Fun to listen to the Trumpbots claim vindication while Donald and bob Barr raise at the conviction.President Donald Trump lashed out at his handpicked Christopher Wray on Tuesday after his handpicked FBI director did not put a positive spin on a Justice Department inspector general report that refuted many of his allegations about the origins of the Russia probe. [...]"I don't know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn't the one given to me," the president tweeted. "With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!"It was not the first time Trump complained that his FBI chief had not touted the administration's talking points. When Wray broke with Trump and Barr earlier this year by saying he would not use the term "spying" to describe the FBI's dealings with the Trump campaign, the president slammed him for giving a "ridiculous answer."Washington Post columnist and political science professor Brian Klaas noted that Trump's remarks were an example of "how disinformation works.""The president invents conspiracy theories which are amplified by Fox News & Republicans trying to get on Fox News," he tweeted. "Then, a neutral report debunks the conspiracy theories, but they all just lie and pretend it vindicates them instead. Rinse, repeat."Former State Department official Richard Stengel urged others to "speak out like Director Wray.""It shouldn't take such courage to simply speak the truth like Director Wray, but other Republicans and political appointees must follow his lead," he wrote on Twitter. "Follow the law."Multiple current and former Trump administration officials told Axios' Jonathan Swan that Trump "would like to" fire Wray but "can't stomach the trouble of firing another FBI director."
New York Attorney General Letitia James today released the following statement after Donald J. Trump was forced to pay more than $2 million in court-ordered damages to eight different charities for illegally misusing charitable funds at the Trump Foundation for political purposes:"Not only has the Trump Foundation shut down for its misconduct, but the president has been forced to pay $2 million for misusing charitable funds for his own political gain. Charities are not a means to an end, which is why these damages speak to the president's abuse of power and represent a victory for not-for-profits that follow the law. Funds have finally gone where they deserve -- to eight credible charities. My office will continue to fight for accountability because no one is above the law -- not a businessman, not a candidate for office, and not even the president of the United States."
new Quinnipiac national poll on 2020 general election shows every prospective Democratic nominee beating Trump :
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) December 10, 2019
Biden 51%, Trump 42%
Sanders 51%, Trump 43%
Warren 50%, Trump 43%
Bloomberg 48%, Trump 42%
Buttigieg 48%, Trump 43%
Klobuchar 47%, Trump 43%
The case for Trump's impeachment seemed quite strong more than two months ago, and the evidence provided to the House's impeachment inquiry has strengthened it further. The president's abuse of power is not in dispute. It is clear that he used the powers of his office in an attempt to extract a corrupt favor for his personal benefit, and this is precisely the sort of offense that impeachment was designed to keep in check. It doesn't matter if the attempt succeeded. All that matters is that the attempt was made. It is also undeniable that he has sought to impede the investigation into his misconduct. The president has committed the offenses he is accused of committing, and the House should approve both articles of impeachment.The president doesn't have a credible line of defense left. That is why his apologists in Congress and elsewhere have been reduced to making increasingly absurd and desperate claims. The president's defenders want to distract attention from the fact that the president abused his power, violated the public's trust, and broke his oath of office, but these distractions are irrelevant.The central question at the heart of this matter has always been whether we will tolerate the president corruptly using the powers of his office for personal benefit. The president's defenders have answered loudly that they will tolerate corruption of the presidency. If we have any respect left for the Constitution and the rule of law, it is imperative that the president is not allowed to escape without facing serious consequences for his abuses. This is important not only to hold the current president in check, but it is also necessary to warn future presidents that such corruption will not be permitted to flourish.
Maine Community involves about $12 billion in payments owed to health insurers under a program known as "risk corridors." Obamacare's risk corridors program sought to encourage insurers to enter an uncertain new market by agreeing to reimburse a portion of their losses if the insurance company set premiums too low.After many insurers agreed to sell plans on the Obamacare marketplace, Congress enacted a provision in an appropriations bill -- a provision known as a "rider" -- seeking to prevent the government from making most of the payments under the risk corridor program. The question in Maine Community is whether the government is still obligated by the Affordable Care Act's original promise to make these payments, or whether the rider effectively ended the requirement.A bipartisan mix of justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Justice Samuel Alito, all had difficult questions for Paul Clement, the lawyer representing the insurers. Ginsburg, in particular, asked whether Obamacare's language, which provides that the government "shall pay" its obligations under the risk corridor program, also permits the insurance companies to sue the government if the money is not paid.Yet only Alito appeared to be a certain vote against the insurers. By the end of arguments, six justices -- Roberts and Ginsburg, plus Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Brett Kavanaugh -- all appeared likely to rule in favor of the insurers. Neither Justice Clarence Thomas nor Justice Neil Gorsuch spoke up during the session.
The point of their gun policies is that people should be able to kill John Law.Twenty-two police officers in the Southern United States have been killed by guns used by offenders in 2019 -- more than the rest of the United States combined, according to data from the FBI.Nine officers were killed by felony gunfire in both the West and the Midwest, two were shot and killed in Puerto Rico and none were killed in the Northeast, according to the FBI's Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted program.
Just 16% of Americans who had a Thanksgiving dinner say politics came up at all this year. Only 3% say things devolved into an actual argument ― a number so trifling that the sample size for a few follow-up questions about the nature of the fights was actually too small to report on.
The United States changed its mind and is now refusing to sign a letter that would have authorized the U.N. Security Council to hold a meeting Tuesday on the human rights situation in North Korea, diplomats said Monday.Without support from the United States, European and other countries that wanted the U.N.'s most powerful body to discuss human rights in North Korea can't go ahead because they are now one vote short of the minimum nine "yes" votes required, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions were private.
In other papers in this project, we learned about increasingly powerful political parties dedicated to immigration restrictions, of well-known political entrepreneurs focused entirely on restricting Islam's influence in European societies, and of right-wing populist governments consolidating their power. Although further right-wing populist victories in Europe are not inevitable, in recent years these movements have effectively shifted the political conversation in their own direction. Many mainstream parties have begun to embrace talking points once relegated to the far-right.This is less the case in the U.S. Trump's victory has not fundamentally changed the Republican Party or led to substantively significant immigration policy changes. Trump's electoral base furthermore does not seem particularly concerned about Muslim immigration as such -- which is not to say it is especially tolerant.We can reasonably criticize President Trump for promoting anti-Muslim prejudice, and he may have played a role in promoting these attitudes. A recent poll published by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding showed a small but statistically significant increase in its Islamophobia index over the last year. A poll conducted by the think tank New America additionally found that Republicans are especially likely to view Muslims with suspicion. On the other hand, we should remember that, on average, Republicans have long been likely to express negative views of Muslims and Islam. We should therefore investigate whether we saw a spike in these attitudes after Donald Trump entered the political arena. In my own analysis of the American National Election Survey data, I found little evidence that this occurred. In the 2012 survey, the mean feeling thermometer score for Muslims among all Republican identifiers was about 38. In the 2016 survey, conducted after then-candidate Trump called for a total ban on Muslim immigration, the mean score among all Republican identifiers was a bit higher -- about 45. This is not a definitive finding, of course, but it does indicate that President Trump has not ushered in an unprecedented era of anti-Muslim animus, even among Republicans.In my own interviews, I came across no subjects seriously concerned about the "Islamification" of the United States. Such sentiments exist in this country, and there is a large audience for Islamophobic rhetoric. However, this particular fear is apparently less politically significant in the U.S. than in Europe. This is likely because Muslims remain a very small percentage of the U.S. population, and are only a small part of the ongoing and dramatic demographic change occurring here. In much of Europe, Muslim immigration is a key source of demographic shifts, and thus of great concern to European nativists. In the U.S., Muslims are just one small part of the broader phenomenon.Even if anti-Muslim sentiments are just as strong in the U.S. as elsewhere, there are compelling historical reasons to doubt the long-term sustainability of any right-wing populist movement in the United States. Political expressions of these kinds of right-wing sentiments have rarely led to successful long-term organizations. These movements typically form around the personality of a charismatic politician, and then recede from political significance after that politician is defeated or otherwise fades from the scene. Although they had different agendas and styles, this was the case with George Wallace, David Duke, Ross Perot, and Patrick Buchanan.
The film could be a tale of a man slowly going crazy, or it could be an old New England nautical folk tale about the inscrutability and danger of the sea, or it could be a clever story that brings together a god and a man from ancient Greek mythology. Not being completely clear on the answer is part of the intrigue of the film, which is the work of a young director who over two movies has tapped into what one critic calls "New England dread." A New Hampshire native, Eggers is fascinated with the history of New England, particularly the supernatural history. His first feature The Witch, set in 1630, features period language and was called "perhaps the most painstakingly realized film ever made about colonial Massachusetts, with all the austerity, religious hysteria, and demon goats that implies." "New England is where the European white Protestant culture has been around for the longest," Eggers recently said. "I grew up in a clapboard house in the middle of the woods, and my grandpa lived in a house from the 1740s. You're around creepy stone walls, it's just-it's everywhere. I mean, Paul Revere's house looks pretty creepy."This cold, haunting Northeastern aesthetic saturates the film. Two men, Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe), have a four-week assignment at a lighthouse on a small island off the coast of New England. Thomas is a briny tyrant right out of Moby Dick who occupies Ephraim's days with endless chores, all the while preventing the younger man from access to a close-up view of the heavenly glow at the top of the lighthouse. The previous assistant, Thomas explains, went mad because he "saw some enchantment in the light." This film earns the appellation of horror because of its portrayal of a slow descent into madness. The fading ship at the opening was just the beginning, as Ephraim soon begins to second-guess his sanity because he is seeing things, including a mermaid who emits a siren wail that Ephraim finds both irresistible and terrifying.This is only Eggers' second feature, but the director shows masterful control here. Every creak in the lighthouse itself sounds authentic, and the sweeping rain sounds are so punishing they threaten to spill into the theater. The actors are shot in tight, claustrophobic places. Sound designer Damian Volpe deserves an Oscar for his work, especially for the jarring foghorn noise that shakes Ephraim throughout the film. Actors Dafoe and Pattinson are both excellent.A key to discovering what is going on in The Lighthouse comes from researching the screenwriters, Eggers and his brother Max. They based the dialogue in the film on passages out of Herman Melville, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Louis Stevenson, and writings by the New England novelist and poet Sarah Orne Jewett. Thomas seems to relish this farrago of New England writers and primary sourced journals from workers at the time. Barking his words behind a wet and bushy beard (for example: "Damn ye! Then let two strike ye dead, Winslow! Hark!"), Dafoe's character is a force of nature here, and his performance could be considered over-the-top until the viewer realizes that he may indeed be playing a god. (Spoilers ahead, so stop reading if you want to see the film fresh).
We are daily becoming aware of the extent of the administration's corruption, and we still do not fully know the role of foreign money and influence from these countries in shaping the administration's policies. If a president consistently puts the interests of another government ahead of American interests, there is probably something else going on beyond extremely bad foreign policy judgment. Trump's absurd pro-Saudi bias is not inexplicable, but it is still in need of a fuller explanation.
According to a Vanity Fair report, Trump revealed details of a daring top-secret mission into northern Syria by Israel's Mossad spy agency and elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit in a May 2017 meeting with Russian officials, sticking a dagger into the robust Israeli-American intelligence-sharing apparatus.
