Monday, November 18, 2019

Americans overwhelmingly want religious institutions to "keep out" of politics, new survey finds


A new woman accused now-deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein of raping her at his New Mexico home when she was a minor.


You may have noticed that Trump defenders like Giuliani and the House GOP are pushing a conspiracy theory that the Manafort black ledger is a forgery. Small problem: FBI records from 2 years before the ledger was published & Trump ran corroborate it


"As the public phase of Donald Trump's impeachment commences it's second week of open hearings, stunning new details emerge about former National Security Advisor John Bolton's valiant and largely unsuccessful efforts... to release military aide for Ukraine"


It appears @GOPChairwoman Ronna McDaniel leveraged a pending Ambassadorship nominee to give $500,000.00 to the @RNC. The nominee appears to agree if the vote on his Ambassadorship is moved forward. This looks like attempted bribery. AND THEY DID THIS CORRUPTION IN WRITING


Trump has fumed for weeks that Mike Pompeo is responsible for hiring officials whose testimony threatens to bring down his presidency. Trump confronted Pompeo last month about what he believed was a lackluster effort by Pompeo to block their testimony.


Dems add another witness Thursday: David Holmes, the State Department employee who overheard Trump and Sondland discuss the Biden probe. He will testify along with Fiona Hill that day.


Chang joined the State Department in late April and was later nominated for a job at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where she would have overseen a budget of more than $1 billion and the development agency’s work in Asia


Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a major reversal of longstanding US policy on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, rejecting a legal opinion that deemed the settlements "inconsistent with international law"


Mike Pompeo was first in his class at West Point, but last in his class there in integrity "His behavior is one of the most shameful things I have seen in 40 years of covering U.S. diplomacy."


Secretary @EsperDoD: The Pentagon must protect whistleblowers from reprisals Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper, & whistleblowers like them are standing up for the Constitution they swore an oath to defend They are patriots


RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel asked Manchester, "Would you consider putting together $500,000 worth of contributions from your family to ensure we hit our ambitious fundraising goal?" — while he was awaiting confirmation for ambassador to the Bahamas


JUST IN: Three people were killed in a shooting at a Walmart in Duncan, Oklahoma, police say


This is embarrassing. Trump has been outmaneuvered by Kim at every turn: He’s made concession after concession — and given North Korea the world-stage legitimacy they’ve always wanted — in return for absolutely nothing.


If the media taunts Trump’s with the possibility of the highest ratings of all time, maybe he actually will testify...


Whether Trump lied to Mueller is something Dems have raised in past legal filings. But it was given new emphasis today in the aftermath of evidence that emerged from the Roger Stone trial


Fox News pundit lets loose on Bill Barr: He is ‘blinded by his partisanship’ and ‘should frighten all of us’


NEW: Ghislaine Maxwell's attorneys want another month to argue for sealing identities of non-parties in the Jeffrey Epstein trove. "We conservatively estimate these 350-375 filings comprise more than 3,500 pages,"


House general counsel Douglas Letter: "Did the President lie? Was the President not truthful in his responses to the Mueller investigation?"


Emails obtained by @CBSNews show that President Trump's nominee for ambassador to the Bahamas was asked by the RNC to donate half a million dollars as his confirmation in the Senate hung in the balance.


House lawyers revealed this on Sept. 30, when they said in a court filing they have reason to believe that the grand-jury redactions in Mueller’s report show Trump lied about his knowledge of his campaign’s contacts with WikiLeaks.


#EXCLUSIVE: One of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers, Maria Farmer, alleges that Epstein had extensive surveillance inside his home, including tiny pinhole cameras. "It was very obvious that they were, like, monitoring private moments."


This is why the Stone trial was so much about Trump


NEW: House investigating whether Trump lied to Robert Mueller


It's really a sad thing. What the President did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did.


Very sad situation with Sec State Pompeo. It’s not just that he is enabling an impulsive rogue President. He’s also fundamentally failed in his leadership of his 70,000 employees. Finally it’s seems unmistakable that he has lied thru his teeth repeatedly.


Gordon Sondland kept several Trump admin officials—including Mick Mulvaney and Rick Perry—apprised of his effort to get Ukraine to launch investigations that Trump would later discuss in his call with Zelenskiy, emails reviewed by WSJ show.


The truth in front of our noses: Donald Trump’s behavior is disgustingly corrupt and impeachable, whatever his defenders do or say


For the second consecutive week, the U.S. Senate—under Senator Mitch McConnell’s control—didn’t vote on a SINGLE piece of legislation. Senator McConnell: Stop playing games. Put the House-passed bipartisan, universal background checks bill up for a vote immediately.


Former SS guard goes on trial over 5,230 murders in what could be last ever Nazi prosecution of its kind


Analysis: The stunning new evidence of China’s dictatorial repression


The war has already begun. The concepts of traditional warfare have been turned on their head. China & Russia are waging Virtual War against the West. If we vacate the battlespace, we lose


Trump's impeachment ire turns on Pompeo amid diplomats' starring roles


A reminder that nobody in the Trump inner circle is more than two handshakes (or other forms of physical contact) away from a Nazi. Two. Tops


JUST IN: 21% say they made up their minds about impeachment after the first week of public hearings, per new @ABC News/Ipsos poll. Among them, 60% think Pres. Trump should be impeached and removed from office.


Of those following the House impeachment hearings very closely, 67% think Pres. Trump’s actions were wrong and he should be impeached and removed from office.


NEW: 58% of Americans say they are following the hearings very closely or somewhat closely—21% and 37%, respectively


BREAKING: An overwhelming 70% of Americans think Pres. Trump’s request to a foreign leader to investigate his political rival was wrong, new @ABC News/Ipsos poll finds. 51% believe his actions were wrong and he should be impeached and removed from office.


The White House and its allies have embarked on a coast-to-coast campaign to persuade Americans that Democrats are wasting time impeaching Trump


President Trump's attack on a key witness may be an attempt to discredit public testimony that she's scheduled to give on Tuesday


“I talked to Zelensky just now. He is prepared to receive Potus’ call. Will assure him that he intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will ‘turn over every stone,’” Sondland wrote on July 19. Mulvaney responded: "I asked NSC to set it up for tomorrow."


Does anyone else think that presidents in the future should only be allowed to spend a certain amount of taxpayer money on leisurely activities?


Video: U.S. dams need repairing, and the bill could be as high as $70 billion


"It’s laughable that Donald Trump was concerned about corruption in Ukraine. Rather, the most corrupt president ever was determined to export his own corruption to Ukraine."


The head of a arrested protester was kicked like a football by riot polices. They are just out of control


Reminder: RNC's financial arm was basically a crime org. Steve Wynn, resigned over rape/payoff allegations; Elliot Broidy, implicated in 1MdB and Playboy payoff; Michael Cohen, convict; Gordon Sondland, perjurer and traitor


Opinion: William Barr’s chilling defense of virtually unlimited presidential power


Reprehensible that Bolton should remain quiet, wait to tell what he knows in a book.


William J. Burns is the most highly regarded American diplomat of his generation. Here is his indictment of Mike Pompeo's leadership of the State Department:


Career officials at @USAID had numerous objections to the pressure they were facing to direct more funding to Christians, including regarding the effort’s legality, efficacy, and what it meant for USAID’s integrity.


"As dramatic as it may seem that Trump effectively interrupted a witness’s testimony to attack her as she spoke, this was not his first foray into public witness tampering. It is, in fact, one of his go-to moves."


The West Point class of 1986 has grown into a profoundly influential cohort in American foreign and military policy. Now, the loyalty of the president’s top advisers is being severely tested as the impeachment inquiry bears down.


Craig Silverman, a Denver lawyer and radio talk show host, said his show was canceled abruptly on Saturday after a segment criticizing President Trump


has anyone seen Jordan on tv with a black eye? need verification on this....


Trump Retweets Son Eric's Promo Of Their D.C. Hotel, Infuriating His Former Ethics Chie


The White House is quite clearly covering up some health issue that happened with the President yesterday. That would seem to be an important story for the press to explore, rather than parroting a ludicrous press statement from a known liar.


The release of the transcript of Trump’s first call with Zelensky was meant to bolster the case that he had good intentions in his dealings with Ukraine—but it showed a summary of the same call released shortly after it occurred was largely fabricated.


WALLACE: "A dozen people listened in on the phone call and a number of them were immediately upset..."@SteveScalise: "Those were Schiff's witnesses." WALLACE: "No, sir, they are career foreign service officers and these are people who worked in the Trump administration."


Republican Rep. Mike Turner, a member of one of the House committees involved in the impeachment inquiry, said that information provided about Trump during a closed-door deposition of a former National Security Council official "is alarming" and "not OK."


Meanwhile, over on POTUS Twitter, he is posting the same Fox video clips and tweets over and over again, interspersed with praising war criminals and trying to sell his hotel.

True

Opinion: The party of lying liars


From the Williams transcript. Huh. What happened between April 21 and May 13th that made the President change his mind about sending VPOTUS to the inauguration in Ukraine?


'An ABC staffer said that [Alan] Dershowitz, a lawyer for Epstein at the time, had called the network around that time. Dershowitz admitted he intervened because he did not want Giuffre's "credibility enhanced by ABC."'


This weeks impeachment hearings schedule


How does fracking cause earthquakes — and how common are they? We broke it down


That same day, Volker and Giuliani had breakfast at the Trump Hotel in DC, after which Volker texted Sondland: “Most impt is for Zelensky to say that he will help investigation—and address any specific personnel issues—if there are any.


Russian troops take command of U.S. airbase in northern Syria


Nancy Pelosi today: "What the president did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did, but at some point, Richard Nixon cared about the country enough to recognize that this could not continue."


A small number of protesters are trapped inside a Hong Kong university campus that was the site of a prolonged battle with police into the early hours of Monday morning. Many have attempted to flee as authorities close in.


Here's Trump's public schedule for tomorrow. (Public schedules don't include all of a president's activities.)


The Democratic-controlled House passed a sweeping gun control bill in February. Trump’s attempt to blame anyone but himself and Mitch McConnell for legislation not getting approved is absurd.


Dear @realDonaldTrump, FYI: -Williams is an adviser to @VP Pence -Taylor was called out of retirement by @SecPompeo to serve you in Ukraine -Sondland is your appointee -Morrison is your appointee They are all telling the American people the truth.


Putin is wrong. Liberalism - including democracy, human rights, and rule of law -- is not obsolete. Ask those protesting in Iran, Hong Kong, and the Czech Republic. More to come !


This kinda weird... While accusing Democrats on the Intel Committee of not having briefings, Devin Nunes admits he and other Republicans have been having their own briefings. It really sounds like he’s admitting The White House is sidestepping Democrats on the intel committee


Prince Andrew’s Epstein interview roundly panned as "nuclear explosion level bad"


Clint Lorance ordered his men to fire on villagers in Afghanistan he knew were unarmed, then tried to cover it up. He was freed from Leavenworth by presidential pardon last night.


Trump Is MAGA-fying the National Medal of Arts


Ambassador Sondland was updating Trump officials on progress of 'push for investigations' -- including Mulvaney


Mike Turner: GOP congressman calls new details about Trump revealed in impeachment testimony 'alarming'


Police say at least nine people were shot at party in Fresno, California in what appears to be a “mass casualty shooting,” local media report.


NEW: The inside story of Sondland's batshit insane White House meeting with the Ukranians.


Democrats invite Trump to testify in impeachment inquiry


Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford makes a rare appearance to accept the Rodger Baldwin Courage Award from the ACLU of Southern California


Breaking News: Police on scene of mass shooting in southeast Fresno