is being crafted, but he felt compelled to tell reporters yesterday that congressional Democrats did “exactly the same thing” when putting together the Affordable Care Act several years ago.
Reminded that his claim is ridiculously untrue, Paul replied, “I’m not going to debate you.”
That’s not surprising. People caught in a lie rarely welcome an in-depth discussion of the topic on which they’re trying to deceive people.
To be sure, if Paul and his Republican colleagues were correct – if Democrats really did write “Obamacare” in secret, bypass committees, refuse to hold hearings, shut out industry stakeholders and subject-matter experts, shield the proposal from any kind of public scrutiny – then GOP officials would be justified to pursue their current strategy. Indeed, everyone involved could credibly blame Democrats for creating an awful standard for American governance.
Reality, however, is stubborn. The Huffington Post’s Jonathan Cohn explained yesterday:
UH UH UH
Ah of course. A nanny tax break. Perfect. https://t.co/oghkArDepE
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) June 21, 2017
Ivanka’s child tax credit will cost $500 billion over a decade and favor wealthier families with two working parents who use paid help… https://t.co/q2pj98IIcr
— Adam Khan (@Khanoisseur) June 20, 2017
Party constantly whining about Nanny State will use ur hard earned tax $ so State can pay 4, wait 4 it, nannies 4 the rich.#MaryPoppinsTax
— Douglas Connors (@calmecam) June 21, 2017
Leave your kids at home to go and look after the rich people’s kids so they can get a break & a tax break. You know it makes perfect sense.
— Salim Pickens (@SalimPickens) June 21, 2017
Because people who can afford to hire nannies are burdened by their taxes #whereisRobinHood
— Joanne Cone (@jordangel2981) June 21, 2017
Who among us isn’t struggling to afford that second au pair?
— AngelSil (@angelsil_tpa) June 21, 2017
Meanwhile those nannies will have no healthcare.
— Josh Polanski (@BipedalPrime8) June 21, 2017
This Marine served five combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan… next week he’ll be homeless. Please RT.https://t.co/YOQAGoiCQ3
— factbox.tv (@hotchkiss_jon) June 20, 2017
GOOD
Congressional Black Caucus Refuses To Meet With Trump And Be His Publicity Props #TheResistance https://t.co/qSYz98K92R
— Jasper (@JSavoly) June 21, 2017
Probably won’t care or notice…
With each passing day and feeling of a strengthening grip on the controls of the system, the emboldening deepens…eliminating the continued need for modified/choreographed appearances …that appear to give a damn …or the need to appeal to minorities/’the blacks’ to prove that buffoon and kkklan aren’t indeed racist ..
The need to place token black props a.k.a ‘the blacks’, in the alt-right buffoon’s, birther 3rd wife and daughter-wife photo-ops, gets less and less…as he and his kkklan and alt-right cohorts increasingly find their footing, become more at home in the people’s house, and stake their ill-gotten place…and are normalized and talked up, and rallied around and protected and given cover for their brazen corruption and treason, by all manner of white folks, self-loathing minorities, various dubious agenda-driven foreign despots —all looking for their versions of tax breaks, deals, access and mutual validation…Even as all the other cowards look on..
Why Moral Victories Matter in Special Elections
by Nancy LeTourneau
June 21, 2017 9:47 AM
I can guarantee you that any Democrat who claims a “moral victory” in any of the special elections that have happened this year will be drowned out with claims that winning is all that matters. There is some truth in that. As in most competitions, coming in second doesn’t count for much.
But special elections don’t matter all that much in and of themselves. The reason they garner so much attention is because they are seen as harbingers of what is to come in midterm and general elections. Beyond winning, it is important to keep that in mind when analyzing the results.
So what can we learn from the special elections in Georgia and South Carolina yesterday, combined with what happened in Kansas and Montana earlier this year?
The first thing to keep in mind is the reason there was a special election in the first place. All of these seats opened up because the representative was chosen by Donald Trump to serve in his administration. In other words, they were previously held by Ray Zinke, Mike Pompeo, Mick Mulvaney and Tom Price. That makes all of these districts solid red in their leanings. Here’s a look at the history in Georgia’s 6th:
GOP margins in GA-6 House races:
1992 +16
94 +28
96 +16
98 +42
99 *
00 +50
02 +60
04 *
06 +45
08 +37
10 *
12 +30
14 +32
16 +24
17 ?
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) June 20, 2017
We can now fill in that last number. Karen Handel won by 4 percent. A lot of people will point to the fact that Ossoff performed worse that Clinton in the presidential race, where Trump won the district 48-47. But that is the point. In 2012, Obama lost this same district by 23 points. Donald Trump and the Republicans are hemorrhaging support in a district that not only elected Tom Price, but Newt Gingrich for years. Looking at the forest instead of the trees tells us that doesn’t portend well for them. Here is how David Wasserman captured that when it comes to all four special elections this year:
Hannity: A ‘Sinister,’ ‘Soft Coup Is Underway’ Against Trump
By NICOLE LAFOND
Published JUNE 21, 2017 11:03 AM
Fox News host Sean Hannity touted a conspiracy theory on his show Tuesday — that President Donald Trump may soon be the victim of a “soft coup.” Hannity alleged “sinister forces” are aligning to remove Trump from office.
In his opening monologue, Hannity said he believes the country is facing a “clear and present danger” as key forces unite against the President.
“A soft coup is underway right here in the United States of America, in an attempt to overturn November’s election results and forcibly remove a duly elected President from office,” he said.
He said Americans are facing five “dangers,” including the “destroy Trump media that has been lying to you now, provable lies for 11 months, nonstop” and the “deep state,” which has been selectively leaking information to damage Trump and his administration.
He called special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, into whether the President’s campaign associates worked with Russia to swing results of the 2016 election, “mission creepy” and an “out of control, political witch hunt” that needs to be stopped.
Hannity, sit your crusty ass down too. The only ‘sinister forces’ out there are you, #45 & Company.
ALL these sleaze balls are beating the drum to stop Robert Mueller & his investigation.
WE SEE YOU
David Brooks, Derp and the Poverty of Trump-Russia ‘Hot Takes’
By JOSH MARSHALL
Published JUNE 21, 2017 10:47 AM
This morning I had the chance to read David Brooks column pooh-poohing the Russia probe and the scandal engulfing the Trump administration. There are many things I could say about it. But I’ve resolved to be nicer and less cutting in my writing, or to do the contrary only when it is inextricably tied to explaining and conveying points of substance. Certainly this is a resolution that won’t last long.
Suffice it to say that Brooks framing proposition is both glorious and parodic: that is, that his own ring-side seat on the Whitewater probe gives him a special insight into the politics of scandal, how scandal frenzy can quickly get overblown and how these episodes poison our public life.
It is now plain for basically everyone to see what was fairly clear at the time: that the ‘Whitewater’ scandal was the grand parody of DC scandals. I don’t think Brooks ever had the bile or moral blindness that characterized the true hatchetmen at the Journal oped page – the deep driver of so much of that charade. But even a sideline presence there is something to answer for. (Yes, I’ve already failed.) The Whitewater scandal was truly a scandal about nothing which managed to bag a handful of associates in smallbore white collar crimes unrelated to the Clintons. It’s only final ‘success’ was getting Clinton on his real fatal flow – impulsive and reckless sexual behavior. In that case for an assignation that was years in the future when the investigation kicked off. Even the label given the ‘Whitewater’ scandal captured its essence: a Potemkin scandal inextricably tied to payback and projection over the Watergate scandal of a decade earlier.
………………………….
Here Watergate is in fact instructive.
The politically catastrophic Watergate scandal was devastating for the Republican party. After a landslide reelection for Nixon in 1972, his party was decimated in the 1974 mid-terms, which saw the arrival of a new generation of young, technocratic liberal Democrats who are only now retiring from the scene. That was followed in 1976 by the election of Jimmy Carter, on what amounted to an honesty and purity platform. But the political or rather ideological fallout of Watergate was ephemeral and fleeting. Republicans had a strong midterm election in 1978, coming after the harbinger of California’s Prop 13 in June of that year. 1980 saw the election of Ronald Reagan and a sweeping congressional victory which placed Republicans in charge of the Senate for the first time in more than a generation and gave Republicans working control of the House. In other words, Watergate created a relatively brief Democratic resurgence on the road to what we now recognize as the beginning of an era of broad conservative dominance of American politics which lasted at least a generation and by some reasonable definitions continues to this day.
Yet scandal, even if it is no substitute for the politics of ideology and coalition-making and campaigning, is nevertheless its constant companion, as it should be. The mechanisms of scandal are the republic’s antibodies against its own destruction. Yes, scandals can be overblown and destructive. But they don’t come from nowhere.
Just consider the late lamented Obama administration. Unlike Clinton’s, Bush’s and now Trump’s administration it was likely as scandal-free as you can ever expect to see in a country in which the President oversees an administration made up of – depending on your definition – hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people. It was no accident. Obama was different. He’s clean and he was temperamentally inclined to hire clean people. That isn’t the only metric by which we judge presidents. LBJ was, let us say, a very different kind of character. But we owe him for Medicare and Medicaid. Politics, like life, is complicated.
In any case, it is silly to say that there doesn’t seem to be a there there in the Russia story. While Democrats are now fully on board trying to thrust it forward, its key developments have been pushed forward by career government officials who are either apolitical or in most of the key cases actually Republicans. They thought there was something important there to look at. We should heed that counsel.
TPM LIVEWIRE
Lewandowski: Investigation Into Trump Ties To Russia ‘Should End Immediately’
By NICOLE LAFOND
Published JUNE 21, 2017 9:56 AM
A former campaign manager for President Donald Trump says it’s time to “move on” from investigations into whether the President’s campaign associates worked with Russia to swing results of the 2016 election, especially now that one New York Times writer has admitted he’s uncomfortable with the “whole deal.”
Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, New York Times columnist David Brooks discussed his recent op-ed about special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, saying he thinks “we may be getting ahead of ourselves.”
“I’m bothered by the lack of emerging evidence about the underlying crime that there was actually collusion or coordination with the White House,” Brooks said Sunday.
On “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning, Corey Lewandowski called the Brooks commentary “amazing” and said “people in Washington” should drop the investigation.
Corey, DUDE, go sit your crusty ass down. An investigation does not call for the investigator(s) to disseminate evidence while they’re INVESTIGATING.
Not going to work, this push to shutdown #45 being investigated
DUH
Why Obama Voters Defected
New findings explain how Trump won them over—and why he probably wouldn’t next time.
By Jamelle Bouie
…………………………………..
wo reports from the Voter Study Group, which conducted the survey, give a detailed look at these vote switchers. (You can learn more about the nonprofit survey here—what’s key is that its longitudinal nature allows researchers to draw deeper conclusions on the issues that motivated voters.) One, from George Washington University political scientist John Sides, looks at racial, religious, and cultural divides and how they shaped the 2016 election. The other, from political scientist Lee Drutman, takes a detailed look at those divides and places them in the context of the Democratic and Republican parties. Starting in different places, both Sides and Drutman conclude that questions of race, religion, and American identity were critical to the 2016 outcome, especially among Obama-to-Trump voters. That’s no surprise. What’s interesting is what the importance of identity says about Donald Trump’s campaign. Put simply, we tend to think that Trump succeeded despite his disorganized and haphazard campaign. But the Voter Study results indicate that Trump was a canny entrepreneur who perceived a need in the political marketplace and met it.
Whether or not they identified with a party, most people who voted in the 2016 election were partisans. “Approximately 83 percent of voters were ‘consistent partisans,’ ” writes Sides. In other words, they voted for the same major party in both 2012 and 2016. This is the typical case. But about 9 percent of Donald Trump’s voters had backed Obama in the previous election, equivalent to roughly 4 percent of the electorate. Why? The popular answer, or at least the current conventional wisdom, is economic dislocation. But Sides is skeptical. He concludes that economic issues mattered, but no more or less than they did in the 2012 election. The same goes for views on entitlement programs, on trade, and on the state of the economy in general. The weight of those issues on vote choice was constant between the two election years.
What changed was the importance of identity. Attitudes toward immigration, toward black Americans, and toward Muslims were more correlated with voting Republican in 2016 than in 2012. Put a little differently, Barack Obama won re-election with the support of voters who held negative views toward blacks, Muslims, and immigrants. Sides notes that “37 percent of white Obama voters had a less favorable attitude toward Muslims” while 33 percent said “illegal immigrants” were “mostly a drain.” A separate analysis made late last year by political scientist Michael Tesler (and unrelated to the Voter Study Group) finds that 20 to 25 percent of white Obama voters opposed interracial dating, a decent enough proxy for racial prejudice. Not all of this occurred during the 2016 campaign—a number of white Obama voters shifted to the GOP in the years following his re-election. Nonetheless, writes Sides, “the political consequences in 2016 were the same: a segment of white Democrats with less favorable attitudes toward these ethnic and religious minorities were potential or actual Trump voters.”
SHORT: We love Gub-ment handouts, as long as we’re the only ones who are getting these handouts! Talk about fears of loss of PRECEIVED white privilege
https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/877573788254130176
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/877569254186418181
SUMMERTIME!
Loving this…..
Bringing back good memories. Makes me happy.
https://twitter.com/MatthewACherry/status/877570814496825344
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/21/17
Mueller team paints picture of Trump Russia investigation
Rachel Maddow reviews the people known so far to have been hired by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to work with him on the Trump Russia investigation, and notes what their various qualifications say about the focus of the investigation.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/21/17
Georgia Democrats see path to close gap against Republicans
State Rep. Stacey Abrams, Georgia minority leader, talks with Rachel Maddow about the encouragement Democrats see in the outcome of the Georgia special election.
1. This don’t make no phucking sense.
2. Nobody can tell me that The Spooks actually trust this clown and view him as their leader.
……………………………………..
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/21/17
Pompeo still briefed Flynn on secrets as CIA knew concerns: NYT
Jeremy Bash, former CIA chief of staff, talks with Rachel Maddow about a new New York Times report that while the CIA knew about the concerns about Mike Flynn, CIA Director Mike Pompeo continued to deliver briefings on U.S. secrets with Flynn present.
https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/877569342619209729
“Evangelical” Jerry Falwell Jr. to head Trump education task force. America, say goodbye to Science. Reprehensible.https://t.co/nlVKG809q3
— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) June 20, 2017
UH HUH
UH HUH
Trump seeks sharp cuts to housing aid, except for program that brings him millions
By Shawn Boburg June 20 at 6:22 PM
President Trump’s budget calls for sharply reducing funding for programs that shelter the poor and combat homelessness — with a notable exception: It leaves intact a type of federal housing subsidy that is paid directly to private landlords.
One of those landlords is Trump himself, who earns millions of dollars each year as a part-owner of Starrett City, the nation’s largest subsidized housing complex. Trump’s 4 percent stake in the Brooklyn complex earned him at least $5 million between January of last year and April 15, according to his recent financial disclosure.
Trump’s business empire intersects with government in countless ways, from taxation to permitting to the issuing of patents, but the housing subsidy is one of the clearest examples of the conflicts experts have predicted. While there is no indication that Trump himself was involved in the decision, it is nonetheless a stark illustration of how his financial interests can directly rise or fall on the policies of his administration.
The federal government has paid the partnership that owns Starrett City more than $490 million in rent subsidies since May 2013, according to figures provided by a spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Nearly $38 million of that has come since Trump took office in January.
That subsidy generates steady income for Trump and his siblings, each of whom inherited an interest in the property when their father died. Although it represents a small portion of his overall wealth, it is one of the few examples of money the president derives directly from the federal government he oversees.
Let them wallow in their sickness. Show them the door. A sick person is the one who NEEDS the doctor. Let it roll like water off a duck’s back.
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/877563456727138304
good less voters for the GOP and their fuckery!
The ARROGANCE in that…. phuck ‘ em.
G.O.P. Health Plan Is Really a Rollback of Medicaid
Limiting the amount that the federal government would pay for each person would leave states with difficult choices, and would be a fundamental shift of financial risk.
By MARGOT SANGER-KATZ
JUNE 20, 2017
Tucked inside the Republican bill to replace Obamacare is a plan to impose a radical diet on a 52-year-old program that insures nearly one in five Americans.
The bill, of course, would modify changes to the health system brought by the Affordable Care Act. But it would also permanently restructure Medicaid, which covers tens of millions of poor or disabled Americans, including millions who are living in nursing homes with conditions like Alzheimer’s or the aftereffects of a stroke.
“This is the most consequential change in 50 years for low-income people’s health care,” said Joan Alker, the executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University. “This is a massive change that has hardly been discussed.”
Since its founding, Medicaid has operated as a partnership between the federal government and the states. Each pays a share of patients’ medical bills, with no overall limit on spending. The American Health Care Act would try to slim down the federal share of that spending, by limiting how much the federal government would pay for each person enrolled in the program. The Senate version of the legislation, expected this week, is likely to make the payments still leaner in later years.
The results, according to independent analyses, would be major reductions in federal spending on Medicaid over time. States would be left deciding whether to raise more money to make up the difference, or to cut back on medical coverage for people using the program. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the changes would lead to a reduction in spending on Medicaid of more than $800 billion over a decade. (That figure also includes additional cuts to the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.)
…………………
Medicaid is the country’s largest government health care program, covering more Americans than its better-known sibling, Medicare.
Its reach is broad: About half of all births in the country are covered by Medicaid, and nearly 40 percent of children are covered through the program. Medicaid covers the long-term care costs of two-thirds of Americans living in nursing homes, many of them middle-class Americans who spent all of their savings on care before becoming eligible.
It covers children and adults with disabilities who require services that most commercial health insurance doesn’t include. It covers poor women who are pregnant or raising young children. Those populations were all included in the program before Obamacare became law.
It also provides insurance for poor adult Americans, and recent evidence shows that its expansion under Obamacare has given more poor people access to health care services and reduced their exposure to financial shocks.
#45 & Company, THUGGERY ALL AROUND
When tax breaks and white supremacy supersedes all else…including basic humanity and that previously much flung about patriotism…
Don’t get demoralized by Ossoff’s loss, Dems. Operate as if the House is in play — because it is:https://t.co/furUTiKJNb
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) June 21, 2017
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/20/17
Career criminal, mob ties, Trump associate
Tim O’Brien, executive editor and columnist at Bloomberg View, talks with Rachel Maddow about how Donald Trump’s past business dealings could integrate with the Trump Russia investigation.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/20/17
RICO lawsuit exposes Trump Russia ties on another front
Rachel Maddow looks at the checkered past of a Donald Trump business associate who may become a legal liability to Trump, and reports on the new access by the Senate Trump Russia investigation to FinCEN documents that will help them follow Trump’s money
Trump’s infrastructure initiative is already failing
06/21/17 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen
Much of the country might have missed it, but the White House kicked off “Infrastructure Week” in early June, which was intended to be a public-relations campaign in which Donald Trump touted his support for a popular idea: improving the nation’s infrastructure.
It was, however, a flop. The White House’s plan, by officials’ own admission, is still months away from completion, which meant “Infrastructure Week” amounted to one fake signing ceremony, in which Trump put his signature on a glorified press release, asking Congress to privatize the nation’s air-traffic control system.
And two weeks later, the idea appears to be effectively dead. The Hill reported:
I don’t think that Mr. Ossoff has anything to feel bad about in the least. He ran a very good and strong campaign.
I always flip the script for the bedwetters:
WHAT IF…
A Republican came within 3 points in Nancy Smash’s district?
They would be saying that the end of the Democratic Party was near.
23.
Is the number of districts that Hillary won in 2016, but have a GOP Congresscritter.
ALL of them, but at least 15 more, should be the goal of the DNC in 2018.
This is not a marginal R district….
and, he came that close.
I agree, Rikyrah,
It just defies reason that rational people who listened to Handel would have chosen her over Ossoff. They hate Democrats that much?
The dizzying pull and promise of tax breaks, combined with the symbolic and representative show and sense of a revived white supremacy – no matter how dumb, immoral, corrupt and treasonous …is not only satisfyingly powerful, it’s thrilling and irresistible for many white folks…college-educated and not..
Greed …self-interested and callous, is now as proudly mainstream and the order of the day, as it’s entirely and completely and justifiably – as those who proudly tout it – the right and only way to be..
The first defense of, and cover for racism continues to be to deny it exists …or when hit in the face with evidence, justifying and dismissing it..
We are all only as blind as we want to continue to be..
Ain’t no shade like upper crust British shade
……………………………………
Donald Trump’s state visit to UK cancelled, Queen’s Speech reveals
Monarch makes no mention of planned visit in address to Parliament
Joe Watts
Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK appears to have been axed after officials failed to mention it in the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday.
Theresa May invited the US President after they were pictured holding hands together on the White House lawn earlier this year, but the visit was threatening to spark large-scale demonstrations.
Both Downing Street and the White House have brushed aside claims the trip is in doubt, but the invitation to Mr Trump has faced a wall of criticism amid the President’s outlandish behaviour.
The monarch’s address to Parliament usually mentions all planned state visits, but that delivered by Queen Elizabeth on Wednesday only contained a reference to welcoming King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain in July.
https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/877535179748913153
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/877531873337069568
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/877534324379328513
https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/877531843809210368
https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/877531590083137536
https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/877531343219027969
I seriously doubt if this is the end of the violence. Congress and their cowardly leader #45 are just as responsible for the violence as the perps.
I wonder which six they were.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/877529342380826624
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/877530892008345600
complete and utter bullshyt.
Trump reportedly wants ‘more heart’ in GOP health care overhaul
06/21/17 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
Last week, before a White House meeting with Senate Republicans, Donald Trump said for the cameras that the chamber’s health care plan will be “generous, kind, with heart.” The presidential message came with subtext: Trump apparently believes the House GOP version, which he touted vigorously, wasn’t generous or kind, and obviously lacked heart.
Indeed, once the cameras were gone, the president reportedly told senators the House-passed health care overhaul was “mean,” “cold-hearted,” and a “son of a bitch.”
Remember, this was in reference to legislation Trump has championed and said he’s eager to sign.
CNBC reported that Trump had a meeting with business leaders yesterday and reportedly raised similar concerns about the Senate bill.
Trump, Russia and a Shadowy Business Partnership
An insider describes the Bayrock Group, its links to the Trump family and its mysterious access to funds. It isn’t pretty.
By Timothy L. O’Brien
June 21, 2017, 3:00 AM CDT
The special counsel’s investigation of the White House has come more sharply into focus.
Robert Mueller is examining whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice when he fired James Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Washington Post recently reported. As we’ve heard for months now, there is also a probe of possible collusion between Trump’s campaign team and the Kremlin to tilt the 2016 election in the president’s favor.
But the Justice Department inquiry led by Mueller now has added flavors. The Post noted that the investigation also includes “suspicious financial activity” involving “Russian operatives.” The New York Times was more specific in its account, saying that Mueller is looking at whether Trump associates laundered financial payoffs from Russian officials by channeling them through offshore accounts.
Trump has repeatedly labeled Comey’s and Mueller’s investigations “witch hunts,” and his lawyers have said that the last decade of his tax returns (which the president has declined to release) would show that he had no income or loans from Russian sources. In May, Trump told NBC that he has no property or investments in Russia. “I am not involved in Russia,” he said.
But that doesn’t address national security and other problems that might arise for the president if Russia is involved in Trump, either through potentially compromising U.S. business relationships or through funds that flowed into his wallet years ago. In that context, a troubling history of Trump’s dealings with Russians exists outside of Russia: in a dormant real-estate development firm, the Bayrock Group, which once operated just two floors beneath the president’s own office in Trump Tower.
Bayrock partnered with the future president and his two eldest children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, on a series of real-estate deals between 2002 and about 2011, the most prominent being the troubled Trump Soho hotel and condominium in Manhattan.
During the years that Bayrock and Trump did deals together, the company was also a bridge between murky European funding and a number of projects in the U.S. to which the president once leant his name in exchange for handsome fees. Icelandic banks that dealt with Bayrock, for example, were easy marks for money launderers and foreign influence, according to interviews with government investigators, legislators, and others in Reykjavik, Brussels, Paris and London. Trump testified under oath in a 2007 deposition that Bayrock brought Russian investors to his Trump Tower office to discuss deals in Moscow, and said he was pondering investing there.
“It’s ridiculous that I wouldn’t be investing in Russia,” Trump said in that deposition. “Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment.”
One of Bayrock’s principals was a career criminal named Felix Sater who had ties to Russian and American organized crime groups. Before linking up with the company and with Trump, he had worked as a mob informant for the U.S. government, fled to Moscow to avoid criminal charges while boasting of his KGB and Kremlin contacts there, and had gone to prison for slashing apart another man’s face with a broken cocktail glass.
Good Morning, Everyone 😐 😐😐