Friday Open Thread | The DREAMers Deserve More Than To Have Their Lives In This Kind of Flux….

Over three million people are in the shadows. Three million people whose lives are completely in flux. They deserve so much more than what the GOP has in store for them. It’s just one nightmare after another, and it’s NOT America. These DREAMers are America’s present and future.

………………….

There are 3.6M ‘DREAMers’ — a number far greater than commonly known
Author: Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
Published: 5:15 PM EST January 18, 2018

The political debate over the fate of “DREAMers” — undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — has overlooked just how many there are in the country today: about 3.6 million.

That number of people whose lives risk being uprooted is not widely known, in large part because so much public attention has been focused recently on 800,000 mostly young DREAMers accepted into the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
This smaller group of DREAMers is in the spotlight because President Trump terminated DACA in September, saying it was an illegal overreach of executive authority that can only come from Congress, which is negotiating with Trump on a compromise immigration plan.

While many politicians use DREAMer and DACA interchangeably, the terms are “not a distinction without a difference,” said House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

DREAMers got their name from the DREAM Act, a bill that has been proposed in Congress since 2001, but never passed, that would protect that group of immigrants.

The 3.6 million estimate of undocumented immigrants brought to U.S. before their 18th birthday comes from the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank that studies global immigration patterns. That is roughly a third of all undocumented immigrants in the country and does not include millions of their immediate family members who are U.S. citizens.

A number so large raises the stakes for both sides in the dispute over whether to deport DREAMers, allow them to stay under prescribed conditions or provide them with a path to citizenship.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the pro-immigrant National Immigration Forum, said exposing millions of DREAMers to deportations would be a moral and economic calamity.

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69 Responses to Friday Open Thread | The DREAMers Deserve More Than To Have Their Lives In This Kind of Flux….

  1. Donnalee says:

    A speaker who works with those in this position spoke at today’s Women’s March in Woodstock NY and was really informative and a good addition to the program.

  2. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    Senate in session on C-Span live:
    https://www.c-span.org/congress/?chamber=senate

  3. rikyrah says:

    More Evidence of a Connection Between Russia and Cambridge Analytica
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    January 19, 2018

    ………………………….

    That is all by way of background for this news:

    The data firm whose work for Donald Trump’s campaign attracted the interest of Robert Mueller’s investigators recently filed paperwork showing it had helped spread negative information about Qatar, the Gulf nation targeted by the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates in a bitter propaganda battle.

    The parent company of Cambridge Analytica filed documents with the U.S. Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Unit disclosing $333,000 in payments by the UAE for a 2017 social media campaign linking the Qataris to terrorism.

    Granted, it’s possible that Russia didn’t facilitate the UAE’s decision to contract with Cambridge Analytica. But it’s clear that the company founded by right wing billionaire Robert Mercer is the global go-to firm (see: Brexit) for spreading exactly the kind of fake news Russia promulgated in the U.S. during the 2016 campaign.

  4. rikyrah says:

    Jennifer freakin’ Rubin:

    Russians Under Every Rock

    …So what’s going on here? “If you were running an influence operation with the goal of subverting 70 years of Republican hawkishness on Russia, infiltrating the right’s most powerful lobbying group wouldn’t be a bad way to do it,” CAP’s Max Bergmann, who heads the Moscow Project, tells me. “We already know that at least some of the people that tried to set up meetings between the Trump campaign and the Russian government did so under the guise of their ‘shared values’ on gun rights and sometimes did so through NRA channels.” But of course since Russia has no real gun rights movement, Bergmann posits that this outfit “has all the markings of a Kremlin front, created with the intention to, in the words of former CIA director John Brennan, ‘suborn individuals‘ in the United States.”

    The remarkable part about the Trump campaign is not the appearance of a single Kremlin-connected figure. It is that there are lots and lots of them — Aras and Emin Agalarov, Sergey Kislyak, Rinat Akhmetshin, Irakly Kaveladze, Sergei Gorkov — who had one or more connections with Trump or Trump family members or Trump campaign advisers.

    There are the Kremlin-connected campaign aides — Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos. On a single campaign. There are the Trump team members who repeatedly failed to “recall” Russia contacts — Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner. There is the money trail that ran through and around Trump properties, described in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson; the trail tangles up the Bayrock Group (with which the mysterious Felix Sater was associated) and the Russian oligarchs who purchased Trump properties (pp. 36-41).

    What Simpson calls “a well-established pattern of surreptitious contacts that occurred [in 2016] that supports the broad allegation of some sort of an undisclosed political or financial relationship between The Trump Organization and people in Russia” (p. 54) is what, in part, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his top-flight team of financial-crime attorneys are investigating. Mueller is trying to determine whether these were all random, innocent and coincidental (though the only campaign in history we know to have had any) or whether they establish a cooperative relationship between the official Trump campaign and the “active measures” campaign in Russia to help elect Trump (as the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting — attended by Natalia Veselnitskaya, Kaveladze and Rinat Akhmetshin, among others — to relay “dirt” on Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton would suggest).

    The nagging question remains, however, why Trump would so vehemently deny any business dealings with Russia and why so many people would go to such lengths to disguise their assorted Russian contacts. What was it they were trying so hard to keep hidden?

    • Tyren M says:

      Good afternoon 3Chics,

      I’m sure you’ve all discussed it here before, but I’m not feeling this transformation of Rubin, David Frum, – Dead Intern talmbout “my former party” after ushering Trump all last year. I don’t care how good Mika is, I ain’t going… I don’t trust it at all. Have a good weekend.

  5. Ametia says:

    Who controls:

    SENATE: REPUBLICANS
    HOUSE: REPUBLICANS
    WHITE HOUSE: REPUBLICANS
    SCOTUS: REPUBLICANS

    GOVERNMENT SHUTSDOWN? REPUBLICANS

    • majiir says:

      Even though all of this is true, the GOPers in the WH are busy trying to convince Mericns that if there is a government shutdown tonight, PBO is to blame. Mulvaney is claiming that PBO “weaponized” government shutdowns. Stupid, stupid fellow. Newt Gingrich is the modern day political architect of government shutdowns. I recall that GOPers told voters repeatedly that if they were given majorities in both houses of Congress and the WH, they’d fulfill every promise they’d made to them. The truth is that GOPers can’t govern.

  6. FIRE Stephen Miller. Get that bigoted racist out of our White House.

    https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/954400922230231040

  7. I can’t swim either. I too have a fear. I remember Rikyrah getting on me about not knowing how to swim. She said that’s the reason so many died during Katrina was because they didn’t know how to swim. I’m sorry, boo. I think it’s too late for me.

    https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/954402589621157888

    • Ametia says:

      It’s never too late to swim, SG2. The video of Representative Buckner was heart-rending.

    • Liza says:

      I still think about segregation. I doubt that a day goes by that something doesn’t remind me.

      In my hometown (Jacksonville, FL), most of the black folks lived on the northwest side back then. Most of the black kids grew up never seeing the Atlantic ocean, never going to the beach, never walking on the boardwalk, etc…

      I remember that.

      I can’t say that I know if the public beaches close to Jax were officially segregated in the 1950s and early 60s or if black people avoided them out of fear. Poverty was certainly an issue, not having a car, not having access to transportation, not having time or money for a day at the beach.

      Sad, isn’t it? You would think the ocean is big enough to share.

      • True, Liza! So many things was against them and then there was the racism.

      • Liza says:

        Florida wade-ins to end racial segregation of public beach and pools (Civil Rights Movement) 1945-1964

        U.S. Civil Rights Movement (1950s-1960s)

        Time period notes: The campaign did not see much active protest between 1946 and 1952. The most eventful time period existed during the summer of 1964, up until the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

        Under the Urban League of Greater Miami, Negro Service Council members Lawson Thomas and Ira P. Davis came up with the idea to put a spin on the popular civil rights lunch counter sit-ins that had drawn national attention. In order to gain access to swimming facilities, they proposed nonviolent “wade-ins” at Florida white beaches and pools, starting with Baker’s Haulover Beach. African Americans would simply enter and enjoy the public waters just as the white beachgoers did. They reasoned that if “waders” were arrested, the issue would be acknowledged by authorities, and they could finally challenge the segregation in court.

        In the summer of 1961, local NAACP leaders Dr. Von Mizell and Eula Johnson organized frequent wade-ins on Fort Lauderdale beaches. Participants of all ages were recruited to join the campaign, where they were met at the beaches by a threatening police force, ax-wielding KKK members, and white beach-goers catcalling and holding weapons. Physical violence, however, did not occur.

        The city filed a lawsuit against the NAACP, and police arrested black waders for “disturbing the peace” and “inciting chaos.” The NAACP sent its best lawyers and advocates, and by 1962, a state judge ruled against white-exclusive beaches.

        On 17 June, 1964, the campaign had reached St. Augustine. A successful two-hour long wade-in by 35 people drew attention and garnered some black and white support. On June 24th, however, white beachgoers did not allow waders to reach the water by physically blockading the shore. Due to the court-ordered desegregation, the police had no choice but to protect the black activists from the threat of violence by the white crowd, but they did not aid them in reaching their objective. That night, white groups, such as the National States Rights Party, conducted anti-black speeches, and 300 whites marched to protest integrating the beaches.

        The next day, African Americans in St. Augustine famously planned to “beat the heat and segregation” by entering Monson Motor Lodge; an “integration testing ground” for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As black swimmers enjoyed the pool, the hotel manager poured a bottle of acid into the water and an off-duty policeman eventually jumped into the pool to beat the noncooperative swimmers. The swimmers were arrested but photos of the injustice began to circulate around the world, infuriating many as a symbol of “barbaric racism.” The local Grand Jury asked Dr. King to leave St. Augustine.

        In the most violent incident on 25 June, whites, including police, attacked 75 people during a wade-in. Later that night, 500 white people attacked demonstrators in St. Augustine, including SCLC leader C.T. Vivian, and hospitalized 19 people, many of whom were in severe condition.

        In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed largely as a result of the Civil Rights Movement and the many campaigns it encompassed. Attempts to uphold segregation were more seriously criminalized under the Act, so facility owners and police could no longer promote segregation. It became possible for public swimming facilities throughout Florida and the country to finally be utilized fairly by African Americans.

        https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/florida-wade-ins-end-racial-segregation-public-beach-and-pools-civil-rights-movement-1945-19

      • Tyren M says:

        I see you talking about public pools/oceans. Liza, I see you in Florida and my mind goes to using Black children as alligator food. When did that stop?

      • Liza says:

        Hi, Tyren,
        To be honest, I didn’t know about that until just a couple of years ago, but I thought it occurred during slavery. There are horrific stories about it, and I don’t think we have any reason to doubt the oral history.

    • Liza says:

      Ha ha. God forbid we should have fair elections.

      Truthfully, I can’t imagine Trump running again in 2020.

  8. Ametia says:

    So #45’s cancelled his trip to Mar-a-largo, his weekend playground, pretending he’s staying in DC until congress passes funding bill. RIGHT!

  9. Ametia says:

    Fuck the porn star 7 #45 cable news shows. (no pun intended) DEMS NEED TO BE AL OVER THE TV

    The meme is Dems are holding CHIPS & DACA hostage? GTFOH

    TALKING POINT: #45 ADMINSTRATION CONROL ALL 3 BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT, YA’LL BRING IT.

  10. Ametia says:

    Perfect setup by CNN_ get a black woman on the set with these MOFOS

  11. rikyrah says:

    The Situation with DACA Is Urgent
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    January 19, 2018

    Last night the House passed the Republican short-term spending bill on mostly a party-line vote. Then the Senate took up a procedural vote to prepare for consideration of the measure today. I watched as both Senators McConnell and Corbyn made remarks over and over again about how the Democrats were insisting on including a measure related to “illegal immigrants” (never referring to DACA or Dreamers) along with the suggestion that there is no urgency to the matter because Congress has until March to deal with the issue. Here is what McConnell tweeted:

    Just so #Senate Democrats know, #DACA does not begin to face a deadline until March, at the earliest. The deadline to fund the government and the Children’s Health Insurance Program is TOMORROW. pic.twitter.com/JTS3p2sgnQ

    — Leader McConnell (@SenateMajLdr) January 19, 2018

    One might ask why anyone has to chose between the two. But the truth is that, because Republicans were more interested in tax cuts than children’s access to health care, CHIPs funding expired on October 1, 2017. States have been using other funds to keep the program alive since then.

    It is the claim that there is no urgency for the Dreamers that was unconscionable. Finally, Sen. Durbin stood up to say so.

    There is urgency when it comes to our Dreamers. There’s an urgency in their lives because of the uncertainty of tomorrow. Will they be deported or given a chance to continue their lives in America?

    Yes, there is an urgency to pass the #DreamActNow. pic.twitter.com/kPH2xeRlW4

    — Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) January 19, 2018

  12. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    Ladies, I am concerned with what it happening in Jackson, Mississippi:

    “OPINION: Project EJECT: A War On Jackson”
    http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2018/jan/17/opinion-project-eject-war-jackson/
    Excerpt:

    Flanked by police and civil leaders of Jackson, Miss., U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst spent a press conference arguing for draconian acts of “justice” to be inflicted on Jackson’s people—primarily her poor, disenfranchised and minority residents. He outlined a “crime-fighting” plan for federal, state, and local officials to team up against those accused of crime, locking them up without bail, refusing to negotiate any plea bargains and sending them to federal prisons in other states. Of course, the plan was not so explicitly stated. Instead, it was couched in terms of “protecting the community,” and “helping the people.”

    #Project EJECT is apparently simple: “If you violate our laws, you will be ejected from our community.” While the initiative is purportedly supposed to only combat violence, Hurst’s choice of words are telling: Anyone accused of violating “laws” will result in ejection, not only those accused of “commit[ing] violence.” How long before any and every accusation is worthy of the Project EJECT strategy?

    “Mississippi lawmakers weigh-in on sweeping public education funding bill”
    http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/37299464/mississippi-lawmakers-weigh-in-on-sweeping-public-education-funding-bill

  13. rikyrah says:

    The Republicans Welcome a Government Shutdown
    by Martin Longman
    January 19, 2018

    It is the silly season again. As a government shutdown looms at midnight, everyone is engaged in the blame game. So, let me add a little clarity to where the blame lies for a shutdown.

    In order for a bill to become a law, it is mandatory that both the House and the Senate pass it and that the two bills are absolutely identical to each other. As things stand, the House has passed a continuing resolution to keep the government operating. The Senate could just take that bill and without changing a single word of it bring it up for a vote and pass it. If they were to do that, the problem would be solved for now. They could take those two bills and send them to the president for his signature.

    However, if the Senate wants to make any changes to what the House produced, then the resulting bill, assuming it then passed the Senate, would have to go back to the House, and the House would have to approve it without changing a thing. The two chambers can ping-pong the bill like this for as long as they want, or they can form a conference committee to iron out the differences in the two bills. Either way, eventually they have to agree on one set of legislative language.

    If House Republicans are serious about avoiding a government shutdown, then they need to be prepared to do some more work in case the Senate needs to makes changes to their continuing resolution in order to get the necessary votes. But the House is adjourning and leaving town.

  14. rikyrah says:

    UH HUH

    “But the impasse raised deeper questions about the GOP’s capacity — one year into the Trump administration — to govern. Never before has the government experienced a furlough of federal employees when a single party controls both the White House and Congress, but that’s what will happen after midnight Friday if a spending bill fails to pass Congress.”

  15. rikyrah says:

    Oh yeah..
    Bought the Black Panther tickets for Peanut, her grandmother and I.
    Can’t wait!!!!

  16. Ametia says:

    WH briefing now, with a turd invoking the 3013 PBO admin. government shutdown? REALLY?

  17. Ametia says:

    MSNBC host interviewing 3 white #45 supporters praising him & his first year in office. REALLY-PRAISING HIM.

  18. Ametia says:

    http://media.giphy.com/media/A1SxC5HRrD3MY/giphy.gif

    Turnover In Trump’s White House Is ‘Record-Setting,’ And It Isn’t Even Close
    January 19, 20185:00 AM ET

    If President Trump’s first year in office seemed chaotic from a staffing perspective, there’s a reason. Turnover among top-level staff in the Trump White House was off the charts, according to a new Brookings Institution report”
    Turnover in Trump’s first year was more than triple that in former President Barack Obama’s first year, and double the rate in President Ronald Reagan’s White House. A full 34 percent of high-level White House aides either resigned, were fired or moved into different positions in this first year of the Trump presidency.

    https://www.npr.org/2018/01/19/578858897/turnover-in-trumps-white-house-is-record-setting-and-it-isn-t-even-close

  19. Ametia says:

    Lupita Nyong’o Announces Children’s Book That Aims To Empower All Black Children
    “Sulwe” will be on bookshelves January 2019.

    http://tiny.cc/nldfqy

  20. rikyrah says:

    Is This the Collusion We Were Waiting For?
    Michelle Goldberg
    JAN. 19, 2018

    …………………………

    …If a relationship between the N.R.A., Trump and Russia exists, Torshin and Butina appear to be the nexus of it. Torshin helped create a Russian gun-rights group called Right to Bear Arms, and Butina runs it. The purpose of the group is ambiguous. Gun laws in Russia are strict, and if people close to Putin actually wanted to change them, creating a group alluding to America’s Second Amendment seems like a weird way to do it. As Simpson said in his House testimony: “Vladimir Putin is not in favor of universal gun ownership for Russians. And so it’s all a big charade, basically.”

    If so, the charade has been useful in building relationships between Putin allies and American conservatives. In 2015, Right to Bear Arms hosted a luxurious trip to Russia for N.R.A. leaders, where, according to McClatchy, they met with “a senior Kremlin official and wealthy Russians.” (Among the American delegation was former Sheriff David A. Clarke, the Trump supporter and Fox News regular.)

    ……………………………………….

    Here’s another way L.L.C.s could be used: as an intermediary between foreign agents and tax-exempt organizations that are not required by law to disclose their donors, often called dark money groups. Indeed, in July the left-leaning Center for American Progress put out a report warning that loopholes in campaign finance laws make it easy for foreign citizens or governments to influence our elections in precisely this way.

    Speaking of the F.B.I.’s investigation into the N.R.A., Liz Kennedy, the senior director of Democracy and Government Reform at the center, told me, “If this investigation in fact finds that illegal behavior occurred, this would really be the kind of illegal foreign spending that we were warning would happen.” (During the Obama administration, Senate Democrats twice tried to pass the Disclose Act, which would require greater transparency about the sources of political donations; both times Republicans filibustered.)

    Of all the so-called dark money groups involved in the 2016 election, none spent more than the N.R.A. The $30 million it expended to elect Trump was three times more than the N.R.A. spent on Mitt Romney’s behalf in the 2012 election.

    That $30 million, however, is just what the N.R.A. spent on the presidential race. It also backed other candidates, reportedly spending $55 million overall. The organization helped Republicans cement control of Congress. If it did so with Russia’s assistance, the whole party is implicated.

  21. rikyrah says:

    cue the tiny violin

    The fine print of Trump’s deal has now turned into reality for Carrier’s Indianapolis employees. Roughly 340 workers lost their jobs in July. The last round of layoffs mean 250 workers will clock in for their final shifts today despite Trump’s pledges.

    Duane Oreskovic is one of them. “Tomorrow will be the last time I clock in, at 5:00 p.m.,” he told In These Times. “We’ll get off at 3:30 in the morning, and that’s the last time we’ll clock out.”
    [snip]
    When asked how he feels about completing his last day, he responded, “Emptiness.”

    http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/20830/Donald-Trump-Carrier-workers-layoffs-jobs-broken-promises

  22. rikyrah says:

    Turnover In Trump’s White House Is ‘Record-Setting,’ And It Isn’t Even Close
    January 19, 20185:00 AM ET

    If President Trump’s first year in office seemed chaotic from a staffing perspective, there’s a reason. Turnover among top-level staff in the Trump White House was off the charts, according to a new Brookings Institution report”

    Turnover in Trump’s first year was more than triple that in former President Barack Obama’s first year, and double the rate in President Ronald Reagan’s White House. A full 34 percent of high-level White House aides either resigned, were fired or moved into different positions in this first year of the Trump presidency.

  23. rikyrah says:

    ‘I Can Describe His Junk Perfectly’
    January 19, 2018 at 7:51 am EST

    InTouch has posted the full interview with porn star Stormy Daniels on her affair with Donald Trump.

    An excerpt:
    IT: Going to the bathroom, did you think you were going to come out and encounter that?

    Stormy: That he was going to be in bed? No, I just had to pee. So anyway, the sex was nothing crazy. He wasn’t like, chain me to the bed or anything. It was one position. I can definitely describe his junk perfectly, if I ever have to. He definitely seemed smitten after that. He was like, “I wanna see you again, when can I see you again?”

    IT: Did he initiate or did you?

    Stormy: Here’s the weird thing. He had one of my DVDs and he asked me to sign it for him and I did.

  24. rikyrah says:

    Tom Cotton Is Simply a Less Impulsive Trump
    by Nancy LeTourneau January 18, 2018

    ……………………………………………………………….

    That’s the guy who is angling to become the next CIA director when/if Trump decides to get rid of Rex Tillerson and replace him with Mike Pompeo. If we were to grade Republican members of congress on how much they are kissing up to Trump these days, Cotton would get an A+. But just as we’ve seen with John Kelly, that isn’t a stretch for him. Cotton might not be as impulsive as Trump, but you’d be hard-pressed to find much daylight between the senator and the president.

    Most of us became acquainted with Tom Cotton when he took the unprecedented step of wiring a letter to the mullahs in Iran in an attempt to undermine the Obama administration’s negotiations to end their nuclear weapons program. His alternative was to suggest that war with Iran would be no big deal.

    On a more personal level, there was the case of Obama’s nominee to the Bahamas, Cassandra Butts. Cotton first put a hold on her confirmation over an issue he had with the secret service. But that was eventually cleared up and Cotton continued the hold. Frank Bruni got the story about why.

    Butts confronted Cotton over his continued hold. “She told me that she once went to see [Sen. Tom Cotton] about it, and he explained that he knew that she was a close friend of Obama’s — the two first encountered each other on a line for financial-aid forms at Harvard Law School, where they were classmates — and that blocking her was a way to inflict special pain on the president.”

    Cassandra Butts died two years, three months and 19 days after she was nominated, with Cotton’s hold still in place.

    Other than lying about Trump’s shithole comments in the White House, here’s the latest from Arkansas’s junior senator.

    #TraitorTommy @TomCottonAR scared of his constituents calling so he’s sending out cease and desist letters. You’re too 🐔 to lead CIA if you can’t even listen to constituents! #arpx pic.twitter.com/N1HAGCmbW6

    — Ozark Indivisible (@OZRKIndivisible) January 18, 2018

    Apparently having constituents contact his office because they disagree with their senator is annoying to Cotton. So he’s told them to cease and desist. Isn’t that lovely?

    What we have is a senator who is willing to lie in support of nativist immigration policies, undermine negotiations in pursuit of war, hurt an individual in order to inflict pain on Obama and demonstrate his authoritarian tendencies by threatening constituents who don’t agree with him. Remind you of anyone?

  25. rikyrah says:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 1/18/18
    Shutdown looming, Trump plans Mar-a-lago trip
    Rachel Maddow notes that while Senate Republicans struggle to avoid a government shutdown without guidance from the White House, Donald Trump plans to leave Friday afternoon for his Florida resort.

  26. rikyrah says:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 1/18/18
    Trump lawyer used shell company to pay porn star: WSJ
    Michael Rothfeld, reporter for The Wall Street Journal, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen used a private company to pay $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels.

  27. rikyrah says:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 1/18/18
    Russian money ties to NRA under FBI scrutiny
    Greg Gordon, investigative reporter for McClatchy DC, talks with Rachel Maddow about news that the FBI is looking into whether Russian money was funneled to the Trump campaign through the NRA.

  28. rikyrah says:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 1/18/18
    Fusion GPS transcript outlines potential Trump money laundering
    Rachel Maddow reads some of the highlights of the newly released transcript of the House Intelligence Committee testimony of Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS.

  29. rikyrah says:

    This Obamas/Poetic Justice painting is the blackest thing you’ll see this week: https://t.co/4FiO0aUqK5 pic.twitter.com/eCIEDWFbZh

    — The Root (@TheRoot) January 18, 2018

  30. rikyrah says:

    A record $107 million was raised for Trump’s inauguration. So where did it all go? No one will say. https://t.co/p8wky8eNS2 via @usatoday

    — David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) January 18, 2018

  31. rikyrah says:

    Trump World’s payment to porn star comes into sharper focus
    01/19/18 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    It’s been a week since the Wall Street Journal first reported on an unexpected controversy surrounding the president and a porn star. The article said that Donald Trump’s lawyer “arranged a $130,000 payment to a former adult-film star a month before the 2016 election as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.”
    The story was met with a series of denials about the alleged extra-marital relationship, though the relevant players didn’t deny the apparent six-figure payment to Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

    Since then, there have been a series of revelations about the alleged affair, but I continue to think the focus should be on the money. Where’d the $130,000 come from? How was the payment made? Did it raise any legal concerns?

    With these questions in mind, the Wall Street Journal moved the ball forward with a new article late yesterday, reporting that Trump’s attorney used a private Delaware company to pay Daniels in exchange for her pre-election silence.

    The lawyer, Michael Cohen, established Essential Consultants LLC, on Oct. 17, 2016, just before the 2016 presidential election, corporate documents show. Mr. Cohen, who is based in New York, then used a bank account linked to the entity to send the payment to the client-trust account of a lawyer representing the woman, Stephanie Clifford, one of the people said.

    Mr. Cohen’s decision to establish the company in Delaware offered him privacy and simplicity, hallmarks of a state that has attracted more than one million business entities. Unlike some states, Delaware doesn’t require companies to publicly disclose the names of their managers.

  32. rikyrah says:

    Hicks’ interview tomorrow has been cancelled by the GOPers on the committee….

    Schiff, White House clash over Hope Hicks testimony in Russia probe

    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/18/adam-schiff-hope-hicks-russia-investigation-349257

  33. rikyrah says:

    Told you that she saw Michael Wolff GETTING PAID, and she’s like ‘ WHAT ABOUT ME?’

    Omarosa may have taped confidential White House discussions https://t.co/oi14E3PpbB

    — Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) January 19, 2018

  34. rikyrah says:

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

    The US astronaut Jeanette Epps has been removed from her upcoming mission to the International Space Station (ISS) just months before launch.

    Dr Epps was to have been the first African-American astronaut assigned to the space station crew.

    She would have flown aboard a Russian Soyuz flight in June but is being replaced by another astronaut.

    Nasa has not given a reason for withdrawing her but says she will be considered for future missions.

    Jeanette Epps, born in Syracuse, completed a doctorate in aerospace engineering in 2000. After graduating, she worked in a laboratory for two years before being recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

    /

    Nasa offered no reason for the decision to remove her from the Expedition 56/57 mission. In a statement, they said she would “return to Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to assume duties in the Astronaut Office”.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42747272

  35. rikyrah says:

    They Only Want White Immigrants
    by BooMan
    Thu Jan 18th, 2018 at 04:07:02 PM EST

    As Ron Brownstein points out, the real goal behind the immigration plan that Republican Sens. David Perdue of Georgia and Tom Cotton of Arkansas are floating is an overall sharp reduction in legal immigration. That this is couched in a preference for high-skilled labor shouldn’t mask that their bill would reduce the influx of high-skillet workers, too. Yet, as Brownstein also points out, the country needs a healthy level of immigration to help pay for our entitlement programs and to meet our overall employment needs. So, one of the primary problems with the Perdue-Cotton approach is that it would set immigration levels too low. As a result, even many moderate or centrist Republicans don’t see their approach as feasible or desirable.

    Of course, the problem driving this call for reduced immigration is that most immigrants these days are not white. If, as President Trump has suggested, we could convince more people from white countries like Norway to immigrate, then we wouldn’t see this resistance to reasonable immigration levels. Unfortunately for people like Trump, Perdue, and Cotton, there just aren’t that many Europeans who want to immigrate to the United States. And, that being the case, they’d rather cause a deficit in labor than permit the browning of America to continue apace.

    The president is willing to say this until he decides he wants to deny having said it. But the outrage his comments sparked shows just how unpopular these sentiments are to most Americans. That’s why the policy proposals are always disguised. They’re about preventing terrorism. They’re about reducing crime. They’re about combatting drug addiction. They’re about protecting the taxpayer. They’re about preferring high-skilled labor or “the best people” over a bunch of losers who just looking for a handout.

    What you’re never supposed to say is that it’s about making America white again. You’re not supposed to say “we want Norwegians, not brown people from shithole countries.”

    The thing is, even for the people who want Norwegians, they don’t have a plan for attracting enough of them. And this is typical from Republicans. There are host of areas where their policy is based on fantasy. Why don’t people just avoid getting pregnant if they don’t want a baby? Why don’t people just make enough money that they can afford to pay for their health insurance? Why don’t people just move if they can’t find a good job or their schools are no good?

    They never account for people’s limitations or frailties or simple misfortunes. Therefore, their policies don’t account for things like “that’s never going to happen” or “you have to be crazy to think that will work.”

    It’s always, “if people would just do x, then we wouldn’t have this problem.” Except people aren’t going to do x. White Europeans aren’t going to immigrate here in the numbers we need. Their racism is as impractical as it is immoral.

  36. rikyrah says:

    From WaPo:

    Hours after 37-year-old Jacinda Ardern was elected leader of New Zealand’s Labour Party in August, two different television hosts asked about her plans for a family. One of the hosts specifically asked whether it was acceptable for a nation’s prime minister to take maternity leave while in office.

    “It is totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace,” Ardern fired back. “It is a woman’s decision about when they choose to have children, and it should not predetermine whether or not they are given a job or have job opportunities.”

    In October, Ardern became New Zealand’s youngest prime minister in more than a century. And on Friday, she announced that she would be taking on another role — that of a mother. Ardern and her partner, Clarke Gayford, are expecting their first child in June.

    “I am not the first woman to multitask. I am not the first woman to work and have a baby,” Ardern said in a news conference Friday. “We are going to make this work, and New Zealand is going to help us raise our first child.”

    So slick…waited until she got the job to announce that she was pregnant.

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA H AH

  37. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/upshot/medicaid-enrollment-obstacles-kentucky-work-requirement.html?hpw&rref=upshot&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
    Excerpt:

    “In 2003, Washington State was facing a budget crisis and wanted to reduce spending on Medicaid. Instead of requiring people to establish their eligibility annually, the legislature began requiring them to do so twice a year, and added some paperwork. It worked: Enrollment in the health insurance program fell by more than 40,000 children in a year.

    “In the early 2000s, Louisiana wanted to maximize the number of eligible children who signed up for coverage, so officials simplified the sign-up process. It also worked: Enrollment surged, and the number of administrative cancellations fell by 20 percentage points.

    “In 2006, Congress asked states to verify the citizenship of beneficiaries by seeking their birth certificates. Across the country, children’s Medicaid enrollment dropped, despite scant evidence that ineligible children had been signed up. That policy was reversed as part of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

    “The Trump administration’s decision to approve a first-of-its-kind work requirement for Kentucky’s Medicaid program last week has inspired concern that the program will leave behind Medicaid beneficiaries who are unable to find or keep work. But a large body of social science suggests that the mere requirement of documenting work hours is likely to cause many eligible people to lose coverage, too.”

  38. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning,Everyone 😄😄😄

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