Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Ukraine Prosecutor Made Up Biden Claim, Kiev Lawmaker Says


Iran is 4 times the size and twice the population of Iraq. Not clear exactly what US force of 120,000 in region would do if goal is to attack nuc sites or protect tankers. And would be a major shift for a president unwilling to keep 2000 troops in Syria.


JUST NOW: While speaking to reporters at the @WhiteHouse, @SteveScalise declines to tell @PeterAlexander if he’s advised @realDonaldTrump on the fact that his tariffs are paid by American consumers and not China. He also declined to tell me whether *he* is aware of that fact.


Yeah, this is not Iraq 2.0 - many thousands dead within hours. Hundreds of thousands of civilians easily... This is terrifying. And I’ve been to Afghanistan - seen this first hand... This. Will. Be. Worse. Someone better put the breaks on this ASAP no jokes.


Here it comes! Trump's goin' to get thousands of our sons and daughters killed just to control a few news cycles. Still think impeachment is just an "option?"


The Republican controlled Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill that essentially criminalizes all abortions, not even making exceptions where the woman is a victim of rape or incest. This bill is not on the right side of the law, & certainly not the #RightSideOfHistory


Here’s the Deutsche Bank subpoena for the President’s financial and tax records (from the Intelligence and Financial Services committees)


Fmr. Def. Sec. William Cohen believes the GOP is wrongly putting party first with Trump: "I am surprised there aren't more defenders of the Constitution ... If they are willing to submit that to the executive, then they have no business being in office."


McConnell has been a Senator representing Kentucky for 35 yrs. Rand Paul, 19 yrs. Kentucky ranks 47th-people in poverty, with 744,239 people out of a pop of 4,316,917. That includes 22% of children. Children without medical insurance 22.3%. I think Kentucky deserves better.


"So long as the FBI retains its integrity, Trump feels unsafe," argues @davidfrum. "His next move? He’s already telegraphing it: another attack on the independence of law enforcement."


Opinion: Trump has no idea what he’s doing


"Rick Gates worked with Donald Trump's campaign and INAUGURATION." Sounds like Rick may be workin' with the #SDNY and other inaugural related investigations.


[BREAKING] While Mitch McConnell continues to HOLD UP #HR1 -- the #ForThePeople Act -- an overwhelming majority of Kentucky voters support it! It's time Leader McConnell listen to his constituents, not the Big Money special interests.


Statement on lies being spread regarding Congresswoman Tlaib's appearance on Yahoo's SkullDuggery Podcast


"Trump may be arming Congress w/ fresh evidence of his willingness to abuse his office. A stunning 3-pronged attack on the rule of law from the commander-in-chief...perhaps the most flagrant foul... the president using his Twitter account to harass a witness..."-


Roundup is sold in the US with a surfactant banned in Europe, enabling the glyphosate to penetrate the skin and circulate into people's bones. Roundup was approved on fraudulent studies; when that was uncovered, EPA asked Monsanto to do more studies, but Monsanto refused.


Shocker: Trump and Barr refuse to defend ban on female genital mutilation


Breaking: Netanyahu moves to seize total control over Israel. A law that “will erode basic rights, destroy the rule of law and turn Israel into a democracy in name only.”


Farmers get impatient with President Trump's trade war: "This can't go on"


Trump nominates man whose firm tripled price of insulin to regulate drug companies


GOP senators acknowledge that Trump's latest tariffs on Chinese imports are harming farm state economies, their own constituents and some of Trump’s most reliable voters. But they have no plan to stop a trade war they oppose


New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she does "not understand" why the United States has not passed stronger gun laws in the aftermath of mass shooting events


Republicans surrender to Trump’s China tariffs


FLAT EARTHERS, AND THE RISE OF SCIENCE DENIAL IN AMERICA


BREAKING: Chairman of the All Party Russia Group of British Parliament, Chris Bryant, plus 51 MP’s from all main U.K. political parties write devastating letter to U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt demanding why the Magnitsky Sanctions have not been imposed on the Kremlin by UK


“We don’t know a planet like this...” Startling news from the well-respected Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii: Carbon Dioxide levels have reached the highest they’ve been in human history. We must act to reverse climate change now.


“China has total respect for Donald Trump and for Donald Trump's very, very large brain," the president said last fall. His nascent trade war with China is a reminder that some things for the president are always personal. My column today:


This is the same Israeli software that was used to spy on conversations with #JamalKhashoggi and other Saudi associates. He ended up being murdered by Saudi regime.


I have a new piece up at The Daily Beast on Trump's bromance with Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. Birds of a feather, sadly, flock together....


We're on the road to impeachment. We don't want to be here, but we need to hold Trump accountable.


Biden: McConnell stopped Obama from calling out Russians


WATCH: The Dow has been hovering around 666 amidst a rough day of trading.


Steve Bannon sought alliance with FBI in 2017 White House meeting


ICE Shipping Immigrant Families to the North


Trump wants to shift $1.9 billion in Pell Grant money, which provides students with critical money for their college educations, to NASA “so that [he] can return to Space in a BIG WAY!” This sounds like a brilliant way to fix the student debt crisis.


Potential Dem primary voters who watch Fox News more likely to support Sanders than those who watch MSNBC


Trump Tower occupancy rate plummets: report


New: Legal ethics experts reviewed Ollie North's memo on the NRA's legal bills. Some said its allegations may interest the IRS


Question: "You talked about transparency sir, if you're so transparent, why continue to block these House Democrats who are looking for information?" President Trump: "Because they're asking for things that they're not entitled to."


Presidents don't control stock markets, market is not the economy, etc. Still, once upon a time, Trump used to brag that market gains were a good metric of his success. Here's how S&P 500 has fared under Trump vs. Obama, through comparable periods in their presidencies


A Supreme Court Justice is never going to send a bigger warning siren than Breyer does in his dissent today


NEW: Don Jr had agreed to a voluntarily interview date with the Senate Intel Committee twice before backing out, a process that led to the subpoena from Burr last month. That and more details on the impasse here,


JUST IN: Judge rejects Trump lawyers' call to cancel tomorrow's hearing on Dem subpoena but will listen to their objections. "The hearing will proceed tomorrow as scheduled," Mehta wrote in a brief order tonight.


“Coming days before European parliamentary elections, Trump’s meeting with Orban sent a clear message that he is rooting for populist parties to do well. They look poised to make significant gains next week.” Me on Trump’s support for illiberal democracy.


Barr indulges Trump with another probe of Trump-Russia inquiry


O'Rourke decries Trump 'cozying up to strongmen'


O'Rourke shifting gears to reach national audience


Beto O'Rourke tempts Democrats with potential of a blue Texas


Read this article about Hungary under Viktor Orban, and then ask why the leader of the free world would fête this aspiring dictator at the White House. Rather than reward Orban for crushing Hungary's democracy, we should be pressing him to reject the path to autocracy.


#Russia's media: Trump admin is requesting a "top-level meeting" between Trump and Putin, is now awaiting response from the Russians


SPICY LIVES: and she has some questions about how Trump is servicing all these foreign loans as president. I do too!


Barr calls Constitutionally sanctioned Congressional oversight “beltway silliness.” No legitimate Attorney General would ever refer to our body of laws as “silliness.”


Having worked on this issue for several years, I'm going to say this again: STOP USING ROUNDUP BY MONSANTO.


This is crazy. Absolutely crazy. American national interests are not advanced in any way by going to war with Iran right now.


Viktor Orban is the Authoritarian Creep Trump Wishes He Could Be


Bill Barr has assigned the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to examine the origins of the Russia investigation. This is on top of the Inspector General investigation AND the one being conducted by John Huber.


"You idiots": Bill Nye’s fiery message to leaders stalling on climate change


Prosecutors seeking Epstein victims in New Mexico?


Hold on. Candidate Trump promised us that Mexico was going to pay.


Joe Scarborough: People Close To Trump Say He Has Early-Stage Dementia


NEW: Dow takes massive plunge as Trump's trade war with China escalates


President Trump to PM Viktor Orban: "Probably like me a little bit controversial, but that’s okay."


Will the White House try to separate them?


Trump’s followers were not fazed to learn that he lost over $1 billion. Fox’s Ainsley Earnhardt marveled, “Wow, it’s pretty impressive.” It’s as if Bernie Madoff’s clients were congratulating him for being so successful at swindling them. My column


Remember Pamela Taylor? That racist Republican infamous for calling First Lady Michelle Obama “an ape in heels” She pleaded guilty to defrauding FEMA and is facing up to 30 years in prison


NEW: A jury ruled against chemical giant Monsanto on Monday, awarding a California couple $2 billion in damages after determining their cancer was caused by the weedkiller RoundUp


Amazing sign of weakness if Trump did indeed ask for meeting with Putin after cancelling previous meeting because of Kremlin capture of Ukrainian sailors. They are still being held. (Will Pompeo free them? Will he even discuss them?)


Trump, asked if former White House counsel Don McGahn should be held in contempt of Congress for not complying with a House committee’s subpoena: "I don't know anything about what's going on.” (The White House directed McGahn not to comply with the subpoena for documents.)


“The Committee doesn’t just have a right to seek the truth from him, it has an obligation to do so. Burr’s GOP critics should stand down. He is doing exactly what he is supposed to do.”


Trump attorneys protest judge's effort to speed up congressional subpoena lawsuit for his financial records


Trump announced today that he’s meeting with Putin in Japan in June. 6 months ago he explicitly conditioned any future meetings on release of Ukrainian ships/sailors seized by Moscow in the Kerch Strait


History Repeating Itself: White House is reviewing military plans against Iran -- including sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East -- in echoes of Iraq war


GOP lawmakers mock Jared Kushner behind his back — and don’t take any of his ideas seriously: report


Prosecutors have given the judge in the STONE case access to the unredacted Mueller report.


Federal prosecutors say that Rick Gates, who worked on Trump's campaign and inauguration, is *still* cooperating with the government as part of his plea deal and shouldn't be sentenced yet, Bloomberg reports.


EXCLUSIVE — The White House and Stephen Miller backed a shock-and-awe ICE plan to target families for mass arrests in 10 cities, but Nielsen and Vitiello balked. Then they were ousted from DHS.


This is complete madness. Trump cancels a diplomatic deal with Iran—against the advice of Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis, European allies, the International Atomic Energy Agency—and now has drawn up plans to send 120,000 American troops into a new war in the Middle East.


NEW: Barr has asked the US attorney in CT, John Durham, to examine the origins of the Russia investigation. Sure to please Trump but not current and former FBI officials who have defended their handling of investigation.


Trump just sent the Senate 6 more judicial nominations (5 for district courts, 1 for a circuit court). The Senate can fly through their confirmations now that Mitch McConnell blew up the rules. Debate time for a district judge, a lifetime post, is now 2 hours vs 30.


Graham encourages Trump Jr. to plead the 5th to Senate Intel committee


If you're not making a charging decision, and Mueller said he wasn't, then they way William Barr thinks about it, that means you can't be investigating.


“Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said.”


My MAGAt neighbor donated to the fraudulent 'Build the Wall' GoFundMe. I told him the fund was illegal; he said "we'll see." I told him that Brian Kolfage used $1 million of it to buy a yacht. He said "you're lying." I showed him proof and he said "Well, he deserves a yacht."


Opinion: Why the alleged Joe Biden "Ukraine conspiracy" doesn’t hold up


Let’s not forget that one of the biggest overlooked bombshells in the #MuellerReport was Russia’s 2016 infiltration of a voting technology company.


If you ever needed more proof Trump is an idiot, here it is: He wants poor people to boycott Chinese goods & just go buy stuff at Walmart, where everything is made in China & will now cost more. The only people more clueless than he is are the ones who believe anything he says


"I didn't mind explaining photosynthesis to you when you were 12. But you're adults now, and this is an actual crisis, got it?" Bill Nye wants to remind you of the seriousness of global warming, and he's not mincing words


North Korea has called the U.S. seizure of its cargo ship an “unlawful robbery” and demanded that it be returned


China says it will raise tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods starting June 1 after ‘escalation’ in trade frictions


My @USATODAY piece on Trump's disastrous foreign policy will be in print tomorrow. Buy a copy for a Trump-curious friend and leave it on his doorstep


Any student of WW2 will get chills of recognition reading about this secret White House plan to conduct a "blitz operation" against thousands of migrant families and children. Stephen Miller is a dangerous psychopath, a Nazi of the old school.


President Trump reportedly fears "that Americans would be captivated by seeing and hearing" Robert Muller testify before Congress on national television, according to AP


Re-up: That time I went to Hungary with John McCain and he scolded Viktor Orbán on his democratic backsliding


Pulling this out: "Project A" the communications channel with Petr Aven of Alfa Bank = Alfa Server ?


I oversaw Iran policy and planning at the Pentagon from 2009-2011, at the height of concerns over Iran’s nuclear progress, and no plausible contingency except invasion and regime change would require sending 120,000 US forces to the Middle East.


Joe Biden goes after Trump's relationships with Putin and Kim Jong Un: "The president is stiff-arming our friends and embracing our enemies."


Opinion: Conservatism has become a racket, and Trump is the grifter in chief


Read @FranklinFoer on Orban's authoritarianism. "Like Pol Pot or Josef Stalin, Orbán dreams of liquidating the intelligentsia, draining the public of education, and molding a more pliant nation."


Wayne LaPierre of the @NRA says "America was founded to escape the elites." Yet IS the elite. He's a lobbyist paid $5M per year, and he was reimbursed by his "nonprofit" after spending $500K on suits in Beverly Hills and family vacations - while NRA members foot the bills


Exclusive: Before Trump’s purge at DHS, Nielsen and top ICE official challenged plan to arrest thousands of parents and children


Trump's tariffs start to look like a goal and not a tool for trade talks


While still have no idea what happened to the counterintelligence investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia (none of that is in Mueller's report), we now have *three* investigations into the fact that that investigation was started in the first place.


"Russia is fighting a war every day to undermine the US." CNN's @jimsciutto outlines Russia's shadow war in space, cyberspace and under the seas to hurt the United States and weaken its security and democracy.


"Trump wants the FBI to endorse his own theory of victimhood—and it won’t."


"Both Trump’s America and Netanyahu’s Israel are giving democracy a bad name," writes


Valerie Plame: "I don't know that all the details of what led to that but I think Attorney General Barr's rather casual assessment that the FBI spied on candidate Trump is a little too loose with the facts."


The federal government spent $2,573,708,000,000 in the first seven months of fiscal 2019 (October-April), setting an all-time record for real federal spending in the first seven months of a fiscal year.


Dear @WhiteHouse: The Jared Kushner family separation immigration plan is dead on arrival, and PowerPoint cannot save it. The House of Representatives will never vote to keep families separated. Period. Also, why does Jared still have a mid-level security clearance?


"We actually don't know what his goal is in Iran. I don't think he does. The piece that links North Korea to China to Iran and other places is that he believes he can out-bully people... He believes he's going to bring them to heel...


I understand why Trump likes autocrats. But why do conservative intellectuals? Don't they see that Orban is a fraud?


Senate Republicans in Oregon effectively took the state legislature hostage last week by refusing to show up, denying the upper chamber a quorum. The maneuver has paid off: Dems have agreed to kill gun control & vaccination bills if GOP returns to work.


Targets of House investigations into Trump revealed in court docs


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