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yourreddancer · 4 days ago

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…Meidas Newsletter 11/21

Pathetic loser Matt Gaetz drops out of his bid to become AG, one week after resigning his seat in the House. Gaetz claimed he was doing it because he was “becoming a distraction.” I still want to see that Ethics report.

… This comes right after a Trump advisor told ABC that any Republican Senator who votes against Gaetz because they think he’s unqualified and unfit is “buying yourself a primary. That is all. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it.” Threats, intimidation, fear - the MAGA brand. Didn’t work this time as Gaetz flamed out after two weeks.

… Gaetz also dropped out minutes before CNN was about to break a new story about a second 17 year old he allegedly paid for sex.

… Gaetz also announced later tonight that he will not seek to get his seat back and his resignation from Congress is permanent. He may be looking at the FL Governor’s race in 2026. Or maybe he just wants to spend more time with his estranged adopted son Nestor.

… Republican House Ethics Chair Michael Guest hopes he’s off the hook: “I think that this should end the discussion of whether or not the ethics committee should continue to move forward in this matter.” They still need to release the report. I’m still not ready to move on.

… Trump wasted no time in naming Gaetz’s replacement - FL AG Pam Bondi. She will get confirmed. She’s a full-MAGA Trump cultist with some shady stuff in her history and will be exceptionally annoying at times. But she isn’t as bad as Gaetz. If we are grading on a curve, she’s probably the least awful of the most awful Trump nominees.

… While Trump was announcing Bondi, Texas’s repulsive AG Ken Paxton was on Steve Bannon’s show lobbying for the gig. Steve was pitching his guy Paxton for the job and Trump showed once again that he no longer listens to anything Bannon has to say.

… It was delicious listening to Paxton grovel and beg for the job all while knowing that Trump was announcing Bondi at the same time. It’s rare for me when listening to Bannon’s show is actually fun. This was one of those times.

… Dems really need to focus all their energy on Hegseth, Gabbard, and RFK Jr. You got to pick your battles here somewhat even though Trump is naming one crazy after another. You aren’t going to defeat all of them, but knocking out Gaetz and at least 2 of these 3 would be good considering it is a Republican majority now in the Senate.

… Although all 3 really should be voted down. Damn!

… Trump has still not appointed a single Black person to any position in his Administration. Something lower down the food chain is coming for Ben Carson any day now I know it.

… Trump’s primary Black MAGA surrogate during the campaign, Rep. Byron Donalds, was asked if he was surprised that he hadn’t been appointed to something yet: “All I will say is I am not surprised that I have not been named, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do other things in the future.”

… Nobody worked harder on the campaign trail for Trump than Donalds. Donalds needed to be everyone to vouch for Trump that he wasn’t a racist. But he’s on the outside looking in right now. Thanks for the help.

… Some in MAGA world already floating Gaetz’s name as someone Desantis could appoint to Marco Rubio’s seat in the Senate. No way Desantis does that. He’s no great fan of Gaetz. Plus he would instantly create a co-equal rival for political supremacy in FL. That’s not how Desantis rolls.

… Florida also has agreed to settle a lawsuit for $725,000 brought by businesses who challenged his unconstitutional “Stop Woke Act.” He continues to cost FL taxpayers countless millions fighting his culture wars.

… Nancy Mace has decided to make testicle inspections her new crusade, despite the fact that Mike Johnson has already resolved the issue in the Capitol. She wants to ban trans people from bathrooms nationwide everywhere, so the 242 tweets she posted in the first 36 hours since this started was apparently just a sneak preview of coming unattractions.

… She is calling her new cause, “No Balls in Our Stalls.” For real.

… The 2017 sex assault police report was released on Pete Hegseth, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. The report cites multiple witnesses who said the married christian was groping multiple women at a conference while drunk, before taking a married woman to his room and allegedly assaulting her. “I remember saying ‘No’ a lot” she told police. A nurse at the hospital reported the incident to police after a rape kit was performed.

…. Hegseth paid for her silence with an NDA. It’s disclosed now though.

… Reports are that Trump is furious that Hegseth never told them about this incident prior to his nomination and lied to them about paying for an NDA with any accusers.

… ProPublica is reporting that the state of Georgia dismissed every member of a state committee that is supposed to investigate deaths of pregnant women while they were investigating the deaths of two women who may have died because of that state’s abortion ban. The state apparently disagreed with the conclusions of some on the committee that the abortion ban caused or contributed to the cause of their deaths.

… CNN has unearthed a previous video where RFK Jr compared Trump to Hitler, but then said the comparison probably wasn’t fair because Hitler actually cared about policy. In the clip, he went on to call Trump supporters “belligerent idiots,” “outright Nazis,” and “bootlickers.”

… This was RFK Jr’s exact quote about Trump: “You know, he’s not like Hitler. Hitler had a plan. Hitler was interested in policy.”

… So Trump’s VP said he was “America’s Hitler” and his HHS Secretary nominee said he is except Hitler was a little more competent. Lovely.

… RFK Jr now says that he no longer thinks those things and blamed the media for created a distorted picture in his mind of Trump with biased coverage. Right. He was trashing Trump right up until the time Trump called him to persuade him to drop out in exchange for a Cabinet appointment.

… Lots of people posting clips, tweets and bills Nancy Mace posted and introduced supporting transgender rights in 2021. Mace’s won a 50-50 district running as a moderate in 2020. Then Trump endorsed a primary challenger against him, called her a “grandstanding fraud,” she begged forgiveness, started kissing the ring, her district got redrawn to get more MAGA, and now she has transformed herself into the repulsive person she is today.

… That’s basically the evolution of MAGA Mean Girl Nancy. Leaving out of few details. Like her entire staff quitting while complaining she talked about her sex life constantly, the messy lawsuit over her breakup with her finance, talking about her boyfriend wanting sex that morning while she was the keynote speaker at a prayer breakfast, I could go on and on.

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blackfreethinkers · 5 years ago

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Harold Newton did something that took guts.

An African American artist from Georgia, Newton in 1955 walked through the front door of a well-known white artist’s home in Fort Pierce, Florida, to ask A. E. Backus for advice.

“Backus had a reputation here in town for being inclusive and open to people no matter their gender, no matter their beliefs, no matter their race,” said J. Marshall Adams, Executive Director of the A.E. Backus Museum and Gallery in Fort Pierce. “Backus was very encouraging of his work, gave him critiques, gave him demonstrations, gave him art supplies to help encourage him.”

Newton soaked up everything Backus taught him.

Selling paintings along the highway

But Newton had one more hurdle to overcome if he wanted to sell his own landscape paintings.

“He couldn’t set up his own gallery, his own space in those segregated times and attract white clientele to a black studio so he had to figure out a way to get his art to his clients, to his customers,” Adams said.

Newton's solution: sell his paintings out of his car along U.S. 1. That method spread and was adopted by more than two dozen artists in the area, leading to more than 200,000 paintings and a vibrant African American art scene up and down the Treasure Coast. The artists were later given the name: Highwaymen.

Historical and museum photos of Florida's Highwaymen Artists

Alfred Hair wasn't the first Highwaymen artist, but he was seen as the African American art movement's charismatic leader whose hustle to sell art out of the trunk of his car led to a successful career before his life was cut short when he was shot and killed at a local hangout in Fort Pierce, Florida.1 of 47 Highwaymen artist Al "Blood" Black with one of his paintings in 2014.

Highwaymen artist Curtis Arnett with Attorney General Pam Bondi, left, and curator Jeanna Brunson at the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee in 2011.

Fort Pierce Highwaymen Artist James Gibson brings one of his paintings into the Sunrise Theater to be hung in preparation for the 2007 Highwaymen Florida Artist Hall of Fame Artist Award Celebration held in November 2007.

R.L. Lewis standing in front of his Highwaymen art in 2008.

Mary Ann Carroll, the only woman of the 26 Highwaymen artists in the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, poses for a photo in her garage studio at her home on Oct. 7, 2014, in Fort Pierce. Vero Beach painter Ray McLendon shares a laugh with fifth-grade students on March 2, 2017, at Beachland Elementary School as he signs autographs after giving a talk about Florida Highwaymen art. Florida Highwaymen painter, R. L. Lewis puts finishing touches on painting while attending the Tallahassee Museum's (Jr. Museum) annual Market Days fund raiser held at the North Florida Fairgrounds in 2006.

Highwaymen artist James Gibson at the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science's annual Market Days fund raiser at the Leon County Fairgrounds in 2007.

Highwaymen artist R.L. Lewis painting at the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science's annual Market Days fund raiser at the Leon County Fairgrounds in 2007.

A. E. "Bean" Backus working on one of his paintings sometime in the 1980s.

Robert Butler, Highwayman Artist, working on a painting at the Old Capitol - Tallahassee, Florida, in 2006.

Each year the A.E. Backus Museum in Fort Pierce holds an exhibit celebrating the works of the Florida Highwaymen artists. Backus is credited for giving lessons to Harold Newton and Alfred Hair, two original Florida Highwaymen artists. The 2020 exhibit looked at the art of the Hair, who was considered the charismatic leader of the African American art movement in the area.

The A.E. Backus Museum in Fort Pierce celebrates the work and life of one of the great early Florida landscape artists. Backus also is credited for giving lessons to Harold Newton and Alfred Hair, two original Florida Highwaymen artists.

Doretha Hair Truesdell, widow of original Florida Highwaymen artist Alfred Hair, with Marshall Adams, the executive director of the A.E. Backus Museum, in Fort Pierce. Alfred Hair was considered the charismatic leader of the African American group of artists from Fort Pierce and the surrounding areas. The Backus museum has a permanent display of Highwaymen art.

The Florida Highwaymen were a group of African American artists, generally from Fort Pierce and the surrounding areas, who drove up and down U.S. 1 selling the landscape art during the 1950s and 60s.

The A.E. Backus Museum in Fort Pierce has a permanent display of Highwaymen art, and each January into February, expands that collection to encompass much of the museum. This is part of the expanded 2020 exhibit called "Driving Force."

The story of Alfred Hair

One of the artists considered to be the scene's leader was Alfred Hair. When Hair was 14 years old, he, like Newton, fell into Backus' orbit.

Hair went to the nearby segregated school in Fort Pierce — Lincoln Park Academy. It was Hair’s teacher who suggested Backus take him under his wing.

Backus taught Hair how to paint landscapes and how to make frames. Hair started to believe he could turn painting into a career, something unheard of for blacks of the time.

"The only jobs you could get was working in the fields, that was your job, in the orange groves," said Hair’s widow, Doretha Hair Truesdell. "Alfred didn’t see himself doing that. He said painting is what I’m going to do. This is my job. This is my employment."

As Hair grew in the industry, he knew he would have to do things differently from his white mentor, who could set up in galleries and share his paintings with mass audiences.

So Hair came up with his own business model.

A new business model

“What he could do is lean into his talents, and one of those talents was painting fast,” Adams said. “If he could learn how to paint faster and paint more volume he would have more to sell — he would sell them for a less expensive price point than an established artist — but at the end of the day make as much money.”

Soon, Hair took a page from Newton’s playbook. He began driving up and down the highway selling his paintings.

It worked. During the early part of the 1960s Hair, and many other artists with a similar painting style, thrived.

“On Oct. 16, 1965, we moved into our house that we had built from those paintings,” said Hair Truesdell. “When we moved into that house that’s when we really exploded. We could produce about 20 paintings a day. We hired salespeople. Some of the people that are Highwaymen now were our salespeople. They sold for us, so we were really making a lot of money for that time.”

Hair and Newton’s practice of selling art out of their cars came to be used by many African American artists along the U.S. 1 corridor on Florida’s Treasure Coast.

Many found success.

More: Harry T. Moore helped thousands of blacks register to vote. It led to his assassination on Christmas night

More: Mary McLeod Bethune was born the daughter of slaves. She died a retired college president

When everything changed

However, in 1970, the African American art scene lost its charismatic leader when Hair was gunned down in a bar. He was only 29.

“Overnight, everything dies," said Hair's widow. "Nothing is left.”

Many of the African American landscape artists continued to paint, but waning interest after Hair's death coupled with new tastes and styles in the 1970s and 1980s saw much of the success fade away.

“We survived it all,” Hair Truesdell said. “We’re still living. Still standing and still we have the memory and we will always have the memory of Alfred, of his vision.”

In the mid-1990s Jim Fitch, a Florida art historian, discussed the African American painting movement of the 1960s in the St. Petersburg Times, using a label to describe their art.

How the 'Highwaymen' came to be

“That term is ‘The Highwaymen,’” Adams said. “The name came from the artery of U.S. 1 being the chief way to go up and down and sell your works of art. So it’s easy for us to, now that we have a term, to describe these artists.”

This created a new interest in their art, which is estimated to include 200,000 paintings.

One of the distinctive things that make the Highwaymen art unique is the frames and vibrant colors of the landscapes.

Especially early on, because they lacked the resources and supplies, Hair and others would paint on upson board. They framed paintings with crown molding and brushed them with gold or silver to give them a rustic look.

“I really think the board that we painted on, I just think it gave it vibrancy that you don’t get from canvas,” Hair Truesdell said. “Also, we shellacked our board, and then we put a sealant on the board, and then the paint just adhered to that sealant and I just think that it gave it life.”

The true number of Highwaymen artists has been debated, with some being considered second or third generation Highwaymen.

However, in 2004, the number of identified Highwaymen was set at 26 when they were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

They include: Curtis Arnett, Hezekiah Baker, Al "Blood" Black, brothers Ellis Buckner and George Buckner, Robert Butler, Mary Ann Carroll, brothers Johnny Daniels and Willie Daniels, Rodney Demps, James Gibson, Alfred Hair, Isaac Knight, Robert Lewis, John Maynor, Roy McLendon, Alfonso "Pancho" Moran, brothers Sam Newton, Lemuel Newton and Harold Newton, Willie Reagan, Livingston "Castro" Roberts, Cornell "Pete" Smith, Charles Walker, Sylvester Wells and Charles "Chico" Wheeler.

“Even though they might be painting similar subjects in a similar manner they each have their own individual viewpoints,” Adams said. “I think it’s important to honor these individual artists as well as the collective group. The collective story is really important, but it shouldn’t obscure the idea that these are individuals who are looking at subjects and painting with their own style. If you look closely you can see a wide range of different perspectives of how they approached a single subject.”

Highwaymen paintings can be seen at the A.E. Backus Gallery & Museum in Fort Pierce, as well as the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee.

Many can be purchased at various websites in their honor.

There are also some pieces on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“It’s wonderful that these artists are being recognized today and they’re continuing to be recognized,” Adams said. “These works have a timeless beauty. They are of a certain time and there were certain social and political and cultural forces that shaped how they were made and how the people made them, were able to make them. They really speak beyond that.”

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odinsblog · 7 years ago

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Sometimes I catch a little flack for saying, “Republicans are evil” but nah … I never feel bad for saying it because it’s true.

How heartless do you have to be to block common sense gun regulation right in the faces of the students who recently survived a mass shooting?

Civilians do not need an AR-15. Anyone who believes that the 2nd Amendment means owning absolutely ANY weapon you want is childish and emblematic of white male entitlement. And yeah, I’m keying in on white men. They’re the overwhelming majority of mass school shooters. And no, I’m not worried about “being nice” or hurting a gun owner’s delicate little, snowflake feelings. It’s past time for all of that.

Keep in mind: Florida’s Governor Rick Scott and Florida’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi - they both pushed to lower the age requirement for buying AR-15s. The Parkland mass shooter was 19-years old. Not old enough to buy liquor, but old enough to buy a lethal weapon of mass destruction in the state of Florida. And Donald Trump’s federal budget cuts funding for mental health services and also cuts funding for background checks. Republicans obviously DO NOT care about “the children” or they wouldn’t have spat in their faces.

The NRA is a death-cult. The Republican Party is evil. Republican voters are their simple minded, easily manipulated death-cult followers.

#parkland #gun rights #marjory stoneman douglas high school #politics #guns #gun violence #nra #republicans are evil #gunblr

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berniesrevolution · 6 years ago

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JACOBIN MAGAZINE

Nobody is quite sure how to understand Donald Trump.

A group of twenty-seven American psychiatrists and mental health experts made a long list of personality disorders — narcissism, delusional disorder, paranoia, unbridled and extreme present hedonism, and more — shortly after he came into office. Some might be accurate. But psychological designations aren’t the best way to wrap your mind around Trump. To fully examine him as a political actor, we must root his personal characteristics in the US social structure.

Trump is a capitalist. That isn’t a surprise to anyone. But he is a particular kind of capitalist: a lumpen capitalist.

A Career of Skullduggery

In his Class Struggles in France. 1848–1850, Marx wrote that the finance aristocracy of that time “in its mode of acquisition as well as in its pleasures, is nothing but the rebirth of the lumpenproletariat on the heights of bourgeois society.” Marxist scholar Hal Draper clarified that Marx’s “finance aristocracy” did not refer to the finance capital that plays an integral role in bourgeois economy, but to the “vultures and raiders” who swing from speculation to swindling and who are the near criminal or extralegal excrescences from the body social of the rich just like the “lumpen proletariat” proper are excrescences from the poor.

Marx referred again to this upper-class “lumpen proletariat” after the fall of the Paris Communein 1871, as enjoying their leisure in “the Paris of the Boulevards, male and female — the rich, the capitalist, the gilded, the idle Paris, now thronging with its lackeys, its blacklegs, its literary bohême, and its cocottes.”

The essence of Trump’s lumpen capitalism is expressed in many ways, beginning with his shady, illegal (or bordering on the illegal) financial operations. “Normal” capitalists will often take illegal shortcuts in pursuit of profit — like avoiding paying taxes, violating government regulations, illegally smashing union drives — all in the course of managing otherwise “normal” capitalist enterprises. For lumpen-capitalist Trump, however, those shortcuts are the principal strategy for his profit-making.

Examples of this abound, starting with the skullduggery that pervades his financial operations. “Normal” capitalists may regularly borrow money from banks and other financial institutions to run their businesses; they only resort to bankruptcy occasionally, usually as a last resort. But as the “king of debt,” Trump’s businesses have gone into bankruptcy no less than six times, five times for his casinos and once for New York’s Plaza Hotel.

According to business historian Gwenda Blair, in 1990, Trump secretly met with representatives of several big American banks to find a way out of his staggering $2 billion in bank debt that included personal liability on guarantees and unsecured loans amounting to $800 million, as well as more than $1 billion in junk bonds on his casinos. As Blair put it, in less than a decade, Trump had become what Marie Brenner in Vanity Fair called the “Brazil of Manhattan,” with annual interest payments of approximately $350 million exceeding his cash flow. Only two of his assets, his half of the Grand Hyatt Hotel and the retail component of Trump Tower, had at that time any chance of making a profit.

The lawsuits against his Trump University have further exposed the extent of his shady financial operations. He founded this for-profit “university” with a couple of partners in 2005 to offer courses in real estate and asset management among other subjects. It was not accredited; neither did it give grades, confer university credits, or grant degrees. A few years after it was founded, it was investigated by the New York Attorney General and sued for illegal business practices. Two class-action suits were also filed against it in federal court, alleging that its students were the victims of misleading marketing practices and aggressive sales tactics. After he was elected president, Trump paid the victims $25 million and settled the case, even though he had repeatedly promised not to do so.

Like Trump University, these types of institutions typically have very poor records in degree completion and job placement but are efficient machines for exacting profits off the fat of the federal government’s loans and subsidies to their overwhelmingly poor and minority adult students. After the Obama administration’s attempts to curb some of their worst abuses, Trump’s administration sharply went the other direction: under the direction of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, it has given them the green light to proceed with their fraudulent practices.

His Trump Foundation is another case in point. As the New York Times wrote in a recent editorial, “the Trump Foundation, is not a generous and ethical charity, but just another of his [Trump’s] grifts.” As the editorial pointed out, the largest donation reported by the foundation, for the amount of $264,631, was used to refurbish the fountain in front of Trump’s Plaza Hotel in New York City. Other questionable activities included its 2013 illegal contributions to the reelection of Pam Bondi, Florida’s attorney general.

On October 2, 2018, the New York Times published a devastating investigative report on Trump debunking his claim that his father Fred Trump had “only” lent him $1 million to start his business career. In fact, as the report shows, Donald Trump received from his father at least $60.7 million, ($140 million in today’s dollars). The report also details the numerous dubious and outright illegal ways in which Donald avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in gift and estate taxes.

Most telling of Donald’s character is the finding that he tried, in 1990, to take total control of his then-eighty-five-year-old father’s business and fortune behind his back. Donald’s attempt was foiled by Trump Sr himself, who, with the help of his daughter, federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, had him legally stripped from any attempt to take over his father’s businesses. According to sworn depositions by members of the Trump family, Fred told them that Donald’s takeover would put “his life’s work at risk,” and that he feared his son would use his father’s businesses as collateral to rescue his failing businesses.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #jacobin #jacobin magazine #Donald Trump #capitalism

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furrywolflover · 7 years ago

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There are some strong word choices in that article you posted, seems a little disheartening for some of your followers unless you feel the same way.

I’ll put my stance on this bluntly, change NEEDS to happen.

Civilians have no need to own a AR-15, and people use the second amendment too strongly.

Someone who isn’t even old enough to drink should not be aloud to buy a weapon designed to kill people.

A lot of the article I agree to a point, I don’t agree that EVERYONE in the party is that way, but a good amount are.

“How heartless do you have to be to block common sense gun regulation right in the faces of the students who recently survived a mass shooting? Civilians do not need an AR-15. Anyone who believes that the 2nd Amendment means owning absolutely ANY weapon you want is childish and emblematic of white male entitlement. And yeah, I’m keying in on white men. They’re the overwhelming majority of mass school shooters. And no, I’m not worried about “being nice” or hurting a gun owner’s delicate little, snowflake feelings. It’s past time for all of that.Keep in mind: Florida’s Governor Rick Scott and Florida’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi - they both pushed to lower the age requirement for buying AR-15s. The Parkland mass shooter was 19-years old. Not old enough to buy liquor, but old enough to buy a lethal weapon of mass destruction in the state of Florida. And Donald Trump’s federal budget cuts funding for mental health services and also cuts funding for background checks“

This is the part that is the strongest agreement from me, we need to change this, we have school shooting more then anywhere else in the world, and the same thing always happens, it happens, people talk about it and discourse, nothing happens, people forget, then another shooting happens. After we had ONE shooting should have been enough to show the government changes needed to happen.

I’m sorry for the long text post, but this is something that needs to be said and responded too

#long post #text

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opedguy · 5 years ago

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Trump Names Impeachment Dream Team

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Jan. 17, 2020.--Gearing up for his Senate impeachment trial, 73-year-old President Donald Trump has lawyered up, pulling out big legal guns in his impeachment fight with Democrats. House Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Intelligence Committee Director Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.), accuse Trump of (1) abuse of power and (2) obstruction of Congress. All three claim they want a fair trial but robbed Trump of due process in 12 weeks of impeachment hearings, refusing to allow Trump’s lawyers to cross-examine a group of cherry-picked witnesses all saying that Trump engaged in a quid pro quo with 40-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Schiff produced a so-called “whistleblower” who claimed he had second-hand information about a July 25, 2019 phone call Trump had with Zelensky.

Schiff’s “whistleblower” claimed Trump withheld $391 million Congressionally-approved military aid in exchange for information on former 77-year-old Vice President Joe Biden and his 50-year-old son, Hunter. Hunter got a job on Ukraine natural gas company Busima Holdings’ Board while Joe ran former President Barack Obama’s anti-corruption task force, earning from $50,000 to $150.000 a month, making millions over a three year period. Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) all demand that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) allow new witnesses and documents, accusing McConnell of bias for saying he was “coordinating” with the White House Dec.13 on impeachment matters. House Democrats know they met their burden of proof in 12 weeks of impeachment hearings against Trump with extreme prejudice.

Sworn in as jurors Jan. 18 by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, Senate Democrats and Republicans promised to uphold the U.S. Constitution, something that doesn’t rule out political bias.. Unlike a normal criminal trial, Senate Democrats and Republicans aren’t screened by the presiding judge in what’s called voir dire, or questioning to rule out bias in prospective jurors. All Democrats and Republicans carry extreme bias into the impeachment proceeding with most, if not all, Democrats wanting Trump convicted and tossed out of office. Most Republicans, on the other hand, want Trump acquitted. Everyone knows this but Pelosi hammered McConnell as “biased” because he said he’s “coordinating” with the White House. McConnell isn’t the one picking Trump’s counsel to defend him in next week’s impeachment trial, slated to begin Tuesday, Jan. 21.

Trump’s legal team will be headed by his chief White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who’s more backstage detail-oriented lawyer, not the P.T. Barnum showman expected to cross-examine Democrat witnesses. Trump plans to have his media-savvy private lawyer Jay Sekulow, emeritus Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, former Clinton Special Prosecutor Ken Starr and Florida Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi take the lead in the Senate for oral arguments, while Miami-based criminal defense Atty. Jane Raskin works behind the scenes. Letting Sekulow and Dershowitz play to the cameras gives Trump the best chance of vindication in the public’s eye. “He’s been impeached forever. They can never erase that,” Pelosi said gleefully Jan. 15. Pelosi hasn’t had her impeachment case subjected to scrutiny, getting the mainstream press to rubber stamp her case against Trump. Her “ironclad” case is about to be tested.

House managers, led by Schiff, have already presented their case to press and American public for the last three months. There’s nothing new that will be presented in Trump’s impeachment trial, even if House managers get new witnesses and documents. All new testimony and documents only corroborate the House’s case against Trump, but add nothing to the bottom line: Did Trump commit high-crimes-and-misdemeanors. Republicans believe that Trump did not commit high-crimes-and-misdemeanors in his July 25, 2019 conversation with Zelensky. Democrats used their Article 1 authority to lower the bar on impeachment, voting out two articles that don’t meet the Constitutional test for impeachment. Democrats have not accused Trump of “treason, bribery or other high-crimes-and-misdemeanors” as specified in the Constitution, in effect weaponizing the House impeachment process.

Trump’s legal team plans to mount a vigorous defense, challenging every fact in Democrats’ impeachment case. Pelosi and Schumer want to introduce new witnesses, including Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-Soviet-born businessman who worked for Trump’s personal attorney, former N.Y., Mayor Rudy Giuliani trying to ascertain Ukraine’s involvement in helping former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2016 election. Parnas and his partner Igor Fruman were arrested Oct. 9, 2019 for trying to bribe politicians to influence U.S.-Ukraine relations. Seeking Parnas’ testimony shows how desperate House Democrats are to prove their case. House managers want former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Chief of Staff Mick Mulaney and OMB official Michael Duffey to testify Whether that happens or not, Trump’s dream team is waiting to pounce on Democrats’ impeachment case.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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yabbadabbadoolove · 5 years ago

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Reposting from another source: Sandra R Plafster

Democrats didn’t care when Madonna said she had thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.

Democrats didn’t care when Kathy Griffin posed with a mock severed head of President Trump.

Democrats didn’t care when a Broadway Play depicted the assassination of President Trump.

Democrats didn’t care when Johnny Depp said, “how long has been since an actor assassinated a President”.

Democrats didn't care when Snoop Dog and Eminem made music videos about assassinating President Trump.

Democrats didn’t care when dozens of people were shot to death at a Jason Aldean concert.

Democrats didn’t care when Congressman Steve Scalise was shot at a baseball game.

Democrats didn’t care when Robert De Niro said “somebody needs to take out Trump”.

Democrats didn’t care when Carole Cook said "Where's John Wilkes Booth when you need him?"

Democrats didn’t care when Republican candidate Rudy Peters was attacked by a man with a switchblade.

Democrats didn’t care when a Republican Party Office was set on fire.

Democrats didn’t care when Eric Holder said “When they go low, we kick ‘em”.

Democrats didn’t care when Trump family members received suspicious packages in the mail.

Democrats didn’t care when Secretary of Defense James Mattis received death threats.

Democrats didn’t care when Maxine Waters said “you get up in their face at the mall, in restaurants, at gas stations and you tell them Republicans they’re not welcomed anywhere”.

Democrats didn’t care when Sarah Sanders and her family were harassed at a restaurant, instructed to leave and chased down the street.

Democrats didn’t care when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was harassed and chased out of a Mexican restaurant.

Democrats didn’t care when Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s life was threatened and he was chased out of a restaurant.

Democrats didn’t care when Attorney General Pam Bondi was harassed and chased out of a theatre.

Democrats didn't care when Rand Paul was attacked and beaten up in his own yard.

Democrats didn’t care when two Republican senators: Rob Portman of Ohio and John Boozman of Arkansas were harassed in their own yards and on their own doorsteps.

Democrats didn’t care when a 71-year-old female staffer for California Rep. Dana Rohrbacher was knocked unconscious by an angry group of liberal protesters.

Democrats didn’t care when a North Carolina GOP office was firebombed by an angry mob of liberals.

Democrats didn’t care when Hillary Clinton said “we can’t be civil to Republicans until Democrats return to power”.

For over two years Democrats have encouraged hate, harassment, vandalism, acts of violence, sedition and insurrection, advocated for the violent overthrow of the US government and the violent overthrow of the current sitting President, destruction of the US Constitution, open borders, giving all illegal aliens and immigrants the same rights and benefits they have not rightfully and legally earned, demanding that these very same illegal aliens and immigrants have the Constitutional right to vote, and even threats of assassination.

These very same Democrats think they are "God's gifts to the American People", when in all actuality and Constitutional fact:

They are merely and simply PUBLIC SERVANTS AND NOTHING MORE, HIRED HELP, AND MERE EMPLOYEES OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS!!!

WE VOTED FOR, AND PUT, YOUR ABSOLUTELY USELESS ASSES IN OFFICE, AND WE CAN DAMN WELL TAKE YOU OUT AND PUT YOU DOWN, AND THERE AIN'T A DAMN THING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT... PERIOD!!!...”

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blackfreethinkers · 5 years ago

Link

Harold Newton did something that took guts.

An African American artist from Georgia, Newton in 1955 walked through the front door of a well-known white artist’s home in Fort Pierce, Florida, to ask A. E. Backus for advice.

Newton soaked up everything Backus taught him.

Selling paintings along the highway

But Newton had one more hurdle to overcome if he wanted to sell his own landscape paintings.

Historical and museum photos of Florida's Highwaymen Artists

R.L. Lewis standing in front of his Highwaymen art in 2008.

Highwaymen artist James Gibson at the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science's annual Market Days fund raiser at the Leon County Fairgrounds in 2007.

Highwaymen artist R.L. Lewis painting at the Tallahassee Museum of History and Natural Science's annual Market Days fund raiser at the Leon County Fairgrounds in 2007.

A. E. "Bean" Backus working on one of his paintings sometime in the 1980s.

Robert Butler, Highwayman Artist, working on a painting at the Old Capitol - Tallahassee, Florida, in 2006. Each year the A.E. Backus Museum in Fort Pierce holds an exhibit celebrating the works of the Florida Highwaymen artists. Backus is credited for giving lessons to Harold Newton and Alfred Hair, two original Florida Highwaymen artists. The 2020 exhibit looked at the art of the Hair, who was considered the charismatic leader of the African American art movement in the area.

The Florida Highwaymen were a group of African American artists, generally from Fort Pierce and the surrounding areas, who drove up and down U.S. 1 selling the landscape art during the 1950s and 60s.

The story of Alfred Hair

One of the artists considered to be the scene's leader was Alfred Hair. When Hair was 14 years old, he, like Newton, fell into Backus' orbit.

Hair went to the nearby segregated school in Fort Pierce — Lincoln Park Academy. It was Hair’s teacher who suggested Backus take him under his wing.

Backus taught Hair how to paint landscapes and how to make frames. Hair started to believe he could turn painting into a career, something unheard of for blacks of the time.

As Hair grew in the industry, he knew he would have to do things differently from his white mentor, who could set up in galleries and share his paintings with mass audiences.

So Hair came up with his own business model.

A new business model

Soon, Hair took a page from Newton’s playbook. He began driving up and down the highway selling his paintings.

It worked. During the early part of the 1960s Hair, and many other artists with a similar painting style, thrived.

Hair and Newton’s practice of selling art out of their cars came to be used by many African American artists along the U.S. 1 corridor on Florida’s Treasure Coast.

Many found success.

More: Harry T. Moore helped thousands of blacks register to vote. It led to his assassination on Christmas night

More: Mary McLeod Bethune was born the daughter of slaves. She died a retired college president

When everything changed

However, in 1970, the African American art scene lost its charismatic leader when Hair was gunned down in a bar. He was only 29.

“Overnight, everything dies," said Hair's widow. "Nothing is left.”

Many of the African American landscape artists continued to paint, but waning interest after Hair's death coupled with new tastes and styles in the 1970s and 1980s saw much of the success fade away.

“We survived it all,” Hair Truesdell said. “We’re still living. Still standing and still we have the memory and we will always have the memory of Alfred, of his vision.”

In the mid-1990s Jim Fitch, a Florida art historian, discussed the African American painting movement of the 1960s in the St. Petersburg Times, using a label to describe their art.

How the 'Highwaymen' came to be

This created a new interest in their art, which is estimated to include 200,000 paintings.

One of the distinctive things that make the Highwaymen art unique is the frames and vibrant colors of the landscapes.

The true number of Highwaymen artists has been debated, with some being considered second or third generation Highwaymen.

However, in 2004, the number of identified Highwaymen was set at 26 when they were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

Highwaymen paintings can be seen at the A.E. Backus Gallery & Museum in Fort Pierce, as well as the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee.

Many can be purchased at various websites in their honor.

There are also some pieces on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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A secretly recorded tape of Trump talking to Michael Cohen, released to CNN Tuesday night, is the most momentous revelation yet from the falling-out between the president and his former lawyer.

In the September 2016 tape, Cohen alludes to a hush-money deal involving former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed she had an affair with Trump a decade earlier. The National Enquirer’s parent company had reached a deal to purchase McDougal’s story. The company, American Media Inc., is run by a friend of Trump, and bought the story specifically so they could prevent it from getting out.

So Cohen suggests creating a shell company to pay AMI, and Trump seems to approve. Cohen says he’s already spoken to the CFO of the Trump Organization about financing the deal. Then, as Trump and Cohen discuss the financing, the recording cuts off. (Trump’s team has denied the deal ended up happening.)

The tape — recorded by Cohen without Trump’s knowledge, and seized by the FBI during raids on Cohen’s residence and office in April — is part of into a larger investigation by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The full scope of the investigation is not yet clear, and no one has yet been charged. But it appears to relate to several efforts by Trump’s allies to hush up scandals that could damage him during the campaign — sometimes by paying large sums of money, potentially in violation of campaign finance law. The tape connects Trump to Cohen’s actions directly.

Cohen has appeared to be in serious legal jeopardy since the raids, and his team has repeatedly floated the prospect that he might strike a plea deal with prosecutors and “flip” on Trump. No such deal has yet materialized, but it was Cohen’s own attorney Lanny Davis who provided the tape to CNN and who suggested Cohen would no longer defend Trump, adding that there’s “more to come.”

But the tape is plenty dramatic on its own — and plenty revealing about how Trump and Cohen operated.

It confirms that Trump was well aware of Cohen’s involvement in the McDougal payoff. And since the two men use vague shorthand to describe it, Trump was likely very much in the loop on Cohen’s other legally questionable activities on his behalf as well. The ultimate legal implications, though, remain unclear.

Michael Cohen is a longtime lawyer and employee of Trump who’s called himself Trump’s “fix-it guy” — “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit,” he’s said. This role included trying to suppress scandalous stories that could damage Trump during the presidential campaign. By the time the tape was recorded, Cohen was already infamous for making profane, violent-sounding threats to reporters and others.

An important ally in this effort was American Media Inc. — the parent company of the National Enquirer, the famed supermarket tabloid, as well as other gossip outlets. The company’s chair, David Pecker, was a longtime personal friend of Trump. Trump himself was a frequent source for Enquirer stories, and the magazine would in return cover him positively — as it did, while savaging his opponents, during the 2016 campaign.

But that’s not all AMI did for Trump. The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow has reported that the company was known to sometimes use a tabloid industry practice called “catch and kill” for major celebrity scandal stories. They would pay for exclusive rights to a source’s story about a scandal, and deliberately never publish it — as either part of a favor-trading relationship or an effort to gain leverage over the celebrity.

And in November 2015, AMI did that for Trump: the company paid a former Trump Tower doorman $30,000 for exclusive rights to his story that Trump had fathered a child with one of his employees, and never ran it.

Enter Karen McDougal. McDougal has said she had an affair with Trump from about June 2006 to April 2007, which began when they met at a party at the Playboy mansion (she was a Playboy model) and included multiple other encounters. As Trump’s presidential campaign heated up in 2016, McDougal tried to see if she could make some money from her decade-old experience.

A contact in the adult film industry put McDougal in touch with Keith Davidson (the same lawyer who later represented Stormy Daniels for a similar transaction). Davidson then opened discussions with AMI, the National Enquirer’s parent company. Eventually, on August 6, 2016, McDougal signed a contract to sell the exclusive rights to her story about her affair with Trump to AMI, in exchange for $150,000 and the promise of numerous columns and two cover features at AMI magazines. (AMI then, of course, didn’t run the affair story.)

During this process, it turns out that Davidson and AMI were in contact with Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen. Davidson, in fact, promptly informed Cohen when the deal was completed — raising some questions about who he was really working for. And, on the September 2016 tape, Cohen discussed the matter with Trump.

Full audio: Presidential candidate Trump is heard on tape discussing with his attorney Michael Cohen how they would buy the rights to a Playboy model’s story about an alleged affair Trump had with her years earlier, according to the audio recording “https://t.co/YmC0QuDqTx pic.twitter.com/fBbq7r1Lq9

— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) July 25, 2018

The two-minute tape (for which the Washington Post made an annotated transcript) begins when we hear Trump’s side of a phone conversation with an unknown person (who some think is Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi). After Trump hangs up, he and Cohen briefly chat about several topics:

A “great poll” that just came out

A controversy around Mark Burns, a black pastor who supported Trump (initially there’s some confusion about whether Trump means Pastor Darrell Scott, another black pastor who supported Trump)

A lawsuit from the New York Times to try to get Donald and Ivana Trump’s divorce papers unsealed. “They should never be able to get that,” Trump says. “You have a woman that doesn’t want them unsealed. Who you’ve been handling.” “Yes,” Cohen answers. (The papers reportedly include some very nasty allegations, but ultimately, they weren’t unsealed.)

Cohen then says, “Told you about Charleston.” (Trump had just mentioned “the Charleston thing” on the phone. It’s not clear what this is, though it could be just a campaign event.)

Then the most important, and legally problematic, part of the exchange begins.

COHEN: Um, I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David, you know, so that — I’m going to do that right away. I’ve actually come up and I’ve spoken —

“Our friend David” is David Pecker, who chairs AMI and oversees the National Enquirer. “The transfer of all of that info” refers to Karen McDougal’s affair story, which AMI bought the rights to. Cohen wants to set up a new company to, it seems, send money to AMI.

TRUMP: Give it to me and get me a [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

COHEN: And, I’ve spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up with…

Allen Weisselberg is the CFO of the Trump Organization, which implies that Trump’s company was involved in Cohen’s hush money efforts.

TRUMP: So, what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?

AMI paid McDougal $150,000 for her story, a fact Trump appears to remember without prompting. Here Trump seems to be discussing paying AMI back for it.

COHEN: … Funding . . . Yes. Um, and it’s all the stuff.

TRUMP: Yeah, I was thinking about that.

COHEN: All the stuff. Because — here, you never know where that company — you never know what he’s —

TRUMP: Maybe he gets hit by a truck.

COHEN: Correct.

Here Cohen alludes to buying “all the stuff” from AMI — which appears to mean that the company has other negative stories about Trump they’ve bought and buried, that Cohen wants to buy the rights to.

Cohen says this would be a good idea because you never know what might happen with that company. Trump agrees, saying his friend David Pecker could get “hit by a truck” one day, meaning somebody else would be in charge of all the Trump dirt.

Then there’s an exchange that’s a bit difficult to parse and has been disputed. Here’s the Post’s version of the transcript:

COHEN: So, I’m all over that. And, I spoke to Allen about it, when it comes time for the financing, which will be —

TRUMP: Wait a sec, what financing?

COHEN: Well, I’ll have to pay him something.

TRUMP: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] pay with cash.

COHEN: No, no, no, no, no. I got it.

TRUMP: …check.

Cohen’s allies now claim Trump was saying that he should “pay with cash.” Trump’s allies dispute that and say the recording’s not clear there and in any case wouldn’t refer to actual stacks of cash, but rather a fully-paid cash transaction like a real estate deal.

But that dispute seems a minor matter — the bigger picture is that Trump and his lawyer were discussing a very large payment to try to keep a scandalous story about him from coming out during the campaign.

The recording then ends abruptly, even though the conversation doesn’t seem to be over. (Trump claims the rest of the tape would exonerate him.)

What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad! Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear there are other clients and many reporters that are taped – can this be so? Too bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2018

No evidence has emerged that Trump and Cohen ended up striking a deal to pay AMI, or to buy the scandalous stories about Trump from the company.

In October 2016, however, McDougal’s lawyer Keith Davidson found a new client with another sex story about Trump — Stormy Daniels. This time, he went to Cohen directly to cut a deal rather than going through AMI. Cohen started a new company, Essential Consultants LLC, for the transaction, and agreed to pay Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence.

Meanwhile, news of AMI’s payment for McDougal’s story actually broke a few days before the election, on November 4, 2016, in the Wall Street Journal. But it got little attention at the time — Trump’s team denied knowing anything about it, and AMI denied paying to bury stories for Trump.

It took more than another year, until the January 2018 Journal report revealing Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels, for the story to really explode. Then, in March, McDougal sued to be released from her deal with AMI, arguing that she had been misled — and got AMI to let her out of the contract.

But the true game-changer was the FBI’s raids on Michael Cohen’s residence and office in April 2018, which revealed there was a very serious investigation into these topics — and has ended up turning Trump and Cohen against each other.

It’s not yet completely clear. No one has been indicted in relation to this probe yet, and the Justice Department hasn’t explained what it’s about or whether Cohen is even the main target. We do, however, know a few things.

First off, the information that initiated this was originally found in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. But even though Mueller is continuing to investigate Cohen, this investigation was handed off to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) instead, for unknown reasons. (Perhaps Mueller and/or Rosenstein decided the topic was too far afield from Russia, or perhaps it was a question of resources and manpower, or of making it harder for Trump to retaliate with firings.)

Second, the Cohen investigation is being run out of SDNY’s “Public Corruption Unit,” which investigates crimes committed by public officials as well as individuals or companies doing business with the government.

Additionally, the warrant that used for the Cohen raids listed several things the government was seeking:

Except for the taxi stuff, all of these are about efforts to hush up scandals for Trump before the election, some of which involved big payouts. The warrant specifically named bank fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance laws as the potential crimes being investigated. Finally, AMI executives were subpoenaed this spring for the probe.

Putting all this together, it seems that the investigation focuses on a major, off-the-books, potentially illegal operation aimed at making problems for Donald Trump’s campaign go away — with Cohen and AMI, and perhaps the Trump Organization and even Trump himself under scrutiny.

Rather than a smoking gun, the tape is probably most significant as a piece of a larger puzzle about an apparent hush money and scandal suppression operation for Trump. What we learned specifically from the tape is Trump was well aware of Cohen’s involvement with AMI and David Pecker in hushing up McDougal.

The specific thing Trump and Cohen discuss doing in the tape is themselves paying AMI. There’s no evidence yet that they actually ended up doing this. So if the tape was in fact merely a brief hypothetical discussion for something that didn’t happen, it could be difficult to charge someone.

One problem looming over all this, though, is that money spent to help a candidate for federal office is supposed to be reported under campaign finance law.

None of these payments — from Cohen to Daniels, AMI to McDougal, or AMI to others — were reported. That puts all parties involved in legal jeopardy. The Trump Organization, too, could be in trouble, since Cohen explains that its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was helping him out.

Trump allies’ best chance of defending themselves is probably to argue that the payments weren’t truly campaign-related. Trump, for instance, could argue that he is a celebrity and that such payments are common among celebrities dealing with the tabloids. AMI, too, could try to argue that this was a standard practice for them in their celebrity coverage. But the evidence could well contradict these claims.

The Washington Post reported in April that Cohen was known in Trumpworld to have a habit of taping some of his conversations with people and then playing the tapes for others — apparently as an effort to brag that he “had something” on them.

Court filings have made clear that several other Cohen tapes were seized by the government in the raids, but it’s not clear who they’re about or how important they are, or how many involve Trump.

Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis told Axios that “there are more tapes” but added, “I’m not saying there are more tapes as telling as [this] one.”

Almost immediately after the raids, intense speculation began over whether Cohen would “flip” on Trump, and provide damaging information to prosecutors as part of a plea deal.

Instead, Cohen filed a lawsuit attempting to assert attorney-client privilege over as much of the seized material as possible, and prevent the government from seeing it. The Trump Organization joined the suit too, in an attempt to assert its own privilege. A federal judge in New York appointed a special master to adjudicate these claims.

After months, that process is now winding down, and the result has been that the government is getting the vast majority of the material the FBI seized from Cohen — out of more than 4 million files seized, around 3,000 have been deemed privileged or partially privileged by the special master so far.

Cohen’s allies, meanwhile, have been repeatedly dropping hints in the press that he’s thinking of cutting a deal with prosecutors rather than fighting expected charges against him. He publicly implied that in an interview with ABC, and then hired Lanny Davis, a longtime ally of the Clintons, to join his legal team (and manage his PR strategy).

There have also been a few hints that Cohen’s true desire was for Trump to agree to pay his expensive legal bills (or perhaps, to get a pardon) — though if that was the case, it does not seem to be working.

Still, there’s been no word of Cohen actually entering into talks with prosecutors about a plea deal just yet. But both sides may have been waiting for the special master’s review to conclude, to get a better idea of what the government actually had on Cohen.

In any case, Cohen certainly appears to be more antagonistic to Trump than ever, as seen in not just his leak of the tape but his leak of to CNN — the network so loathed by the president. So expect more revelations to come.

Original Source -> The Trump-Cohen tape, explained

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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democratsunited-blog · 6 years ago

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Trump’s Secret Weapon?: The President’s Poison Pill For Every Democratic 2020 Contender

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=6743

Trump’s Secret Weapon?: The President’s Poison Pill For Every Democratic 2020 Contender

Most of us will probably run for president in 2020. Donald Trump has made anything seem possible. But Democrats must be careful. Half of America is telling itself to hang on for 30 more months, but deep down there’s a sobering awareness that this thing could stretch to the full two terms. The Democratic primaries of 2020 will thus be intense, bitter, and crowded. The nominee could turn out to be no one we’ve heard of—some Sully Sullenberger–like hero out of nowhere who has done something to save a lot of lives, like fighting off an invasion from Krypton—or, more likely, it could be someone familiar, competent, and imperfect.

If Donald Trump avoids getting us into war (still no small if, regrettably) and presides over an economy that’s still booming (unlikely but not impossible), then he’s likely to get re-elected, regardless of who his challenger may be. That might be tough for people to take, but a message of “I’ll keep the peace and prosperity going” (sort of Clintonian) is at least preferable to a message of “I’ll see through the dumb war I started” (sort of Bushian). On the other hand, if things get a lot rockier for Trump, as is quite possible, then choosing the right challenger—or the not-wrong challenger—becomes critical. So let’s consider the likeliest Democratic candidates and their likeliest flaws.

Joe Biden: “Middle-class Joe” is lovely and impossible to hate, unless you’re a partisan, in which case you hate him. He has suffered terrible personal tragedies and connects with ordinary Americans. He’s loved by Senate Republicans and Democrats alike. But he’s also, frankly, a goofball. This helps blunt criticisms of his unusually tactile approach to politics, but Biden’s campaign gaffes in 2008, which included asking a paraplegic to stand, were so relentless that Barack Obama once reportedly fumed, “How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?” Such foibles don’t diminish with age, and Biden will be 78 in 2020. All of this is fodder for a bully, meaning you-know-who. On a more substantive note, Biden is tied to the record of Barack Obama, who disappointed many of the voters who need to be won back. On the bright side, one of Biden’s skeletons, an embarrassing episode of having plagiarized the oratory of British Labor leader Neil Kinnock, is off limits for attack, unless Trump wants a reminder that his wife did something similar.

Elizabeth Warren: Back in 2008, as Wall Street was collapsing and millions of middle-class Americans were finding themselves poorer than they’d been a decade earlier, Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren was one of the few people out there who got it, and in interviews she was compassionate and wise. Then she went to Washington. As an adviser regarding the financial crisis, according to one former senior Obama administration official, Warren was a “royal pain in the ass in the White House.” Then, in 2012, Warren won a U.S. Senate seat and became a hero to some, a grandstander to others. In Boston magazine, writer Andy Kroll noted that voters had lukewarm feelings toward Warren and characterized a conversation with her as not “so much a conversation as a stump speech to an audience of one.” Donald Trump has nicknamed Warren “Pocahontas,” despite complaints that it’s racially incendiary, to mock a little-believed Warren claim that she’s of partially American Indian ancestry, and that would probably be a theme if she were his challenger. But Warren’s bigger vulnerability is, as alluded to above, that many people seem to find her irritating. Her champions argue that this is due to sexism. But if that is true—and there’s no way to settle the matter—then the culprit is deep-seated prejudice in an imperfect world. Where we live. And where Warren is irritating.

Bernie Sanders: Who would have thought that non-Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders, the lefty eccentric from Vermont via Brooklyn, would be the likeliest Democratic nominee of 2020? Surely not the Sanders of 2015. But Sanders surprised everyone in 2016, and his reputation for integrity caused even Republicans to like him. His favorability ratings are absurdly high, at 72 percent, and the remaining 28 percent probably consists of Hillary Clinton staffers. That said, Sanders is old, and, perhaps because he often neglects to stand up straight or dye his hair orange, he seems less vigorous than Trump. A set of controversies surrounding Jane Sanders, Bernie’s wife, over a financial deal during her time as president of Burlington College, could come back to the fore. Trump, for his part, will portray Sanders as a kooky and extremist grandpa with no grounding in reality. Then he’ll go back to talking about being approached by the parents of Korean War veterans.

Kamala Harris: Barack Obama got into the presidential game only a couple of years after getting elected to the Senate, so why not Harris, who was elected in 2016? She’s tough, ambitious, and, according to the previous president, hot. (Obama once described her as “by far the best-looking attorney general in the country,” a wolfish remark that offended those partial to Florida attorney general Pam Bondi.) But what does Harris propose to run on? Article after article extols her for being young, black, and female, but few get concrete on what the vision would be. “The issues are not simple, so the message is not going to be simple,” she told a Yahoo news reporter asking about the Democratic Party’s road back to power. Great, that’ll knock ’em dead. Harris has generally combined donor-class friendliness with a healthy serving of wokeness, and she has made immigration her signature concern. This is great politics for California, less so for the rest of the country. Donald Trump will find her to be an ideal culture-war foil. Being Trump, he’ll also add in tasteless jabs about her entry into California politics, a patronage job from a powerful boyfriend, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. If you thought 2016 was low . . .

Tom Hanks: Despite numerous calls for Hanks to run in 2020, it’s hard to decide if we want this. Americans have almost nothing in common except love of Tom Hanks. Do we really want to lose that, too? On the other hand, who could say no? Even Donald Trump might have to forfeit the race.

Cory Booker: Booker, who became famous as a charismatic and idealistic mayor of Newark (although assessments differ on whether he was a great success), has given Elizabeth Warren considerable competition when it comes to playing to the camera. He became the first sitting senator to testify against a colleague in a confirmation hearing, and earlier this year he harangued Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for nearly 10 minutes about his “tears of rage” over Trump’s alleged comments about “shithole countries.” That said, Booker is far from populist, which is where the public mood seems to be right now, and not all of Booker’s passions are well-chosen. Lines like “Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity” are unlikely to strike resounding chords with Ohio steelworkers. Also, Donald Trump seems to feel he has dirt on Booker, tweeting in 2016, “If Cory Booker is the future of the Democratic Party, they have no future! I know more about Cory than he knows about himself.” Maybe no one should care, but weird things are interesting, and that was weird.

Sherrod Brown: Brown, now in his 12th year as a senator from Ohio, has two strong attributes: a populist record and a gravelly voice. During the Democratic Convention of 2016, when Hollywood luminaries like Richard Kind and Idina Menzel swayed to “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” leaving millions fumbling frantically for the remote—that or an air-sickness bag—Brown was instead talking about glass factories in Toledo and putting America first in trade policy. He has been tough on Wall Street and steadfast in voting against nearly every trade deal favored by the Washington consensus. He also draws some support from Trump voters, according to a recent poll. Trump has attacked Brown for alleged softness on border security, but every Democrat is vulnerable to that charge. The character angle isn’t obvious. So maybe he’s a decent choice, except that his hair sometimes looks like it belongs to Rand Paul.

Kirsten Gillibrand: For those who felt that Mitt Romney was too consistent, consolation can perhaps be found in New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand. Starting her career as a border hawk and a firm supporter of the Second Amendment, Gillibrand got appointed to the Senate in 2009 and flipped to the opposite side, calling it “a case of learning more and expanding my view.” She was a close ally of the Clintons, accepting the support of Bill Clinton during her campaign, until #MeToo broke, after which she said that Clinton should have resigned in 1998. She condemns “corporations’ moneyed special interests” but takes copious contributions from Goldman Sachs and goes to bat for Wall Street, the problems of which can apparently be traced not to structure but to lack of diversity. “If it weren’t Lehman Brothers, but Lehman Sisters,” she has quipped, “we might not have had the financial collapse.” As Clare Malone wrote in FiveThirtyEight, “She’s sensed the identity politics vehicle of the era, and has settled into the driver’s seat for a long haul.” The only trouble is that passengers might throw themselves out of the car to end it all.

Mitch Landrieu: Perhaps we’re overdue for a bald president, and Mitch Landrieu, mayor of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018, boasts very few remaining hairs. He also speaks in an appealing Southern accent and, despite being white, enjoys strong support from black voters, who put him into office. He holds up well under adversarial questioning, rarely betraying befuddlement or flashes of temper. He charms his audiences when he’s in informal settings. Many Democrats also loved a speech Landrieu delivered upon deciding to remove four monuments to Confederate leaders. If Trump has an obvious line of attack, it’s on New Orleans, which still has lots of problems and saw a spike in crime during Landrieu’s last two years in office. Trump will probably call Landrieu “Sleazy Mitch,” but that’s not because of anything in particular. It’s just because.

The Billionaires: We don’t need to have separate entries for Jamie Dimon, Howard Schultz, Mike Bloomberg, or Mark Cuban. Not all of them are necessarily billionaires, but all are wealthy, self-satisfied, and inspired by the example of Donald Trump. Their reasoning: a billionaire just became president. I’m a billionaire. I want to become president. One attribute they all seem to have in common is a view of the world in which it’s still 1996, deficits must be reduced, and trade deals will enrich us all. The only negative effect of nominating them is that Donald Trump might wind up winning an illegal third term, to be succeeded by Donald Trump Jr.

Hillary Clinton: Folks, must we? According to a source or two, we must. We know what Trump would pull, because he has already pulled it. Every old divide on the left would be re-opened. On the bright side, Clinton would win a clear majority among attendees of OZY Fest.

Read full story here

#Democrats

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worldofwardcraft · 7 years ago

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Following the money’s no fun when the corruption is right out in the open.

May 17, 2018

Last week, it was revealed that in 2017 and earlier this year more than $4 million passed through the accounts of Michael Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants LLC. The money came from a variety of firms, including AT&T and the drug giant Novartis, as well as an investment company affiliated with a top Russian oligarch. We know this because those companies admitted to making the payments. But what we don’t know is why they did so and where all that money went.

Some have suggested it was just Cohen cashing in on his relationship with provisional president Darnold Trump by playing the old Washington influence peddling game. And that may be part of it. But why would a large corporation shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for access to the president before checking whether a mug like Cohen had any access to peddle in the first place? Unless that money was intended for Trump himself as a bribe.

AT&T, for example, has a huge merger with Time Warner worth many millions pending before the government. The Swiss company Novartis, which has a sordid history of bribing governments all over the world, is seeking FDA approval of a hideously expensive cancer drug. And the Russian government is always looking for ways to use its oligarchs to manipulate foreign officials.

But then Trump is no stranger to political bribery. He once paid $25,000 into the campaign fund of Florida attorney general Pam Bondi just as she was about to begin investigating his sham university. Remarkably, Bondi dropped the case soon afterward. That’s only one example among many accusations of bribery over the years on behalf of the Trumps.

Now we’ve learned Trump is actively helping a sanctioned Chinese phone manufacturer, which was banned from doing business in the US. And the Chinese government recently announced it was providing a $500 billion loan for the construction of an Indonesian theme park that will feature a Trump-branded golf course and hotels. Talk about your coincidences.

Taking into account Trump’s insatiable greed, shameless corruption and criminal history, it’s hard to imagine him allowing Cohen to sell presidential access without, at the very least, demanding a cut of the proceeds for himself. In Russia, nothing ever happens without Vladimir Putin getting his piece of the pie. And we all know how much Trump admires and desperately wants to emulate Putin. Of course, it’s possible those payments to Cohen were all innocent, above-board and legal. But if Trump was involved, that would certainly be a first.

#trump corruption #cohen payments

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londontheatre · 7 years ago

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January must be the most depressing month in the calendar. Christmas is over, the decorations are down and everywhere is looking drab and boring. The weather is awful and the credit card bills for the festive season have arrived. The best thing to do to escape the January blues is to take a holiday somewhere hot but, if your wallet won’t quite stretch to that then the next best thing is to share someone else’s holiday. So, I would recommend that you get yourself down to the Above the Stag and join the folks for Bitches Down Under.

The plane has barely touched down at Sydney airport before Drew (Liam Nooney) and his fiancé Garth (Ethan Chapples), along with their favourite “fruit Fly” Pam (Hannah Vesty) are in a bar at Bondi Beach. This holiday is very special for Garth and Drew as not only is it their first visit to Mardi Gras but afterwards they are flying off to New Zealand – Pam with them – to get married. The bar is a typical one that you could find on the beach, except it is managed by Max (Lucas Livesey), Garth’s old flatmate and pretty much Drew’s nemesis. As if one flashback is not enough, along comes another holidaymaker, Ollie (Grant Cartwright) a handsome twenty-something with whom Garth also has a bit of a past. Can Drew cope with the onslaught of Garth’s, rather racy, past and will the addition of sexy lifeguard Scott (Tom Mann) give the bitches a trip down under they will never forget?

Bitches Down Under is the third in a trilogy of plays written by Martin Blackburn. My initial concern that, as I hadn’t seen the others, I would be at a disadvantage character and plot-wise were soon dispelled. The plays themselves are all individual stand-alone pieces that share some of the same characters. Martin has a great talent for writing fast-paced bitchy exchanges between people that love each other. This is really true of Max and Garth who’s barbed conversations would look horrendous to an outsider, but are the sort of snide, critical and, at times, downright offensive remarks hurled between really close friends who have a deep affection for each other.

At times for me, it was like listening to me and my old housemate and the things we used to say to each other, ah happy days. However, there is much more to the writing than just bitchiness. Just below the seemingly shallow surface of fun, flirting and Mardi Gras, there is an actually interesting commentary on how much societal pressures influence the behaviour of individuals and how the pressure we put on ourselves can negatively impact everything we do. I’m not going to get all deep and meaningful here, but anyone thinking of dismissing Bitches Down Under as another fluffy bit of gay theatre with no real plot and buff boys taking their shirt off every five minutes is doing the show a real disservice.

Before moving on, a quick word about the production and, once again Director and Set Designer have pulled off an amazing feat. This time turning the rather limited stage space into a working beachfront bar with enough space for everyone to move around and not walk into each other or the audience. I loved the touch of using drag queen voices to fill the space in the scene changes and move the play on timewise over the Mardi Gras period. So, onto the cast and first, in case my words above have worried you, yes the boys are buff and yes they take their shirts off on occasion – but only when it is artistically essential to the plot. Of the six actors, all are really talented but my stand-out performers of the night were Ethan Chapples, Lucas Livesey, and Hannah Vesty as Garth, Max and Pam respectively. Ethan and Lucas work so well together that is is possible to imagine them as best mates outside of the theatre as well. They give this fantastic impression of two men who know each other well and have that freedom to say whatever they want, whenever they want to each other. Lucas, in particular, has a lovely way of delivering put-downs that would reduce me to a tearful wreck in the corner. But, and this is the important bit, as Max’s own story unfolds, you get to see another side of the character and he becomes a vulnerable person with a heart and feelings and at times, I just wanted to run on the stage and give him a hug. Hannah was ultimately my favourite. Being the only woman in an all-male play where the majority of the audience are gay men is, I would imagine hard work, but Hannah totally owns the stage and the audience as we follow her story through to its conclusion – possibly ending up with me having a tiny tear in my eye by the end.

Overall then Bitches Down Under is a really well-written, directed and acted play full of humour and fun. My companion, who is from Perth WA loved all the Aussie references – though he was a bit ‘sus’ about Scott’s accent at times and the two of us had a brilliant evening, not only being taken down under by the team but also finding out the most mind-blowing fact about “Neighbours” you can ever hear. All told, it’s cold, you’re miserable and broke, just forget it and get your thrusters set to take you to Mardi Gras in the heart of Vauxhall, and I guarantee you will enjoy the ride.

Review by Terry Eastham

Oil on the Factor 30 as we engage the thrust and prepare to go down under! From the team that brought you the outrageous Gran Canaria-set hit Alright Bitches! and nautical caper Bitches Ahoy!, Above The Stag Theatre is delighted to take you up the outback for Bitches Down Under!

Creative Team Written by Martin Blackburn Director – Andrew Beckett Designer – Andrew Beckett Lighting Designer – Jack Weir Sound Designer – Andy Hill

Cast Ethan Chapples, Lucas Livesey, Hannah Vesty, Grant Cartwright, Liam Nooney and Tom Mann Bitches Down Under! Runtime: 2 hours approx Above The Stag Arch 17 Miles Street, Vauxhall, London SW8 1RZ http://www.abovethestag.com/

http://ift.tt/2mYI7UN London Theatre 1

#IFTTT #London Theatre 1

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omcik-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/dont-fall-for-this-computer-virus-scam/

Don't fall for this computer virus scam!

The U.S. government is cracking down on scammers that lure people — particularly elderly people — into spending hundreds of dollars on virus protection software they don’t need.

The Federal Trade Commission said Friday that it’s bringing 16 new enforcement actions, including complaints, settlements, indictments, and guilty pleas, against tech fraudsters. But Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi — who is working with the FTC on the issue — warned there are still more scammers out there, and regulators need the public’s help to catch them.

“The only way we’re going to stop this is if you report it,” Bondi said.

She asked that people immediately notify the FTC if they see pop-up ads that warn people their computers are infected with a virus or malware and solicit them to buy virus protection software. The ads are often designed to resemble legitimate security alerts.

Related: Microsoft quickly fixes ‘crazy bad’ Windows bug

An example of a malicious ad provided by the FTC.

They often prompt the user to call a phone number to get help. Anyone who calls gets a slick-talking telemarketer who works to convince them that they need to spend hundreds of dollars on new protective software, even though their computers may have never been infected in the first place.

After a victim grants computer access to the scammers to install protective software, the scammers can put spyware on the victim’s computers, which can expose everything from family photos to financial information, the FTC says.

The commission has received more than 96,000 complaints from people who have been swindled out of a combined total of more than $24.6 million, according to FTC Acting Director Tom Pahl.

Elderly people and tech newbies are particularly vulnerable. At Friday’s press conference, Pahl played a recording of a 90-year-old man on the phone with an alleged scammer.

“I’m new to the computer,” the elderly man says.

Then, a salesman tells the man “you have a [computer] infection” and pressures him into agreeing to pay for “repairs.”

Related: How this 83-year-old nearly got scammed out of $10,000

“You’re 90 years old, you have intelligence,” the salesman says. “This is not hard stuff.”

The salesman also identifies himself as a certified Microsoft repairman, a common tactic used by these types of scammers, according to the FTC.

Pahl said the FTC has worked with Apple (AAPL, Tech30) and Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) to bring charges against these fraudsters. And he advised people who suspect their computer has a virus to contact Apple or Microsoft support centers directly.

“If you get a pop-up, call, spam email or any other urgent message about a virus on your computer, stop. Don’t download anything, don’t call the number on the pop-up and don’t give anyone control of your computer,” the FTC said in a blog post Friday.

Malicious ads can be reported to the FTC online at ftc.gov/complaint.

CNNMoney (New York) First published May 12, 2017: 3:50 PM ET

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dorukhaber06 · 8 years ago

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ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Authorities asked the courts on Wednesday to deny bond for the suspect in last week’s fatal shooting of an Orlando police officer as he was hospitalized for most of the day with injuries he got during his arrest.

[fvplayer src=”http://www.dododailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Suspect-in-Florida-officer-s-killing-released-from-hospital.mp4″ width=”720″ height=”480″]

An affidavit, filed with the Orange County Clerk of Courts a day after 41-year-old Markeith Loyd was arrested in an abandoned home, shows authorities want to make sure he remains in custody, as is customary for a fugitive facing murder charges.

Loyd was arrested Tuesday night after a manhunt that lasted more than a week. He is accused in the killing of Lt. Debra Clayton outside a Wal-Mart store last week and in the death of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Sade Dixon, last month.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump had a phone conversation with Clayton’s husband. Bondi described the conversation between Trump and Seth Clayton as “a brief, very touching, private conversation between two husbands.”

Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said the arrest is bittersweet, noting that in addition to Clayton, a deputy in his agency, Norman Lewis, died in a traffic crash during the manhunt for Loyd.

“I believe that our entire community is going to breathe a sigh of relief at this point,” Demings said. “They will sleep better knowing tonight that… this maniac is off the streets.”

Loyd’s face was bloodied and swollen when he was taken to police headquarters, and he was hospitalized overnight. He remained in the hospital for most of the day until he was transferred to the Orange County Jail Wednesday evening. He was scheduled for a first court appearance Thursday morning.

“He resisted arrest and there was force used,” Orlando Police Chief John Mina said, without elaborating. “We’ll investigate that use of force just like we investigate every single use of force.”

Loyd’s arrest was the result of detective work, not tips from the public, Mina said, despite a $125,000 reward for information leading to Loyd’s arrest.

Residents of the neighborhood in west Orlando where Loyd was captured said it’s not surprising that the arrest didn’t come from tips, even though it’s a good neighborhood to live in.

“Some people fear repercussions, of whatever, from other people,” said Aaron Chance, who lives a half-dozen homes away from the abandoned home where Loyd was captured. “Some people are reluctant for whatever reasons.”

SWAT team members surrounded the one-story, cinderblock home on Tuesday night. Loyd initially tried to escape out the back but then ran back inside the house. He was wearing body armor and had two handguns when he ran out again, Mina said.

The arrest affidavit said Loyd faces multiple charges related to the death of his ex-girlfriend’s death, Sade Dixon, including first-degree murder, killing of an unborn child by injury to mother, attempted first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. Dixon’s brother also was shot, but not fatally.

The affidavit said that Dixon had been living with Loyd until three days before she was fatally shot outside her parents’ home. Dixon left Loyd and moved in with her parents after the couple had a fight in which he bit her in the shoulder and she required a tetanus shot, according to the affidavit.

Police arrested a former supervisor at the fried chicken restaurant where Loyd worked, an ex-girlfriend and a niece on charges of helping him in the weeks after Dixon was fatally shot.

Mina said he expects more arrests in the case for anyone who helped him evade police. He said authorities didn’t know how long Loyd been in the house, which was abandoned but does have ties to his associates.

“Anyone who harbored, aided or abetted him in any way is going to be arrested, and we know from our investigation that people did assist him,” Mina said.

Suspect in #Florida officer’s #killing released from hospital

Suspect in #Florida officer's #killing released from hospital ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Authorities asked the courts on Wednesday to deny bond for the suspect in last week's fatal shooting of an Orlando police officer as he was hospitalized for most of the day with injuries he got during his arrest.

#Florida #kill #killing #Manslaughter #murder #officer #police officer

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