CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.
By a 54–45 vote, the Senate confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Friday.
Well, it was nice having voting rights while it lasted.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.
By a 54–45 vote, the Senate confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Friday.
Airstrike on Syria (Photo: screen capture).
More than once, I’ve brought up the possibility of Trump starting yet another war, and I’ve been on edge for a while now, wondering when the fuck it was going to happen, because I think we all knew this was coming. The Tiny Tyrant is not bathing in adulation, he’s not everyone’s little baby, being cooed at. People are not happy, and they aren’t impressed. His low approval ratings are setting a whole new record. His Regime is a chaotic clusterfuck, his wife happily keeps her distance, while people are calling for her to get the fuck out of NYC, and no one in Florida wants the Trumps around anymore, as they are pure poison to plain folk, their wallets, and their businesses. There’s the collusion with Russia, the overwhelming evidence of corruption, fraud, and constitution violation. Donnie hasn’t gotten over his humiliation in not passing the Fuck You Care Plan, either. So, what’s a shallow, sociopathic idiot to do? War! Missiles! It’s the War on Terra 2.0!
And, just like with Bush, this is already working on at least some people, primarily the media it seems. Deciding to fire a missile from a long distance to slaughter people does not make a person “presidential”. Especially not in this case. Trump made this decision at his Mar-a-private club, without congressional approval. That’s not presidential. That’s a fucking dictator. And there’s something everyone really needs to remember – Trump does not give one shit about those Syrian children. Syria was on his personal hit list of bannination, and when he was campaigning, he compared Syrian refugees to venomous snakes. Don’t go thinking he had a sudden attack of empathy, he didn’t. Okay, let’s get on with the round-up, lots and lots to absorb out there.
In Think Progress’s main article about the strike, they include the seven tweets by Trump deriding President Obama for considering strikes against Syria. He ranted and raved about it quite a bit.
The actions represent a dramatic reversal from Trump’s position when Obama considered military action against Syria after Assad used chemical weapons in 2013. Trump repeatedly derided the idea of striking Syria, characterizing it as a foolish and expensive waste of time.
AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA – IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013
[All Caps] Again, to our very foolish leader, do not attack Syria – if you do many very bad things will happen & from that fight the U.S. gets nothing!
Think Progress also has an article about the excessive fawning by the media over the suddenly “presidential” Tiny Tyrant.
This isn’t entirely surprising. Trump’s approval ratings have been fairly low, but the President indicated in 2012 a certain awareness that decisive military strikes can help polling rebound.
Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012
Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.
And many are already terrified that Trump might use military action to shore up his popularity and distract from the massive scrutiny and investigations his administration has face in its first 11 weeks.
You can include me in that group. That’s exactly what this fucking sociopathic idiot is going to do.
Think Progress has an article about the unhappiness of Russia with this symbolic muscle flexing.
Though the strike was intended to degrade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s capability to carry out another chemical attack in the future, it appears to have been largely symbolic. During a gaggle with reporters, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster acknowledged that after the strike, “the regime will maintain the certain capacity to commit mass murder with chemical weapons, we think, beyond this particular airfield.”
Raw Story has an article which reminds us all of Trump’s vow to commit war crimes and his love of torture.
Raw Story also has an article up about the selling of the Iraq war, and just how much news outlets had to do with that, primarily Fox.
The 10 Republicans who have done a 180 on Syria, now that Obama is not president.
The Conversation has an article about the current rationalisations for the new war.
Even the Nazis are upset.
And, just in:
Nine civilians including four children were killed in the U.S. missile attack on a Syrian airbase near the city of Homs on Friday, the Syrian state news agency said.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer, right, holds up a check during the daily briefing with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, left, and Harpers Ferry National Historic Park Superintendent Tyrone Brandyburg. CREDIT: AP Photo/Susan Walsh.
First, another photo distraction. Look at Zinke eyeballing that check – he looks like he’s about to lunge, grab it and run. The National Park stunt, it’s bullshit, so don’t swallow it. The Tiny Tyrant needed a distraction from the set of Damocle’s Swords hanging over his head, so this little stunt was staged. And it is quite little – $78,333 to the National Park Service. Given that his ideal budget strips the NPS, among many others, this is an empty gesture, and worse. Neither Trump nor Zinke give one tiny squirtle of a shit for land. They are both in favour of more pipelines, poisoned water, coal mining, strip mining, fracking, drilling for oil in protected reserves, and wholesale pollution. This tiny little check of a photo op is toxic bullshit of the highest order. While the Tiny Tyrant could not possibly care less about caring for our planet, there is one thing he sorta kinda cares about, battlefields. Yep. So incredibly important to maintain historic battlefields! What’s more important than the reminders of bloody slaughters?
…And as far as his donation, it falls well short of the cuts Trump himself would impose on the National Park Service’s supervising agency, the Interior Department.
Trump’s budget calls for a punishing 12 percent cut to the department, which manages the United States’ public lands. It would eliminate some of the department’s programs altogether, including the $13.2 million National Wildlife Refuge Fund and the $20 million funding for the nation’s 49 National Heritage Areas. It would also decrease funding for land acquisition — such as land that would be added to the nation’s national parks, and then stewarded by the NPS — by $120 million.
Zinke, in his remarks thanking the president, said he would put the money towards the department’s $229 million shortfall in maintenance of the United States’ historic battlefields. According to Spicer, Trump chose to give the money to the NPS himself, specifically because he was interested in restoring the battlegrounds.
“It’s a decision he made. Counsel presented him with several options. He believed… some great work is being done there, especially work being done to restore our great battlegrounds,” Spicer said.
Right. Fuck you, Trump. Think Progress has the full story.
Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby (Photo: Tulsa PD).
Remember Betty Jo? She’s the cop who murdered Terence Crutcher, who had his hands up. I’ve posted three times prior about this case: one, two, three. The third post was about her first attempt at a defense, “auditory exclusion”, claiming she was so stressed, she went temporarily deaf, and didn’t hear back up arrive. There were many problems with that so-called defense, not the least of which is how she missed the taser dot on Mr. Crutcher, aimed by her back up. Now Ms. Shelby has shown up on 60 minutes, where she woefully claimed that she was the victim, and she’s had a lynch mob after her.
In an interview with 60 Minutes aired Sunday night, Betty Jo Shelby both insists that her killing of Terence Crutcher was justified and portrays herself as the real victim in this saga. After a video snippet of protesters calling for her resignation, Shelby likens the Tulsa community’s accountability demands to “a lynch mob.”
“My situation was no different than — I don’t know whether I should say this — than a lynch mob coming after me. And I had those very threats,” said Shelby.
Lynch mobs kill people. Betty Shelby still has a job. She faces at most four years in prison in the statistically unlikely event that a jury decides her killing of Crutcher was unlawful manslaughter rather than justifiable police action.
It is unusual for someone accused of manslaughter to go on national TV to discuss specifics of a case before a jury has heard it. Potential jurors will now likely have seen both raw videos of Shelby killing Crutcher, and CBS’ tight repackaging of the Shelby team’s narrative of what the videos do and do not show.
This is beyond disgusting. It’s bad enough to have a bigoted, homicidal cop roaming about, and it’s already clear there won’t be justice for Terence Crutcher in this case. The charge is manslaughter, and even if convicted, which is doubtful, the maximum sentence is four years. That’s not much for gunning a person down in cold blood.
Shelby insists that implicit racial bias played no role in her decision-making that day.
[…]
She agreed with Whitaker that Crutcher’s death was “avoidable” but ultimately lays the blame on the dead man.
“If he would have communicated with me, if he would’ve just done as I asked him to do we would not be here,” Shelby said.
Right. Shelby isn’t a bigot at all, and Terence Crutcher is dead because Terence Crutcher. The depth of racism white people in uStates carry around is deep and ever present, and it’s past time that everyone else keeps turning a blind eye to it. That said, I have no faith the jury in this case will do the right thing.
Full story at Think Progress.
Hundreds of thousands of women marched on Washington to protest Donald Trump’s presidency. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.
National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month! Yep, you read that one correctly. If the Tiny Tyrant was remotely intelligent, I’d be very suspicious. He isn’t remotely intelligent though, and apparently he’s untouchable when it comes to irony poisoning. He’s also not doing anything remotely new. April has been Sexual Assault Awareness month since 2001. So, we basically have a known bullshit move on the part of Donnie. He picks up something that’s already in place, ignores the decades of hard work put in, so he can pretend he’s oh so great, and lookit, I’m doing something presidential! Don’t swallow the shit. This is not Donnie doing something right, this is Donnie grabbing onto the coattails of others, for the sole purpose of feeding his monstrous ego.
Nearly six months after tapes were released of him bragging about sexually assaulting women, Donald Trump declared on Friday that April is officially National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.
Citing the 300,000 people who are sexually assaulted or raped every year, Trump also proclaimed that his administration — specifically the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice — is stepping up to assist victims and prevent future attacks.
The bulk of his proclamation is a series of platitudes rather than a substantive plan to address rampant sexual violence and rape culture. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reportedly been told to establish a crime reduction and public safety task force to “develop strategies to reduce crime and propose new legislation to fill gaps in existing laws.” Trump also noted the importance of speaking out against sexual violence among peers, “mobilizing men and boys as allies in preventing sexual and relationship violence,” and showing women and children more respect.
:chokes, sputter: Excuse me? Nice talk there, to be sure, and as for standing up and doing the right thing, you’re going to turn yourself in over the rape and sexual assaults you committed, right?
“Together, we can and must protect our loved ones, families, campuses, and communities from the devastating and pervasive effects of sexual assault,” he said. “In the face of sexual violence, we must commit to providing meaningful support and services for victims and survivors in the United States and around the world.”
That might have warmed the black cockles of my heart, coming from anyone else. From the Tiny Tyrant? No, no. How in the fuck could anyone take that at face value from a man who views women as chattel, as a commodity, along with convenient holes just walking around, free for the grabbing? As for respecting women, oh please. The Tiny Tyrant has a long record of demeaning and disrespecting women.
But it’s difficult to take this proclamation seriously, coming from a man who was filmed suggesting celebrities “can do anything” to women — such as “grab them by the pussy” — and who has a long, documented history of the type of misogyny that allows sexual violence to thrive. He routinely reduces women’s worth to their looks, implying that women who have publicly accused him of assault are too unattractive for their stories to be true. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. Man, you don’t know, that would not be my first choice,” he said during a campaign rally. On the campaign trail, Trump also argued that women who are sexually harassed at work should quit, shortly before hiring serial sexual harasser Roger Ailes.
It’s also hard to treat seriously Trump’s plan to protect victims in the U.S. and worldwide. His proposed budget threatens funding to uphold the federal Violence Against Women Act and bolster support for survivors. One of his first acts as President was to reinstate the global gag rule, gutting foreign aid to much-needed health service providers if they offer abortions — the very types of providers who assist survivors of sexual violence.
Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, also donated to FIRE, a group that purportedly fights for individual’s freedom on school campuses and allegations of sexual assault. The group once wrote:
“Unfortunately, much of the feminist ‘war on rape’ has conflated sexual assault with muddled, often alcohol-fueled, sexual encounters that involve miscommunication, perhaps bad behavior, but no criminal coercion. As a result, the drunken hookups all too common on today’s campuses can lead to devastating charges and penalties.
Full story at Think Progress.
Drone in sky (Shutterstock).
Legislators in Connecticut are very close to legalizing the use of weaponized drones by cops. I’m sure if this passes, it will get picked up from state to state, allowing cops to become even more lethal towards the citizens of uStates.
Connecticut lawmakers are pushing a bill that would legalize the use of armed drones for police officers. The state’s judiciary committee approved a bill on Thursday titled, “An Act Concerning the Use and Regulation of Drones” that would ban weaponized drones for use by anyone except for police officers, according to Gizmodo.
The bill would allow police officers to use drones armed with tear gas, incendiary devices, explosives, and “remote deadly weapons.” If the bill is signed, it would go into effect in October, 2017.
In its original form, the bill did not include a provision to allow police to equip drones with arms. Rather, as David McGuire, the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut tells Raw Story, “The underlying bill was strong because it only authorized police to use drones with a warrant for surveillance.”
The original bill required officers to obtain a warrant before surveilling individuals suspected of a crime, and would require police to report annually how they used drones. “It protected privacy and free speech rights,” said McGuire.
The added provision, McGuire said, “turned a bill that was about protecting peoples’ rights into a bill that violates peoples’ civil rights by allowing use of force.”
McGuire tells me, “We have been struggling with the issue of militarization of police — this [bill] would be escalating that in a serious and unprecedented way.”
“This amendment would send a terrible message to over-policed and victimized communities,” McGuire said. He added that the last few years have been spent working to rebuild community trust in law enforcement.
If the bill passes with the added amendment, Connecticut would be the first state in the country allowing police to use drones with lethal weapons. “I think you would see more use of force,” said McGuire.
No kidding. Cops adore all their lethal toys, and they’ll love this one, too.
But he remains positive that the bill can go back to its original intent.
Why in the fuckety fuck would you think that? I’ll lay money this won’t go back to original intent, and I’d bet that even restricted to surveillance, they would be misused, every day in every way.
Full story here.
Tucker Viemeister.
Immigrants who are doing all the right, legal things are now being arrested when they show up to do all the right, legal things. I think the Canadian backroad border crossings are going to get a lot busier.
Federal immigration officers arrested five people in Lawrence [Massachusetts] on Wednesday when they showed up for scheduled appointments at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office.
WBUR has confirmed that at least three of those arrested were beginning the process to become legal permanent residents. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says the agency had orders to detain each of the five individuals for deportation.
Brian Doyle, the attorney for one of the three people who were seeking green cards before they were arrested, says he knew there was a chance his client would be taken into custody at the appointment.
His client, a Brazilian national who had been ordered deported before she married a U.S. citizen, understood the risks as well, but ultimately decided that she wanted to keep the appointment and begin the green card process.
This, Doyle says, is an example of the difficult situation for many immigrants living in the country illegally, who are forced to weigh the costs and benefits of keeping an appointment with an immigration official in light of new deportation priorities set by President Trump.
“Now, they’re in a sort of catch-22 where, ‘All right, I’m being called in for this interview. I want to have this first step approved.’ If they don’t show up, it’s what’s called abandoned … USCIS just sort of assumes that they don’t want to go forward with it,” Doyle said. “But now, if they do show up, trying to take that first step and they’re detained, it can lead to them being removed.”
[…]
“What this means is that people who are eligible to obtain their green card in the United States, who are following the law, who are following the rules, who are doing what the government is instructing them to do, are going to be too terrified to show up and follow through with the process,” Church said. “And now a whole new category of people is going to go back into the shadow of immigration land and be living in fear.”
In a statement, ICE confirmed that officers were “responding to an investigative tip” when arresting the five foreign nationals at the USCIS office in Lawrence.
“All five individuals have final orders of removal issued by a federal immigration judge. All five will be held in custody pending removal from the United States,” the statement read.
When asked if the five people arrested had criminal records, an ICE spokesman said two of the people had no criminal record while the other three had “multiple traffic violations.”
Oh, traffic violations, the horror! Guess it’s a good thing these people are being ripped away from their families, and being punished for following the law, because traffic tickets, well, what could be worse?
Via WBUR.
Credit: AP Photo.
Oh those poor anonymous shitlords, whatever will they do with their loyalty to the Tiny Tyrant? Seems they are rather upset about the stripping of online privacy. Tsk. I also want to point out, on the off chance this is seen in the relevant circles, that cooperate and corporate have nothing in common.
…Even as some voters began expressing remorse for entrusting a misogynistic failed businessman with improving their health care and saving jobs, Trump’s army of trolls—on 4chan, on gab.ai, and, most notably, on the r/The_Donald subreddit—remained steadfast.
At least, until this week.
Earlier this week, Republicans muscled a bill through Congress that strips away Obama-era protections on users’ online privacy, opening the door for internet service providers to begin selling their customers’ private information to the highest bidder. Everything from a user’s location to their shopping habits to their browsing history will be on the menu.
For a group of people whose cretinous online behavior is predicated on remaining largely anonymous, such a disruption would be unwelcome to say the least. And the fact that the Trump administration has vowed to sign such a bill into law has proven to be a very triggering turn of events.
Now, users in Donald Trump’s online safe spaces are cycling through all seven stages of grief.
Shock:
This is an attack against freedom. I want to make my own decisions about my life, not others, and that includes my private info as well. this is total bs, the house giving in to the business “establishment”, Pres Trump should stop this!!!!!
Denial:
I’m completely against this bill. Trump would never put something this idiotic through though. It’s all Paul Ryan and his cooperate shills.
Anger:
Trump needs to VETO this shit. This shit wreaks of swamp water and is definitely not part of MAGA.
Bargaining:
This is big, I’m very disappointed in it, it’s one of my top issues. But immigration, budget cuts, repealing Obamacare (and NOT getting in Ryancare), and Draining The Swamp are bigger, especially in aggregate.
Pain:
This bill will not be vetoed…Oh fuck me. Shit man.
Depression:
“So what do we do if Trump doesn’t veto? Do we still support him?”
And finally, acceptance:
“Hey man, this is deregulation! This is what Trump promised, it’s what he campaigned on.”
But this is Donald Trump we’re talking about, a scam artist who bilked hundreds of people by creating a fraudulent university atop a charter of “trust me, I got this.” Is it any wonder, then, that some Trump supporters still assume the president knows what he’s doing, even when all the evidence suggests otherwise?
“Can’t help it, but getting rid of Obama-sneaky BS is a good thing,” writes another Breitbart commenter. “That scoundrel had to be up to something censorious, anti-freedom or something similar.”
The comments are sourced at Think Progress, who has the full story.
Ryan Zinke (Twitter).
Just when you think rethuglicans really could not possibly go lower or more regressive, *bam*. Ryan the fink Zinke has a problem with the stupid wall – placing it on U.S. land would cede the Rio Grande, oh no wtfbbq!!!11!1 The solution? Doesn’t seem to be one right now, outside of making sure endangered animals are endangered right into extinction. It seems the only way to keep the Rio Grande would be to either steal land from Mexico, or build it on Mexico’s land and claim it for uStates. Or something. Jesus Fuck. There’s that Colonial mindset at work.
E&E News reports that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke talked about the logistics of building a border wall while speaking at an event held by the Public Lands Council this week, and he said the Trump administration didn’t want to build the wall on American soil because it would mean ceding the entire Rio Grande river to Mexico.
“The border is complicated, as far as building a physical wall,” Zinke said. “The Rio Grande, what side of the river are you going to put the wall? We’re not going to put it on our side and cede the river to Mexico. And we’re probably not going to put it in the middle of the river.”
Zinke didn’t elaborate on how the wall would get built if it wasn’t located on America’s side of the Rio Grande or in the middle of the river, which implies that it would be built on the Mexican side of the border.
Elsewhere in his talk, E&E News reports Zinke said the Trump administration will seek a waiver to the Endangered Species Act so it can build the wall in jaguar habitats that are for now protected from “destruction or adverse modification.”
Via Raw Story. And, Ryan fucking idiot Zinke has now said there’s no such thing as clean energy. Nope.
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) in the state legislature. CREDIT: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall.
On the first of the year, any residents of Johnson County, Iowa making the minimum wage got a boost: their pay rose to $10.10 an hour as a locally passed ordinance from 2015 went into effect. Linn County residents got a raise to at least $8.25 an hour.
More Iowans were soon going to join them. Come 2019, Wapello County planned to raise its minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, while Linn was set to go to $10.25 and Polk County to $10.75. Lee County was considering its own increase.
Now all of that is changing. On Monday, the Iowa state Senate passed a law that will not just freeze the its minimum wage at the federal floor of $7.25 an hour, but roll back the increases that were passed by Johnson, Linn, Polk, and Wapello Counties. No local governments will be able to pass their own minimum wage increases if it’s signed into law. The bill now heads to Gov. Terry Branstad’s (R) desk, who is expected to sign it.
If he does, those raises in Johnson and Linn will disappear. “The bill’s passage marks the first time anywhere in the U.S. that state lawmakers have actually taken away raises from workers who already received them,” according to a statement from Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project.
This is an outright evil thing to do. When people get a raise, everything changes proportionally to that raise. Budgets are allowed to expand a little, and families are able to provide more for their children, outside of the bare basics. To give people a raise, then rip it away from them, well, it’s hard to imagine being more Grinchesque.
It’s the latest advance in an all-out battle many states are waging against local efforts to increase their residents’ wages and benefits. As more cities pass minimum wage increases and paid sick leave requirements, amid Congressional inaction on both issues, preemption bills stymieing their efforts have proliferated. According to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), every year has seen more states consider such legislation, with 36 states in 2016, up from 29 the year before and 23 the year before that.
Many of those bills have turned into law. Twenty-three states now preempt local efforts to increase the minimum wage, according to CMD, while 16 ban cities and counties from mandating paid sick leave.
This year is on track to continue the trend. Beyond Iowa, Georgia, Illinois, and Minnesota are considering minimum wage preemption bills. Six states — Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina — are looking at paid sick leave bans.
Even Minnesota. Minnesota, known as a liberal state in so many ways, but providing workers with a living wage and paid leave? Unthinkable!
Even these figures understate the full picture, as many states consider bills that would block multiple issues at the local level, such as minimum wage increases, mandated paid sick leave, LGBT protections, and even things like bans on plastic bags.
If just two more states join Iowa this year, that will mean a majority preempt cities and counties from increasing their own minimum wages. Georgia appears to have the votes; in Minnesota, it’s possible Gov. Mark Dayton (D) will hold the line.
Here’s hoping. If Minnesota falls, it’s going to be very bad news.
As in the reversal of pay raises in Iowa, some paid sick leave preemption bills could rescind benefits that have already gone into effect. In New Jersey, 12 cities have mandated paid sick leave. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, Portland and Eugene in Oregon, Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota, and Montgomery County in Maryland have all done the same.
The rise in preemption laws across the country tracks closely with the increasing capture of state legislatures by Republican majorities, starting with the 2010 midterms that handed full control of 11 legislatures to Republicans. Fourteen of the paid sick leave bans and most of the minimum wage bills came after that election. “It’s certainly the case that there’s an increase in these red legislatures,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of CMD.
How is rescinding paid leave benefits going to work? It’s not enough to try and strip healthcare from people, but if you had paid sick leave, do you have to pay that money back to company if it’s rescinded? That would mean people are working for no pay at all.
In Minnesota, for example, Republicans won a majority in both chambers of the legislature in November’s election, and now those lawmakers are pushing to roll back local efforts on wages and sick leave. Graves sees this as representatives of rural areas trying to impose their will on the cities, where the cost of living is much higher. “Those cities have adopted popular measures to address this,” she said. “And it’s really unfortunate that some of these rural electeds are trying to displace the popular will of the cities that they don’t even live in.”
[…]
These bills are also top priorities for some large business groups, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Legislative Exchange Council. Many preemption laws are based off of ALEC’s model bills.
I have no doubt they are popular for businesses, but how can said businesses stay in business if they screw their workers to the point that they leave?
Full story at Think Progress.
NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo holds Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold. CREDIT: YouTube/New York Daily News.
A short while back, I posted about the history of the cop who murdered Eric Garner. It was an ugly history, one which was ignored in keeping Daniel Pantaleo employed. That employment continues, but the person who disclosed that hidden history? No, they are no longer employed.
The release of previously secret disciplinary records of the NYPD officer that killed Eric Garner is stirring controversy in New York City, reinvigorating a heated debate among activists and city officials over transparency and police accountability.
On Tuesday, ThinkProgress published the disciplinary records of Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who used a prohibited chokehold against Garner in 2014. The records — which were previously hidden from the public — originated from the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the independent city agency that fields complaints about officer misconduct. They were leaked to ThinkProgress from an anonymous source who was discovered by the agency and forced to resign.
The news also forced the CCRB to formally confirm that the documents are real.
The CCRB’s actions triggered indignation from Cynthia Conti-Cook, a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society’s Special Litigation Unit. The group is currently involved in lawsuits to obtain disciplinary records from both the CCRB and the NYPD.
“When there is more political will to fire a whistleblower than an officer who killed an unarmed man, it sends a message about the Mayor’s capacity to act quickly and therefore simultaneously sends a message about his lack of political will to hold police like Pantaleo…accountable for misconduct,” she said, referring to the fact that Pantaleo remains employed by the NYPD, and received a raise last year.
I could not possibly agree more. This is shocking behaviour. Well, it should be shocking. I’m afraid we have all become much too inured, and given the increasingly open shite supremacist feeling in uStates, there tends to be little more than an ennui laden shrug over such heinous actions.
Civil rights groups and several city officials were also outraged by the content of the documents, which showed that Pantaleo had 7 complaints and 4 substantiated allegations years before his encounter with Garner—far more than the overwhelming majority of his fellow NYPD officers, according to CCRB data. The revelations also raised questions about whether Pantaleo was properly disciplined, as the documents showed that the NYPD repeatedly enacted lesser penalties than those recommended by the CCRB.
Gwen Carr, Garner’s mother, said that earlier review of the records could have saved her son’s life.
“Someone should have taken a look at his record a long time ago,” Carr told the New York Daily News. “If they had done that maybe my son would still be alive.”
That’s assuming that anyone looking at Pantaleo’s record would have actually done something about it, which is more than questionable. Cop shops all over the country simply don’t have a problem with bigoted, homicidal cops, nor do they seem to be overly concerned about dead brown people. It seems the only time they do care is if they end up in the public spotlight, and even then, the result is rarely justice.
The Message to Women Everywhere.
This post brought to you with a leaden heart sinking in a simultaneous sea of fury and despair. It’s going to be a roundup, because I just can’t. I can’t.
On Thursday, President Trump and the House Freedom Caucus tentatively worked out a deal: Trump would agree to remove mandatory coverage of “essential services” from his health care bill in order to win the far-right caucus’ support for it.
Essential services include maternity and newborn care, pediatric care, emergency services, substance abuse treatment, and prescription drug coverage. Under the Affordable Care Act, every health insurance plan sold in the US must cover them.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Thursday that women wouldn’t have to worry about paying more for maternity care under Trumpcare, as long as they’re on a family plan.
The exchange came as a reporter pressed Spicer on reports that the GOP is considering repealing Obamacare’s 10 essential health benefits mandate — a requirement that all insurance plans cover services such as hospitalizations, prescriptions, preventative care, and pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care.
Spicer called the furor over these benefits a “philosophical discussion,” and argued that repealing them was a way to bring premiums down.
On Thursday morning, as the Trump administration frantically tried to save its deeply unpopular Affordable Care Act replacement bill, White House social media director Dan Scavino Jr. tweeted out a message to Trump’s dwindling pool of supporters urging them to call their congressperson in support of the American Health Care Act.
Hours later, similarly worded tweets were sent from the official @POTUS account and Donald Trump’s personal account.
But as some people were quick to note, directly lobbying Congress in support of (or opposition to) a bill using federal dollars—including White House staff who earn federal salaries—is strictly forbidden under 18 U.S.C. § 1913.
The House is expected to vote Friday on a bill that, if a faction of the most conservative House Republicans gets its way, will eliminate the requirement that insurance plans cover certain essential health benefits. These benefits include maternity care, a fact that the Trump White House views as an opportunity to pit men against women.
It’s a common joke among the Affordable Care Act’s opponents. Why should a man pay for women’s health care? Hilarious!
At least with respect to maternity care, however, there’s a very simple answer to this question. Because of the unusual nature of pregnancy, either everyone must pay for pregnancy coverage, or no one will have pregnancy coverage.
The reason why is a problem known as “adverse selection.”
A photo of the House Freedom Caucus and Mike Pence went viral on Thursday, and for good reason — it showed that in a discussion over the future of women’s health insurance plans, the only people in the room were white men.
In a bid to get the far-right Freedom Caucus on board, President Trump and GOP leadership (again, all men) offered to repeal Obamacare’s Essential Health Benefits provision, which mandates that health insurers offer coverage for basic care like hospitalizations, prescriptions, and notably for women, pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care.
According to reports, however, the Freedom Caucus still doesn’t think the bill goes far enough. And on Friday, Trump took to Twitter to levy one more threat at its members, dangling women’s health coverage in front of them as bait:
The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!
— President Trump (@POTUS) March 24, 2017
The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!
There’s many ways in which Trumpcare would disproportionately affect women. It would price abortion care out of reach for many women, even some on employee-sponsored plans. It would roll back Medicaid and charge seniors more for health insurance, hurting two populations that are predominately female. With the new revisions, it will roll back maternity coverage.
And, as Trump alludes to, it would federally defund Planned Parenthood —which in practice, actually means preventing low-income and rural women and men who depend on Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, STD testing, and birth control consultations. In 105 counties, Planned Parenthood is the only birth control clinic. Annually, 2.5 million women and men seek care at Planned Parenthood clinics.
Trump knows this.
Nunes, speaks with reporters outside the White House on Wednesday following a meeting with President Trump. CREDIT: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.
House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) claims to have evidence that President Donald Trump was surveilled after all.
During a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Monday, FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers both said they know of no information supporting the president’s allegation. They also confirmed that President Trump’s connections with Russia are under investigation. On Wednesday, however, Nunes called a press conference and said he “recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about US citizens involved in the Trump transition.”
He framed his claim as big news.
And there’s a problem. It’s not big news. It’s not a vindication. It is obstruction of justice, which Nunes doesn’t seem to be overly concerned about.
But incidental collection isn’t uncommon when American citizens are in touch with foreign agents. Leaks regarding Michael Flynn’s talks with the Russian ambassador were what led to Flynn’s ouster as Trump’s national security adviser, because they confirmed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence regarding the substance of those talks.
Any intelligence report detailing communications between Trump transition officials and foreign agents would be classified. But instead of bringing whatever information he has to the attention of the intelligence community, Nunes addressed reporters and then headed straight to the White House to inform the target of an ongoing FBI investigation.
[…]
After talking to the president, Nunes again faced the media and contradicted himself about what his evidence means, saying in the same breath that it both supports and refutes Trump’s wiretap allegations. He was also evasive about where the alleged surveillance occurred, who it targeted, and what form it took.
Yes, that happens when you don’t have evidence, and you simply make shit up out of whole cloth.
On MSNBC, Jeremy Bash, former chief of staff for the CIA, said he’s “never heard of a chairman of an oversight committee going to brief the president of the United States about concerns he has about things he’s read in intelligence reports.”
“The job of the committee is to do oversight over the executive branch — not to bring them in to their investigation or tip them off to things they may have been looking at,” Bash added. “I’ve gotta believe other members of the committee are horrified at what they just witnessed.”
I certainly hope someone other than all us reading about this are horrified. This is not on the same level of Keystone farce the rest of the regime show has been, this is very serious, and it should be taken seriously, and be investigated properly.
In a statement, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Community, released a statement saying that whatever information Nunes has “should have been shared with members of the committee” before the president was informed.
“The Chairman also shared this information with the White House before providing it to the committee, another profound irregularity, given that the matter is currently under investigation,” Schiff said. “I have expressed my grave concerns with the Chairman that a credible investigation cannot be conducted this way.”
I fully agree. It remains to be seen if a proper, credible investigation can even take place inside the big ol’ circus tent which used to be a government.
As chair of the Intelligence Committee, Nunes is currently overseeing the House’s investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia.
Right. An oversight chair who is going to go running to the press with nonsense every 5 seconds, and while busy decrying leaks, running off to leak to the Tiny Tyrant at every opportunity.
Think Progress has the full story.