Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Paris liberated during World War II; A first swim across the English Channel; Actor Sean Connery, composer Leonard Bernstein, and musician Elvis Costello born; Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’ released.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.
Democratic Party officials are on the verge of greenlighting a Bernie Sanders-endorsed plan to weaken the influence of superdelegates in the presidential nominating process. But it won’t be pretty.
As Democratic National Committee members arrived here Thursday for their annual summer meeting, outspoken opponents of the proposal acknowledged they were outnumbered. Still, they pledged an aggressive, last-ditch lobbying effort ahead of a Saturday vote, defying a call for unity from party leaders.
“We’re up against a wall,” said Bob Mulholland, a superdelegate and DNC member from California who helped organize opposition to the proposal. “We’re going to fight it like hell.”
The opposition campaign threatened to undercut a bid by party leaders to present a unified front before a critical midterm election, exasperating officials who have worked for months to design a compromise. Less than a day into the proceedings — and with the superdelegate controversy hanging heavily over the gathering — New York Assemblyman Michael Blake, vice chairman of the DNC, said “my patience is growing short.”
Leaving an executive committee meeting on Thursday morning, Blake said, “We’ve got real shit to get done, to go help people.”
The superdelegate issue has bedeviled the party for the past two years, ever since the bulk of superdelegates — the members of Congress, governors and DNC members and other top officials who made up about 15 percent of delegates during the 2016 convention — overwhelmingly sided with Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary.
In some cases, their support for Clinton came in defiance of the popular vote outcome in their states, leading Sanders’ supporters to rage against a nominating process they contended was tilted in Clinton’s favor.
The current proposal, a priority of Sanders and his supporters since the Vermont senator’s defeat two years ago — a result of the Unity Reform Commission established at the 2016 national convention — would prohibit superdelegates from voting on the first presidential nominating ballot at a contested national convention, reducing their influence in a nominating process.
…
Inside the Hyatt Regency convention halls, opponents of the proposal are raising objections on both substantive and procedural grounds. They argue, among other points, that such a significant rules change should require a two-thirds vote, not a simple majority — a position DNC officials reject.
If the proposal is adopted, superdelegates could vote on the first convention ballot only if a candidate earned enough pledged delegates from state parties and caucuses to win the nomination.
After meeting with about 15 opponents of the proposal at the convention hotel Thursday afternoon, William Owen, a DNC member from Tennessee who is helping to organize the resistance, said, “I think we’ve got a shot at trying to slow this thing down.”
C’mon guys. This is our pre-compromised proposal and it’s little enough.
I refuse to let Joe Scarborough ruin this moment for me.
They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder,
Flying there-under, under the sea!
Everyone loves the king of the sea,
Ever so kind and gentle is he,
Tricks he will do when children appear,
And how they laugh when he’s near!
They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder,
Flying there-under, under the sea!
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying two Ancient Roman cities; Hurricane Andrew hits Florida; British troops burn Washington in War of 1812; Pluto demoted as a planet; Pete Rose banned from baseball for life.
Texas Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke, who represents Texas 16th congressional which includes El Paso, is running for the Senate seat currently held by first term Republican Senator Ted Cruz, probably the most disliked senator on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Lindsay Graham jokingly once said, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” Rep. O’Rourke has countered the Republican attacks with aplomb and humor. After Cruz spokeswoman called him a “Triple Meat Whataburger liberal” implying he was out of touch with Texas values,” O’Rourke’s response was to go to the popular Texas burger chain with some campaign staffers, eat burghers and skateboard through the parking lot.
It isn’t just his skateboarding skills. O’Rourke has answers to questions that most seasoned politicians would flub or obfuscate the answer. At a Houston campaign rally, a audience member, who has veteran family members, asked where O’Rourke stood on the NFL players taking the knee in protest during the national anthem, his response was, as Doktor Zoom at Wonkette put it, “an elegant f***ing civil rights master class” that we could all take a lesson:
Where a lot of politicians might try to avoid the question, O’Rourke actually contends with it, and while making clear he respects the questioner, he also says nobody’s less American for having different views on the matter — which is where some politicians might cue “Kumbayah” and call it a day. Instead, he rejects the premise outright: “My short answer is no, I don’t think it’s disrespectful.” And then he launches into his longer answer, mentioning Taylor Branch’s history bestseller Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, and we’re already in weird territory because here’s a US Senate candidate talking about a book? How refreshingly unusual!
And so O’Rourke recites the litany of civil rights milestones, even noting the movement of the ’50s and ’60s only secured “better — because they didn’t get full — civil rights for their fellow Americans.” And Crom bless him, he even points out that these too are the heroes who fought to ensure all Americans’ rights, not to take anything away from veterans, but damn it’s good to hear a candidate willing to say that
The freedoms that we have were purchased not just by those in uniform — and they definitely were — but also by those who took their lives into their hands riding those Greyhound buses, the Freedom Riders in the deep South in the 1960s who knew full well that they would be arrested, and they were, serving time in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
And among those heroes, O’Rourke adds, are those who take a knee in protest of the killing of unarmed black men, teenagers, and even children who “are being killed at a frightening level right now, including by members of law enforcement, without accountability and without justice.”
Of the NFL players and their protest, O’Rourke says,
I can think of nothing more American than to peacefully stand up, or take a knee, for your rights anytime, anywhere, any place.”
And that’s the real meaning of patriotism, Charlie Brown.
‘I can think of nothing more American.’ — Beto O'Rourke — the man taking on Ted Cruz — brilliantly explains why NFL players kneeling during the anthem is not disrespectful pic.twitter.com/xUGOuCFCSi
According to the latest NBC/Marist poll, O’Rourke is currently trail Cruz by 4 percentage points.
O’Rourke, a congressman from El Paso who has ignited Democratic hopes with his impressive fundraising, has 45 percent support among registered voters compared with Cruz’s 49 percent. Six percent of voters remain undecided.
While both candidates have largely consolidated their bases — with O’Rourke capturing the support of 90 percent of Democrats and Cruz securing 91 percent of Republicans — independents in the state are equally split: Forty-six percent of them back O’Rourke, while 45 percent support Cruz.
This how a patriot speaks. Now, more than ever, we need him and more like him in Congress. Support Beto O’Rourke for Senate.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Nazis and Soviets sign a non-aggression pact on eve of World War II; Sacco and Vanzetti executed; Defrocked priest John Geoghan killed; Movie star Rudolph Valentino and Broadway’s Oscar Hammerstein die.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.
Conspiring with Russia may be the least of Donald Trump’s problems. His inability to keep his pants zipped and have sexual relations with women to whom is not married, especially those who resemble his daughter Ivanka, may be what gets him impeached. Take it away Marcy Wheeler,
It was a three ring circus among top Trump advisors today: Jurors found Paul Manafort guilty on 8 counts (the jury was hung on the other 10); Michael Cohen pled guilty to 8 counts, and Mueller’s team continued Mike Flynn’s sentencing for 24 days, with a status report due September 17.
The big takeaway, however, is that Trump got named in a criminal information for his extramarital affairs before his conspiring with Russia did. [I’ve rewritten this headline, replacing “Dick” with “Pecker,” in honor of the National Enquirer’s role and so Democracy Now can show the headline tomorrow when I appear.
The Cohen plea — which developed quickly and reportedly came under pressure to plead before an indictment got filed this week — covered five tax charges, one false statement to a financial institution, one unlawful corporation contribution tied to Cohen’s quashing of a National Enquirer story on Karen McDougal, and one excessive campaign contribution tied to Cohen’s hush payment to Stormy Daniels. The first reference to Donald Trump — named as Individual 1 — is the 46th word in the in the criminal information.
From in or about 2007 through in or about January 2017, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, was an attorney and employee of a Manhattan-based real estate company (the “Company”). COHEN held the title of “Executive Vice President” and “Special Counsel” to the owner of the Company (“Individual-1”).
Cohen will reportedly face three to five years in prison and substantial fines.
In his plea, Cohen stated that he made the hush payments at the direction of a candidate — Trump was not named — knowing the payments violated campaign finance law. Here’s how those paragraphs appear in the information:
42. From in or about June 2016, up to and including in or about October 2016, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, knowingly and willfully caused a corporation to make a contribution and expenditure, aggregating $25,000 and more during the 2016 calendar year, to the campaign of a candidate for President of the United States, to wit, COHEN caused Corporation-1 to make and advance a $150, 000 payment to Woman-1, including through the promise of reimbursement, so as to ensure that Woman-1 did not publicize damaging allegations before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election.
44. On or about October 27, 2016, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, MICHAEL COHEN, the defendant, knowingly and willfully made and caused to be made a contribution to Individual-1, a candidate for Federal office, and his authorized political committee in excess of the limits of the Election Act, which aggregated $25,000 and more in calendar year 2016, and did so by making and causing to be made an expenditure, in cooperation, consultation, and concert with, and at the request and suggestion of one or more members of the campaign, to wit, COHEN made a $130,000 payment to Woman-2 to ensure that she did not publicize damaging allegations before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election.
For all the legal trouble his top aides have gotten in, this is the first time (aside from his cameo calling on Russia to find Hillary’s “missing” emails in the GRU indictment) where Trump has been implicated directly.
Thus the headline: His dick [update: Pecker] got him in trouble before his conspiring with Russia did.
There was reportedly not cooperation agreement attached to this plea. I suspect he will be or already has cooperated, however.
It was a three ring circus among top Trump advisors today: Jurors found Paul Manafort guilty on 8 counts (the jury was hung on the other 10); Michael Cohen pled guilty to 8 counts, and Mueller’s team continued Mike Flynn’s sentencing for 24 days, with a status report due September 17.
The big takeaway, however, is that Trump got named in a criminal information for his extramarital affairs before his conspiring with Russia did. [I’ve rewritten this headline, replacing “Dick” with “Pecker,” in honor of the National Enquirer’s role and so Democracy Now can show the headline tomorrow when I appear.]
Talk of the possible impeachment of President Trump is growing in Washington after Tuesday’s stunning legal developments. In New York, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Two hundred miles away in Virginia, Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight charges related to tax and bank fraud, as well as hiding a foreign account.
The Cohen case is likely to put the president in the most legal jeopardy. Michael Cohen worked for Trump from 2006 until this year. He admitted in court he arranged to illegally pay out money to two women—an adult film star and a Playboy model—to keep them from speaking during the 2016 campaign about their affairs with Donald Trump. Cohen said the payments were made, quote, “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and that they were made, quote, “for the principal purpose of influencing the election,” unquote.
Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, wrote on Twitter, “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Davis later appeared on MSNBC and said Cohen is willing to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller about, quote, “a conspiracy to collude” with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Davis also told The Washington Post Cohen knows about Trump’s participation in a criminal conspiracy to hack into Democratic Party officials’ emails during the 2016 election.
Michael Cohen becomes the fourth former Trump official to plead guilty to criminal charges. He joins former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Trump’s former campaign—deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos. Michael Cohen will be sentenced on December 12th. He’ll likely be sentenced to four to five years in prison.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, a jury convicted Paul Manafort on eight of 18 charges, but the jury could not reach a verdict on the other counts. Sentencing experts expect him to receive a prison term of about 10 years. The Manafort charges stem from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but the case against Manafort focused on the work he did before he became President Trump’s campaign manager. Manafort was accused of hiding millions of dollars earned in Ukraine in overseas bank accounts and failing to pay taxes on the money
…
The question now is whether Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort will cooperate with Mueller’s investigation in exchange for lesser sentences. Or will President Trump pardon one or both men? To help answer these questions and more, we’re joined by investigative journalist Marcy Wheeler.
In the wake of yesterday’s twin guilty verdicts, the punditocracy has asserted, based on an assumption that Michael Cohen knows everything Trump did, that his guilty plea poses a bigger problem for Trump than Paul Manafort’s guilty verdict right now.
I’m not convinced. Indeed, I have real questions about whether Cohen faces anything other than his own charges in the Russian conspiracy case.
Tuesday was quite day for the Trump administration and the Republican party. Trump’s personal lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen plead guilty in a New York federal court to eight criminal counts and implicated Donald Trump in a plea deal with prosecutors of the Southern District of New York.
The counts against Cohen included tax fraud, false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations tied to his work for Trump, including payments Cohen made or helped orchestrate that were designed to silence women who claimed affairs with the then-candidate.
Almost simultaneously with that news, the jury in the federal trial of Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight criminal counts of bank fraud and tax evasion. A mistrial was declared on the other 10 counts the jury was unable to decide.
Manafort, a fixture in Republican politics for decades, was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, one count of failure to file a report of foreign bank and financial accounts and two counts of bank fraud. A mistrial was declared in three counts of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts, and seven counts of bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy.
Prosecutors built a case that Manafort for years hid millions from U.S. tax authorities in overseas accounts, spending the money to maintain a lavish lifestyle and lying to banks to generate more cash.
The San Diego County couple used the cash to take trips to Italy, Hawaii, London and elsewhere, and even used the funds to cover school tuition, dental work and theater tickets, the federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California said in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Hunter, a Republican and the son of a retired congressman who also represented a section of San Diego County, was an early and staunch supporter of President Donald Trump. He is the second Republican politician to be indicted this month. Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) was indicted for insider trading in the Southern District of NY. He withdrew in bid for reelection a few days later.
It was a really bad days for Republicans, especially Donald Trump.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
The last Jewish settlers leave the Gaza Strip; President Bill Clinton signs welfare reform into law; Black Panthers’ co-founder Huey Newton killed; Sci-fi author Ray Bradbury and singer Tori Amos born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.
