PRAWN
Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network
PRAWN Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network |
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Info, articles, etc. Amazingly, the President stayed on message last night. "He's got message discipline when he wants it.” Still more good legal news! Michael Cohen pleaded guilty on same day as Maafort was found guilty. Haven't heard this term applied to anyone since Watergate, but "Trump is now officially an unindicted co-conspirator to the crime committed by Cohen." "Paul Manafort Guilty On 8 Counts; Jury Deadlocked On 10 Others" The only reason Manafort wasn't convicted on all counts is because of a single juror.
I never watched the film "On Golden Pond," but I read a review that said the tensions in the film were
resolved when the wife stopped protecting the husband. When the wife
simply got out of the way and allowed the husband to get the full
force of the disapproval of all the people he was annoying, he saw
the light and reformed. "As deficit grows, GOP leaders eye cuts to Medicare, Social Security" Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, tosses in her $0.02 concerning the Parkland students, now on a tour of the US to register young voters. Thomas is of course, very much in touch with right wing thought. Which is a very sad observation considering how incredibly hateful and divisive her comment is. "Trump On Mueller Probe: 'I Could Run It If I Want'" As the piece here shows, there are two kinds of sexuality. There is the kind that people demonstrate by making love to a consenting adult. This kind is shared by heterosexuals and the entire LGBTQ community. Then there is the rape/pedophilia kind, where there is an attacker and a victim. In both cases, gender is not an important consideration. You're either respectful towards your sexual partner or you're abusing your greater strength and/or age. If a man is forcing himself onto someone, whether they're a boy or girl is not a meaningful consideration. "Fox's Fake Judge Spins Insane New Conspiracy Lies About Mueller" As you read this fellow griping about the parade the President almost had, keep in mind that he's a combat vet from the Iraq War. "If you Put an old W. Bush crony in Charge of Iran Policy, doesn't it Signal a War-Like Intention?" This is a large reason we consider the taking away of John Brennan's security clearance to be such a big deal. The President appears to be just making up policy as he goes. "Poll:
Kavanaugh Is The Least Popular SCOTUS Nominee Since Bork" It's a very heartening and inspriring story that a teacher needed sick days, so his fellow teachers pitched n and gave him theirs, but the teacher was in a tight community where everybody knew each other. Lots and lots of people are not in that kind of situation. "Trump Asks Judge Not to Block Access to 3-D Gun Instructions" Arguing there’s no legal basis for the State Department to block availability of the instructions on the internet, and no need for such regulation... There's a $%#@ing public safety reason, you morons!!!!! Federal law already
prohibits
firearms that can’t be detected by metal detectors...
So all someone has to do is pull out the metal parts, mix them in with keys, coins, cell phone, etc. and voilà! The plastic gun in the backpack is undetectable. "Where
are Republicans now that Trump's yanked security clearances from former
top officials?" Awww! Very sad to hear Aretha Franklin has now passed on. Remembering Aretha Franklin. Yep. One a them thar big, tough, brave Israeli soldiers is part of a group of soldiers telling Palestinian children they can't get their bicycles back. Status on the war in Afghanistan - no end in sight. Very cool ideas on corporate responsibility from Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) No apparent evidence that Brennan did anything to warrant losing his security clearance. Of course, he criticised Our Glorious Leader. I guess that's now enough to warrant this sort of action. I thought Tomi
Lahren's rhetoric sounded familiar and looked
around the net. Sure enough, Sarah Palin was saying much
the same
thing right before the 2008 election, basically that because
she was
a woman, she deserved feminist support. Hmm. Gee. I wonder (Ha, ha, no I don't) if there's a connection between former CIA Director John Brennan's criticism of Our Glorious Leader and his loss of his security clearance today. And as with Peter Strzok being fired, a failure to follow procedure. Again, as usual, no one in the Trump Administration can identify the specific policies that led to the creation of so many jobs, but in this case, the Press Secretary cited the correct number for African American jobs for the past year and a half. Problem was, she way, way understated the number created under Obama! Also very peculiar is how the Council of Economic Advisers counted the stats in the first place. They count Obama's numbers from November 08 to July 10 and Trump's from November 16 to July 18, which drags down Obama with a quarter that's actually Bush's and artificially inflates Trump with a quarter that's actually Obama's. 19 months in, a quick review of the President's awesome deal-making capabilities. Ha, ha, ha! NOT! Seems the PR strategy of prominently placing a token black person in the frame of pictures of the President isn't working out very successfully. Oh, and by the way, Kellyanne Conway wasn't lying about there being a black employee in the Executive Office Building, What is his rank? Wel-l-l-l... Smith is a “special assistant to the president,” a more junior rank held by officials who often have their own policy portfolios, but typically are well outside the president’s inner circle. About 80 people on the White House payroll hold the rank of special assistant to the president. The Washington Post publishes the work of an immoral libertarian, Megam McArdle, who argues that insider trading is okay because, hey y'know I mean, someone would have bought those bad stock shares anyway. Not a good thing to hear that Peter Strzok was fired. I thought it had been made abundantly clear that FBI persons were permitted to have political opinions, they just couldn't allow their opinions to interfere with their work. Very interesting to see that Deputy Director of the FBI overruled the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and departed from established precedent by firing 21-year FBI veteran Peter Strzok. The recordings that Omarosa Manigault Newman made are causing serious concerns over how secure this White House is. How many other people have been able to make recordings? Out of 900,000 pages that are relevant to the request of the Democratic Senators, the Trump Administration proposes providing only 5,700 pages. Unacceptable! The US Ambassador to Britain attempts to convince them to join the US in bailing on the Iran nuclear agreement. I found his arguments extremely unpersuasive and suspect the British do too. "Counter-protesters
face down far-right activists marching in Washington for ‘white civil
rights’" The President's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, tries to shrug off questions about his mental health and to suggest he's so obviously sane, the real questions are about his critics. This would be convincing, but he's said things he shouldn't have said, for instance back in early May, that Stormy Daniels was indeed paid $130k by Trump via Michael Cohen. "Palestinian-Israelis
and Jewish-Israelis Stage Huge Protest against Apartheid Law" In Norfolk during the early 90s, we had a housing project that was very similar to the project in East St. Louis. It was built in the 40s and had suffered serious deterioration. The Navy just tore it all down and started over. What HUD needs to do here is to obtain a new lot, build enough units to hold the people who can't move, tear down the whole of the old units and start over. Of course that would cost a lot and of course if HUD Secretary Ben Carson can't get that money, he needs to quit and say the Trump Administration just doesn't care. I cited a piece from this past Wednesday to show that ICE couldn't be trusted (ICE Crashed a Van Full of Separated Mothers, Then Denied It Ever Happened) and yesterday, we saw exactly what I meant. "ICE held back vital information for reuniting deported parents and their stolen children, ACLU says" So first off, Donald Trump Jr. compares economic statistics from the first year of Barack Obama and of his dad's presidency concerning their stewardship of the economy. Obama took over mid-way through the Great Recession, the worst downturn since the 1930s, while Trump Sr. took over during good economic times. Don Jr. then sloppily covered over the most embarrassing part, the fact that his dad got lower approval ratings even though his economic picture was much better. Documents on CIA Director Gina Haspel's tenure at a Thailand torture site are finally being made available long after, of course, she's been made the Director. What the document reveals is what liberals knew about torture to begin with. Torture is useless for getting good information. Saw a fellow being interviewed the other day on the "Space Force" and he said that not a single member of the military, with the exception of the Commander in Chief, considers this to be a good use of time, attention or money. The Air Force is handling everything to do with space, they do not feel a separate service is required. Good heavens! Laura Ingraham makes a white supremacist statement so blatant she might as well just wear a Nazi uniform or a KKK white hood! Laura Ingraham tries to walk back her statement of the night before. Kind of a problem with that is that she spoke of "demographic changes" then and gee, amazingly enough, said nothing about demographics last night. AG Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III wants to eliminate domestic and gang violence as reasons to seek asylum. But this is not a monarchy and bureaucrats can't simply issue a decree. A court was about to hear a case on that issue and the judge was informed that the defendants were already on their way back to El Salvador! "'Turn The Plane Around': Federal Judge Threatens Sessions With Contempt" Very good news in the recent elections for unions! "World’s
biggest oil exporter is betting $2 billion on electric cars" Yeah, this is a pretty mindless take on the arrest of Chris Collins. The newswoman Dana Bash feels that Democratic corruption under the Obama Administration led to the rise of Trump's corruption. Whuuh?!?!?!?! Was she paying attention during the Obama years? "Culture of corruption" is a very easy case to make against the current administration, though. What are the stakes in November? Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) makes it crystal clear. If Republicans lose the majority in the House "all of this goes away." Republicans set the precedent with Justice Sotomayer that all papers from their career had to be made available for inspection, but now Democrats are having to use the Freedom of Information Act to get some of Judge Kavanaugh's papers. More problems with having an amateur president who really doesn't understand what he's doing. Subject this time is tariffs. Again, as usual, the go-to argument for right-wing supporters of the President is the economy. Yes, the economy is looking good. But that doesn't change the fact that the President is a fascist who clearly doesn't have any use for democracy. Had Ms. Owens acknowledged that, I might feel a smidgen of sympathy for her plight in being heckled in a restaurant. I agree with the Morning Joe people and with their Ivanka Trump example. Extremely unimpressed with stories of brave, behind-the-scenes battles. Really, who gives a crap? The fact is that if you don't do it in public, it doesn't mean diddly. Good heavens! 43% of Republicans think the President
should have
the power to shut down news outlets "engaged in bad
behavior.” Jared Kushner's latest peace plan for Palestine/Israel "Federal
judge smacks down Trump admin's effort to rescind DACA" It's a nice idea that special ops forces and drones can do the work of occupying armies. Evidence that they can, 16 years after the invasion of Afghanistan, is pretty unimpressive. Essentially, the only people who take Ayn Rand's works seriously are college kids, recent graduates who don't yet have enough life experience to know any better and the political donor class that is so protected and insulated from reality. The Ryan budget blueprints, endorsed by the entire Republican Party, were exercises in fantasy. The problem was that the Tea Party people actually believed what Ryan was selling and actually tried to enact it. The problem got even worse with a President who also believed in the Ryan/Rand fantasy. The fantasy has produced trillons in debt with no apparent solution in sight. Truly sad that the US thinks it's going to get anywhere with these sanctions on Iran. A blogger took part in a study on sanctions. Sanctions can work under some circumstances. None of those circumstances apply here. Lovely! Thanks to our $%#@$%#!!! President rattling his sword, making wildly unrealistic demands and leaving no diplomatic alternative, Iran is building up its defenses! If war breaks out, it'll be 100% Trump's fault. It's a very good thing that our national security people made a joint announcement that Russian cyber-meddling was and is a serious problem, but true seriousness would have involved appointing a single person or department to counter that threat. NSA Bolton didn't say anything about what further steps the Trump Administration will take. A Kellyanne Conway interview. No, people in the
news media are
not
robots and they do have human reactions to what they report
on.
Conway cherry-picks a few over-the-top reactions and tries to suggest
they and the President's use of Twitter are equivalent. They
aren't. So for the rest of the President's term, we'll have sanctions on Iran. Yep, awesome diplomacy there. Will the sanctions work? Nah. Heh! Theory
here is that Trump people are saying "Hey! If we
just get everything out now, we can avoid an interview with Mueller!" Very good to see plenty of divisions in the conservative camp on going to war with Iran. Heh! Ivanka Trump says her biggest, proudest moment of her daddy's presidency was during December's tax break legislation. Erm, Obama's main job during the ACA/Obamacare was to sell it to the American people. Where was she during the selling of the tax break? For that matter, where was her daddy? Making speeches at rallies of people who already support you doesn't do anything to move the needle outside of base voters. His (and her) job was to sell it to the American people in general and they were both MIA in that regard. The statement by Ivanka Trump that no, the press is of course not, the "enemy of the American people" was very little, very late and didn't go far enough, but her statement went farther and was much better than that of anyone else in the Trump Administration. Many people not at all impressed by NY Times piece. They charge it's a highly selective history that exonerates the fossil fuel companies. "Jared
Kushner Tries to Strip Refugee Status, Aid from Millions of Displaced
Palestinians" I look at Dinesh D'Souza's latest film. It makes a not-very-convincing claim that Donald Trump Jr. swalllows whole. First off, bravo to Judge Dana Sabraw for keeping the pressure on to reunite the 500 remaining parents with their children! Second, bravo to the ACLU for keeping up the fight and representing the parents! Third, the government appears to be dragging its feet and it sure sounds as though they're trying shift responsibility from themselves to the ACLU for reuniting families. Fourth, Ivanka Trump expressed regret and said the family separation policy was a a "low point" for her daddy's administration. The piece doesn't mention her at all. This is an ongoing problem. It isn't dead and gone history. What exactly is she doing about all this? So after the Press Secretary refused to say that CNN's Jim Acosta was not spreading "fake news," the Communications Advisor says, yes, Acosta is spreading "fake news." Her proof? 90% of the news is negative. Gee, ya think maybe that's because 90% of the news under this president is negative?!?!?! "Pompeo Confirms That North Korea Is Far From Denuclearization" So much for the idea that for our President to meet with Kim Jong Un was the start of significant disarmament. For Ivanka Trump to say the family separation policy was a "low point" for the Trump presidency raises the question of complicity. As the policy was clear from the time it was first considered and they had a year to implement it and there was no plan to ever reunite parents and children, then precisely how much of a role did she play in composing this policy? Keep in mind that her official portfolio includes women and family policies. Yeah, there's never been any question that a plastic firearm is good for only a few shots. There's a reason guns are usually made out of metal. Still, if someone just wants to make a really dramatic political statement by getting a plastic gun into what is normally a secure location, there we go. "Dana Loesch Defends 3D Gun Printing As Hobby, Like Knitting" Did a bit of research on this claim of Loesch's yesterday. Yes, legally, you have to have some metal in the gun in order for it to be legal. However, that component is removable. What that means is that if you wanted to assassinate someone (you're a spy or a jilted lover or a teacher gave you a low grade, etc.) or to hold them hostage (the gun may not fire or may blow up in the hostage-taker's hands, but how many people want to count on that?), you can place the gun into a backpack, keep the component in beside other metal (keys, cell phone) and you have a weapon that can fire enough shots to fulfil your mission. Good summary of the Steele Dossier/Fusion GPS situation. Allegedly, there's still money available for election security that hasn't been spent yet, but I agree with the blogger. Is this really the time and place for bean-counting?!?!!?! I do an evaluation of a US invasion of Iran.I'm not very optimistic that it would turn out well or be a short war. So according to Press Secretary Sanders, freedom of the press is something the Trump Administration supports BUT, and then she has to go back two decades to come up with an example of an irresponsible press. Okay, so Politico reports that "Senate sends $717B defense bill to Trump" because hey, y'know security. Protect the country. The Pentagon says the budget is "Critical to Rebuilding, Restoring Readiness" Okay. Democrats asked for, and voted unanimously for, one quarter of one billion to safeguard our election process. That's adding up what the states have requested for election cyber-security. The Republican Party has more or less unanimously voted against spending that relatively tiny amount of money. There is of course, the obvious explanation, that Russian interference will favor Republicans. Is there a more innocent explanation? "Trump
to Sessions: Shut down Russia probe" The family separation policy is a crime that will be forever associated with this administration. A small minority in Israel that apparently didn't receive any consideration in the "Israel for Jews only" law. Wow! "No one" would turn down help from a foreign country in order to win an election in America?!?!?! As Hollywood Reporter puts it "When Al Gore's Campaign Received Illegal Election Material, He Turned It in to the FBI" Evidence on the last tax cut is that a huge proportion of it went into stock buy-backs, which raises the price of stock, so sure. Why not another big tax break? Uh, maybe because we have better things to spend that money on? "In
Pitch For Voter ID, Trump Falsely Claims That ID Needed To Grocery Shop" July Good! Rather late with less than 100 days to go until the midterm election, but good to hear DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen compare possible interference in our election to a category 5 hurricane. Not sure what she actually plans to do about it, but a very promising start. It's very good that our President is questioning whether it's a good idea to have unregistered guns without serial numbers free and loose and available to all and sundry. But boy, I sure miss the days when a president would have put some time and thought into the issue and would have consulted with a wider variety of people than just the NRA. Most presidents wouldn't have allowed 3-D printed guns to have existed at all. Is Rudy Giuliani guilty of witness tampering? "Trump
administration considers tax cut for the wealthy" Yeah, so White House Chief of Staff John Kelly now finds himself sidelined and ignored, replaced by Fox & Friends as the agenda-setter for the White House. So with the family separation policy, the Trump Administration is committing the kind of crime that, like Slavery-Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears or the internment of Japanese-Americans, will live in infamy long after everyone who committed it is passed on. Republicans are upset because 92% of the American population disapproves. Yep! A president surrounded by yes-men. Kellyanne Conway says, "This president obviously isn’t afraid of questions." Yet Trump has repeatedly sought to ban reporters over questions he felt were disrespectful. Young Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi has now served her eight months for slapping an Israeli soldier, graduated high school while in jail and is now considering law school. So with everything else that's going on, what's House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) up to? Shadow banning! Which is not a thing. Twitter was trying to limit trollling and several right-wing politicians got caught up in that. Government people are bitching and groaning because providing information on the 468 parents who were deported without their children would be burdensome to the government! $#$@%&#!!!! Whoa! Piece talks about wildfires in the Arctic Circle! "Trump
Disses Real NATO, now Wants Unrealistic Arab NATO" Tamimi is freed
from jail in Israel. "Trump
election security meeting had no coherent strategy, reportedly lasted
less than an hour" "Shadow Banning" isn't really a thing and doesn't actually occur, but the Republican Party's stance on Net Neutrality makes RNC head Ronna Romney McDaniel's complaints rather ridiculous. Judge Brett Kavanaugh served in the G.W. Bush Administration from 2003 to 2006. There's a "2004 email showing Bush's Deputy Nat Sec Advisor wanted then-Staff Sec. Kavanaugh looped in on spinning the torture memo." This is very, very important! We need to know what Kavanaugh's views were on that. Archive - sidebar items
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