The impeachment process is a thousand steps, and this is merely Step One, but it officially happened today. Congressman Al Green has introduced articles of impeachment against Donald Trump today, reading them aloud on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. What may be most important here is that no one else in the House is even trying to interrupt him.
To be as clear as possible, a majority vote in the House is required just for impeachment hearings to begin – and there is absolutely no indication that enough House Republicans are currently willing to side with the Democrats in order to start those hearings. But while Al Green’s articles of impeachment are not likely to lead to any imminent impeachment hearings, this is a major symbolic step in the process. The most important aspect in this process may be that Green’s speech is airing live on CSPAN and will receive airtime on various cable news networks. From a strategic standpoint, Green’s timing is perfect.
.@RepAlGreen gives notice of intent to offer “Articles of Impeachment against Donald J. Trump – President of the United States of America” pic.twitter.com/LeKFX6X5Pq
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 11, 2017
This comes just three days after Republican Senator Bob Corker stated for the record that he believes Donald Trump is going to get us all killed because he’s too psychologically unstable for the job. Because Corker is from Trump’s own party, that kind of thing goes a long way toward convincing the American middle – which already largely doesn’t support Trump – that it is indeed time for him to be ousted. Al Green’s articles of impeachment will receive significant attention from the media and the public because the discussion is already underway as to whether Trump is mentally unfit for office.
Congressman Al Green has been threatening to introduce these articles of impeachment for some time, and he appears to have been waiting for when he could land the most impact in the court of public opinion. Going forward, the question on the minds of the public may now be why the Republicans are refusing to impeach Donald Trump.
Mayor of San Juan says that 3 times sent out SOS today 😥😥😥
3 TOWNS
https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/918649017231437825
He’s lost his mind.
uh huh
uh huh
https://twitter.com/CraigNews3LV/status/918619924938944512
The USS Comfort is now up to EIGHT WHOLE PATIENTS.
EIGHT.
While Puerto Ricans are dying in hospitals that have nothing to treat them.
The Head Doctor – who has done this kind of triage medical assistance in disaster zones all over the world for 20 years- HAS JUST QUIT BECAUSE OF THE MISMANAGEMENT THAT SHE’S SEEING IN PUERTO RICO.
Just saw it on Maddow.
https://twitter.com/bardgal/status/918644959074574336
hmmmmm
https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/918615642336645120
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/918640476999372801
Attorney General White Citizens Council is saying that the Presidential Records Act doesn’t apply to him. Brief filed last Friday. Just saw on Maddow.
Hayes has on someone back from rural Puerto Rico.
She says that she saw NO PERSONNEL FROM FEMA.
https://twitter.com/elisefoley/status/918571389874995205
WHAT DA PHUCK IS THIS SHYT?
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/918609281603244032
From Silverman over at BJ:
After ALL that hard work John Kerry did. How can this happen? Someone stop him. Remove him from office.
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/918573059270938624
His goal is to destroy everything with the name “Obama” on it.
He is the Birther King.
They are trying to kill these American citizens.
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/918563769424531457
Just look at this, y’all. Un-fucking-believable.
https://twitter.com/GOPBlackChick/status/918524609082937344
https://twitter.com/ALBDamn/status/918538863945101312
Really Seriously?
https://twitter.com/NYDailyNews/status/918541501881372673
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/918591567035760640
HMMPH
https://twitter.com/Fran_Neena20409/status/918600348859760641
https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/918560148980948992
@ametia @rikyrah LIZA! Look at this ISH…A Russian Bot
In mid-September, shortly after Facebook and Twitter had removed hundreds of accounts attributed to Russian operatives, a statement appeared on the White House’s petition site. Created by “F.B.,” the petition called to “[p]rotect the rights of minorities in Social Media,” complaining that “Facebook, Twitter and Instagram suppress the rights of African American minority by systematically censoring the black free speech [sic].” As evidence, the petition pointed to a handful of “African American pages” recently taken down, including the “Blacktivist” and “WilliamsandKalvin” accounts outed by CNN and The Daily Beast, respectively, for their ties to Russia.
The petition, however, listed one other Facebook page taken down: “blackmattersus.mvmnt,” which the petition described as one “of the most popular public pages among the young African Americans.” An Internet archive search reveals that the page, which hasn’t been covered elsewhere, was known as “Black Matters US.”
More here…
https://thinkprogress.org/black-matters-us-site-90625b18f262/
EXCLUSIVE: Website targeting black Americans appears to be elaborate Russian propaganda effort
https://thinkprogress.org/black-matters-us-site-90625b18f262/
I did notice she never interacted. I even retweeted some of her tweets. One was the cop beating a black woman.
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/884935634980409347
https://twitter.com/BienSur_JeTaime/status/918603521662050305
https://twitter.com/Kerritweetz/status/918581994975621120
https://twitter.com/cultA_KlAsh/status/918572489168642049
Wow. Well, the Russians are good at this. It’s what they do.
From the Washington Post Editorial Board: The misery in Puerto Rico is completely unacceptable
Here’s an excerpt:
If the Americans enduring these conditions lived in Connecticut or Montana or Arkansas, would we be counseling patience? Would we be blithely accepting predictions of another month — or more — to get the power restored? No. There would be unending media coverage, people would be furious — and the president of the United States certainly wouldn’t be threatening to abandon federal relief efforts.
The state of affairs would simply be seen as unacceptable, which it is. The 3.4 million American citizens who live in Puerto Rico are owed a far better response from their government than they have gotten these past three weeks.
Trump’s Embarrassing, Unconstitutional Response to Puerto Rico
The president keeps pretending that he only needs to represent red states, not all Americans.
by John Stoehr
October 12, 2017
onald Trump unloaded a tweetstorm this morning about Puerto Rico’s continuing recovery after Hurricane Maria that managed to appall even after all these months of being appalled by what this president is willing to say.
I’m not going to talk about how racist it is. Many writers of color—who are smarter than I am and more authoritative than I am on matters of white supremacy—are going to talk about it. I’ll defer to them, and a lot of other white people should too.
What I want to talk about is the obligation of the office of the presidency—to defend and protect not only the U.S. Constitution, but every single American’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (Puerto Ricans are indeed U.S. citizens.)
More precisely, I want to talk about why the office of the president is supposed to do those things. To that end, let’s remember the works of John Locke, the English philosopher who left an indelible mark on the Founders’ thinking, especially Thomas Jefferson’s.
Locke believed all of us are born free and equal, and that governments must be constituted to protect those natural rights. The Founders added Hobbes and Montesquieu to conclude that government’s goal is also to protect the weak from the strong. Part of its mandate is to defend against a state of nature.
I presume neither the Enlightenment philosophers nor the Founders were thinking about cataclysmic hurricanes when they pondered the need for government to protect against a state of nature, but that’s surely the kind of thinking we need now that much of Puerto Rico remains without power and without adequate supplies of food and water. Hurricane Maria destroyed the island’s infrastructure as well as its agriculture—Puerto Rico is going to need huge investments.
Yet this morning, the president said in so many words that Puerto Rico was a disaster before the hurricanes hit, and that the federal government can’t stay to provide aid forever. Puerto Rico, Trump implied, will have to take care of itself.
Like I said, I’m not going to talk about the white supremacy of his tweetstorm. My point is the president is saying the natural rights of people born free and equal are like a buffet. The government can pick and choose whose rights to protect, and throw away the rest.
Look Chicas! Russians even used Pokémon GO
https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/918560148980948992
Somebody need to go to JAIL….
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/918559246769418241
https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/918461384563798017
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/918562241821265922
Biggest news of the day: the queen has blown off Trump, will not meet him https://t.co/5tCaWNcUPG
— Mitchell Orenstein (@m_orenstein) October 12, 2017
Just announced: Updates on speakers and session leaders for the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago ➡️ https://t.co/VHGNLY7k4c
— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) October 12, 2017
What I don’t understand is how can anyone truly be “shocked” by Trump’s behavior in office. This is how he has been acting in public for decades. Birtherism, misogyny, screwing contractors, and erratic, narcissistic behavior–it was all there, Tom. https://t.co/dzM69vg94C
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) October 12, 2017
The “shock” would have been if he acted presidential. But there is no danger of that.
Prince Harry will attend the inaugural @ObamaFoundation summit in Chicago on 31st October. pic.twitter.com/wWQxWmc5pK
— Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) October 12, 2017
Just so you can see them side-by-side, here is Trump on Texas vs PR. Wonder what the difference is. Hmmm… pic.twitter.com/5QWEAPgWG7
— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) October 12, 2017
https://twitter.com/common/status/917485538696761344
Did you see they took Maxine Water’s Reclaiming our Time as their slogan, but didn’t think she’d make a good headliner?— cynja (@cynjaninja) October 12, 2017
Comment from BJ about the ‘Women’s March in Michigan’ that has Bernie Sanders speaking:
OMG! This can’t be real. Somebody wake me up from this horrible nightmare.
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/918538536642637825
HELL MUTHAPHUCKIN’ NO!
Cruel
Ryan appears to be talking out of both sides of his mouth. He hasn’t got the cojones to stand up to Trump, and he never will.
Philip Rucker @PhilipRucker 47 minutes ago
Just in: A reader told me she called WH switchboard to object to Trump’s Puerto Rico tweets. WH receptionist told her WaPo was “fake news.”
sigh…..
Trump taps AccuWeather CEO to head NOAA, breaking with precedent of nominating scientists
https://twitter.com/Nikishka/status/918519657904164864
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/918431668658212865
“…The ones that you can work…”
“…those are the ones they are releasing…the ones we use to wash our cars..to change oil in our cars, cook in the kitchen…to save money…they’re going to let them out…”
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/918526269503033345
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/918431668658212865
Notice how white America has grown silent on NEVADA DOMESTIC TERRORIST & MURDERER STEPHEN P., and moved on to SEXUAL ABUSER HARVEY W.?
They want us to focus and believe that sexual antics of a Jewish predator frumps the murdering of 58 people and OVER 500 injured.
Beyond belief. I think his intention is to destroy the U.S. Everything he or his henchman Jeff Sessions does is to deliberately HURT people.
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/918463776919310336
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/918474020290465792
Bitcoin!
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/918493982270861319
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/918491855632916480
Trump’s posture towards Puerto Rico takes a more callous turn
10/12/17 08:40 AM—UPDATED 10/12/17 08:46 AM
By Steve Benen
Over the last year, Donald Trump’s willingness to publicly contradict Mike Pence has led to some cringe-worthy moments, but developments over the last 24 hours offer an especially awkward example.
The vice president spoke at a National Hispanic Heritage Month reception yesterday, and offered strong assurances to the people of Puerto Rico: “We’re with you; we stand with you; and we will be with you every single day until Puerto Rico is restored bigger and better than ever before.”
In a trio of tweets this morning, Pence’s boss said pretty much the opposite.
Let’s note for context that as of yesterday, more than 80% of Puerto Rico is still without power, three weeks after Hurricane Maria hit. What’s more, roughly a third of the island’s American residents do not yet have access to clean water.
It’s against this backdrop that the president thought it’d be a good idea to blame Puerto Ricans and starting laying the groundwork for a weaker response to the island’s disaster.
We can keep the military in Afghanistan for decades but we can’t keep them in a US territory long enough to restore power and drinking water pic.twitter.com/93CYhmj4Eu
— David Klion (@DavidKlion) October 12, 2017
This is…..
UGH
Here’s a budget breakdown of a couple that makes $200,000 a year and yet is scraping by
Emmie Martin | @emmiemartin 10:47 AM ET Mon, 9 Oct 2017
An annual household income of $200,000 is nearly four times as much as the median annual income in the United States. But although bringing in that much puts you in the upper class, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll feel rich.
To illustrate this point, personal finance blogger Sam Dogen of Financial Samurai broke down the hypothetical budget of a couple living in San Francisco with one child, each making $100,000 a year, for a $200,000 total annual income.
Here’s exactly how this family could spend its money — and end up without much left over.
……………………..
For a detailed breakdown of how Dogen arrived at each of these numbers, read the full post on Financial Samurai.
In this example, the couple contributes to their 401(k) plans — although they don’t max them out — and are working on paying down credit card debt. But even though they qualify as “upper class,” after taxes, fixed costs, childcare and discretionary expenses, there’s only $5,700 left each year to go towards other savings goals, investment accounts or retirement funds.
They’re rich by many standards and yet they appear to be just getting by.
This deficit highlights a crucial lesson: Thanks often to lifestyle inflation, as well as the high cost of certain necessities, earning a higher salary doesn’t always translate to financial peace of mind — or to a well-padded savings account.
Eyes rolling and lips pursed
Here’s a budget breakdown of a couple that makes $500,000 a year and still feels average
Kathleen Elkins | @kathleen_elk 1:56 PM ET Fri, 24 March 2017
Americans are falling short when it comes to saving. As money expert at Intuit Kimmie Greene tells CNBC, “Whether you’re making $50,000 a year or $200,000 a year, we all have challenges saving.”
Or, as this couple shows, you and your partner could be making $500,000 a year and still end up with very little besides 401(k) money.
Sam Dogen of “Financial Samurai” breaks down the budget of two New York City-based spouses, each of whom makes $250,000 a year as a lawyer. They’re 35-years-old and they have two young children. “This one couple shared their story and I decided to anonymously highlight their reported expenses,” Dogen tells CNBC.
…………….
As you can see, they both max out their 401(k) plan each year and are working on paying down student loan debt. But, even though they qualify as “upper class,” after taxes, fixed costs, childcare and discretionary expenses, there’s only $7,300 left each year to go towards other savings goals, investment accounts or retirement funds.
Twitter users have largely responded with irritation rather than sympathy.
Trump says minorities ‘want’ and ‘need’ more police protection than other Americans
By Philip Rucker, Damian Paletta
Washington Post
President Trump said Wednesday that minorities “want” and “need” more police protection than other Americans, and blamed Democrats for a “crazy” number of murders in Chicago and other large cities.
In an interview with Sean Hannity, the Fox News Channel anchor who also is a friend and informal adviser to the president, Trump said police in big cities are “not allowed” to respond to what he described as rampant crime because “they have to be politically correct.”
“Minorities want police protection more than anybody,” Trump said. “They need it more than anybody. What’s going on is crazy. And you look at some of these inner cities where it’s just out of control.”
Trump’s comments came during a discussion of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who have demonstrated during the playing of the national anthem in protest what they see as injustices against blacks in this country.
“We have incredible police in this country,” Trump said. “They could stop [crime] if they were allowed to do their jobs… In many cases, it’s the police are not allowed to do their job. They have to be politically correct.”
Trump placed the blame for what he described as rampant murders and shootings squarely on Democratic politicians. “Don’t forget, the Democrats have ruled the inner cities for 100 years,” he said. “This is their rule.”
Great op-ed from @Evan_McMullin on the dangers of populism, the rising threat of our time in America: https://t.co/THi0p2Jaij
— Richard Hurowitz (@RichardHurowitz) October 11, 2017
Kansas cut taxes. California raised them. GOP said Kansas wuld thrive, Calif collapse.
Kansas collapsed. Calif thrived. GOP learns? Nuthin’
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 11, 2017
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 10/11/17
Veracity of Trump dossier holding up despite Republican attacks
Mark Hosenball, Reuters national security correspondent, talks with Rachel Maddow about portions of the Trump Russia dossier that have turned out to be true, and the Republican effort to undercut the Russia investigation by discrediting the dossier.
Sci-fi stories used to be about how far humans could reach with technology, now they’re mostly about how low we can sink morally.
— Shower Thoughts (@TheWeirdWorld) October 11, 2017
This thread is en fuego: https://t.co/mYUdH6hJU1
— meta (@metaquest) October 12, 2017
This is how dicatatorships start — exactly what Putin did in Russia in 2000. https://t.co/NWLBly5l4j
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) October 11, 2017
This kind of sanity from FRUM….
still can’t get used to it.
Trump’s attitude to sufferering on Puerto Rico an ominous indicator of his likely attitude toward fatalities on the Korean Peninsula
— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 12, 2017
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 10/11/17
Maddow: Bad leadership turned Puerto Rico crisis into catastrophe
Rachel Maddow describes reporting on the chaos in the Donald Trump White House and notes that the continued problems in the disaster response in Puerto Rico that is costing American lives is attributable to bad leadership at the top.
Movement Conservatives Are out For Blood
by Martin Longman
October 11, 2017
Mitch McConnell has an impressive number of conservative enemies. We already know that Steve Bannon is gunning for him, but today we saw another major shot across his bow. In a joint press conference and press release, Media Research Center president Brent Bozell, Senate Conservatives Fund president Ken Cuccinelli II, Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks president Adam Brandon, David Bozell of For America, and the chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, Richard Viguerie, all demanded that McConnell and his top lieutenants step down. It’s almost as if these conservatives thought that something might actually get done if they helped elect a Republican president and a Republican Congress.
Carl Hulse of the New York Times says that failure to pass some tax cuts is no longer an option for the GOP. As a result, he predicts that they’ll at least overcome their internal differences to pass a budget through the Senate that can get the tax cut ball rolling. I’d make the same prediction, although this tells us relatively little about their prospects of uniting around a bill that they can actually pass. So far, though, it’s not clear that the Senate Republicans will have the votes to pass a budget. Senators McCain, Paul, Corker, and Collins have to be considered possible ‘nos,’ and that’s assuming I haven’t overlooked anyone. I know Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota just came out and said he wouldn’t vote for a repeal of the Estate Tax, for example.
But with all this outside pressure on McConnell and his team to resign, it will probably intimidate the doubters into letting the process start. Were the effort to die on the launching pad, it would probably be the end of the current leaderships’ tenure.
It’s tempting to say that this is the primary motivation for the folks who are attacking McConnell. They want to help get a tax cut passed. But the groups opposing him aren’t exactly the Chamber of Commerce. They’re movement conservatives, some of them founders of the movement. I think they’re genuinely out for blood and don’t really care about short-term considerations. If the tax effort fails and causes McConnell and his team to lose their grip on power, they’ll take that trade. If it weakens Trump, even fatally, they won’t consider that a big problem, either. They’re trying to complete their takeover a major political party, and every other consideration appears to pale in comparison.
The Discussion About Trump’s Unfitness For Office Has Shifted
by Nancy LeTourneau
October 12, 2017
I’ve already labelled myself as a congenital optimist, so you can put what I’m about to write in that context. But I’m sensing a change in the tone of the discussion about the presidency of Donald Trump. And yes, I think it is mostly related to the recent comments by Sen. Bob Corker. I’ll give a hat tip on that one to Greg Dworkin, who recently highlighted a theory about indexing.
The Changing Politics of the South
by Nancy LeTourneau
October 11, 2017
I have written before about why the 36 governor’s races in 2018 will be crucial. It is also true that the race in Virginia between Democrat Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie that will take place in less than a month will be a harbinger of things to come. But to be honest, the governor’s race that really has my attention is the one that will take place in Georgia.
On the Republican side, five white men are running in the primary. On the other side of the aisle are two women, Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans. A recent article in The Root by Abrams-supporter Jason Johnson has stirred up a bit of attention. It is titled, “Black Stacy vs White Stacey: A Lesson in Race Politics From Georgia.” Johnson is not the first person to describe politics in the South like this:
……………………………………
Here is how he describes the two candidates:
A comment from BJ:
Pro Sports Teams were one reliable patrons of Trump’s Hotels.
NOT ANY MORE.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pro-sports-teams-were-once-reliable-patrons-of-trumps-hotels-not-anymore/2017/10/11/113ceb8a-a47c-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_trumpteams-7a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.aa439663fe1b
Roy Moore?
The holy roller?
Grifting crook like all the rest of them.
Former Alabama judge Roy Moore, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, once said publicly that he did not take a “regular salary” from the small charity he founded to promote Christian values because he did not want to be a financial burden.
But privately, Moore had arranged to receive a salary of $180,000 a year for part-time work at the Foundation for Moral Law, internal charity documents show. He collected more than $1 million as president from 2007 to 2012, compensation that far surpassed what the group disclosed in its public tax filings most of those years.
US police killings undercounted by half, study using Guardian data finds
Over half of all police killings in 2015 were wrongly classified as not having been the result of interactions with officers, a new Harvard study based on Guardian data has found. The finding is just the latest to show government databases seriously undercounting the number of people killed by police.
“Right now the data quality is bad and unacceptable,” said lead researcher Justin Feldman. “To effectively address the problem of law enforcement-related deaths, the public needs better data about who is being killed, where, and under what circumstances.”
Feldman used data from the Guardian’s 2015 investigation into police killings, The Counted, and compared it with data from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). That dataset, which is kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was found to have misclassified 55.2% of all police killings, with the errors occurring disproportionately in low-income jurisdictions.
“As with any public health outcome or exposure, the only way to understand the magnitude of the problem, and whether it is getting better or worse, requires that data be uniformly, validly, and reliably obtained throughout the US,” said Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health and senior author of the study. “Our results show our country is falling short of accurately monitoring deaths due to law enforcement and work is needed to remedy this problem.”
……………….
To assess how accurately that classification was being used, the team took the 1,146 police-related deaths recorded by The Counted in 2015, removed 60 cases that did not fit the criteria of the CDC’s “legal intervention” category and requested death certificate data for the remaining 1,086 individuals. They found that a majority, 599 deaths, were classified as resulting from something other than legal intervention – principally “assault”.
Researchers found the accuracy varied wildly by state, with just 17.6% misclassification in Washington, but a startling 100% in Oklahoma. “[Oklahoma] had more than 30 people were killed by police there in 2015 and none of them were counted on death certificates,” Feldman said.
According to the report, there were 36 cases of “legal intervention” captured in the NVSS which were not included in The Counted.
The Chefs can make it to these towns, but FEMA CAN’T?
#ChefsForPuertoRico delivered the first hot meal in 3 weeks to this mountaintop town outside of Utuabo. Thanks @GoyaFoods for the transport! pic.twitter.com/UQvYHL5SVq
— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) October 11, 2017
uh uh uh
This is staggeringhttps://t.co/M6fLrLj7S3 pic.twitter.com/6evP865z4C
— Sarah Kaplan (@sarahkaplan48) October 11, 2017
So much needed in California. Here’s info: https://t.co/86mj9zWW5Z #CaliforniaWildfires #santarosafire #SantaRosa
— Joanna Nesbit (@joannanesbit) October 12, 2017
Trailblazer and former Tallahassee mayor James Ford died yesterday at the age of 91.
https://www.floridamemory.com/fpc/commerce/K025053.jpg
(1976)
https://youtu.be/WAHpLOcIZw0&rel=0
Good Morning. Everyone 😐😐😐
Good Morning, Rikyrah & 3 Chics Family.