Let me start by saying Betsy DeVos is exactly the kind of Calvinist Fundamentalist Over Privileged Racist that are unfortunately common in Michigan.
She’s a tad wealthier, crazier, and more racist than most but even my relatives, when I wanted to visit a house I had spent a good deal of time at in my youth, said-
“Oh, you don’t want to go there. It’s gone downhill quite a bit.” Meaning of course that it’s a lot more Black than it used to be but downhill? It was across the street from a golf course that is still a golf course and a block from a park that is still a park.
Amazing what you can learn from a map.
But DeVos is particularly stupid in that she doesn’t know what words mean and the order in which you should say them.
Saying that ‘Discrimination is “not necessarily” the cause of racist policies’ is exactly like saying falling is not the cause of gravity. Of course it doesn’t cause gravity, gravity exists, falling down is the result.
Just so Racist Policies result in Discrimination.
Now there are a couple of reasons we have racist policies, the most charitable is ignorance, lack of measurement, lack of empathy, and indifference.
“Really? Blacks are more frequently arrested and serve longer sentences than whites? I’ve never seen any figures. Oh well, it’s just Blacks. It won’t effect me and my rich White friends.”
Remember, that’s the charitable one.
The other is rank racism- the richest Black is never as good as the poorest White Trash, it’s genetics can’t you see? “They have no rights or dignity I am bound to respect. They’re not really human anyway, more like animals.”
I’m afraid dear Betsy is both types. She’s a moron and a bigot.
Betsy DeVos has placed a two-year postponement on an Obama-era rule that would have gone into effect July 1. The rule was designed to protect minority special needs students from racist polices after some studies show minority students are placed in special education classes at a higher rate, and are disciplined at a higher rate than their non-minority peers.
Despite the evidence, the Education Dept. has placed a notice in the Federal Register stating it believes “the racial disparities in the identification, placement, or discipline of children with disabilities are not necessarily evidence of, or primarily caused by, discrimination,” as Politico reports.
The rule is also designed to ensure that schools are funding special education classes appropriately.
Earlier this year DeVos quietly changed the Education Department’s official policy on handling discrimination complaints from transgender students, and dismissed without completing hundreds of investigations.
And last October she signaled that she would be scrapping the Obama-era rule that would protect minority students from being placed disproportionally in classes for students with special needs, or disproportionally punished.
Ignorance. Check. Lack of measurement. Check. Lack of empathy. Check. Indifference. Check.
On the other hand there’s also this piece about “Pay For Play” (Businesses paying writers for favorable coverage) and this one that “The Capital Gazette Shooting Suspect Sent Letters Threatening To Kill ‘Every Person Present'”.
He is also an Alt-Racist, which to me would seem to be a pretty big point.
So it’s a pretty mixed bag.
Anyway, if you have the attention span of a Goldfish (it’s better than you think) you’ll probably remember waaay back to April 9th, 2018 (What?! You can’t keep a Goldfish alive for 3 stinking months?! Remind me to take you off my pet sitting list), the day Michael Cohen’s office and residence were searched. You may even recall that among the items seized was a basket full of shredded materials. Well, guess who has them in their reconstructed glory.
When the Department of Justice announced this month that investigators had pieced together records found in a shredder belonging to the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, critics, legal experts, and journalists feverishly speculated about what they might contain.
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for adult film star Stormy Daniels and Cohen’s devoted nemesis, tweeted that the shredded documents could be a “huge problem.” MSNBC host Ari Melber devoted a large part of his program in May to the shredded documents and suggested that “something is going down.” Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and CNN analyst, tweeted: “This is not going to end well for the defense.”
Now, BuzzFeed News has obtained documents reconstructed by the FBI. A close examination shows that the records are a combination of documents that prosecutors already had, handwritten notes about a taxi business, insurance papers, and correspondence from a woman described in court filings as a “vexatious litigant” who claims she is under government surveillance.
…
The clearest page documents a payment that has already been reported: a $62,500 wire transfer from March into a First Republic Bank account controlled by Cohen. This would fit with a series of payments reportedly from the Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy. He reportedly paid Cohen to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement with a former Playboy model with whom Broidy was romantically involved. A federal law enforcement source told BuzzFeed News that prosecutors already possessed some of the records dealing with Cohen’s financial transactions.
…
It remains to be seen whether any of the reconstructed documents are of use to federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York in their ongoing probe into Cohen, whose home, office, and hotel room were raided by the FBI in April. They are among nearly 4 million individual paper records or electronic files discovered on more than a dozen cellphones, computers, and other devices. Some of the devices — including old cellphones, cameras, and laptops — belonged to Cohen’s wife and children.
Prosecutors said in a recent letter to a judge that they also obtained more than 700 pages of messages extracted from encrypted apps such as Signal or WhatsApp.
Cohen has been in the spotlight of the Trump–Russia investigation since January 2017, when BuzzFeed News published a dossier that was circulating at the highest levels of the federal government and that alleged Cohen helped the Trump campaign collude with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. Cohen would not comment for this story, referring reporters to his attorney, who did not immediately return a message.
Oh yeah, that’s right. Buzzfeed was also the site that dropped a dime on the Steele Dossier which was widely dismissed at the time (even by me) as being pretty dodgy based on its including the infamous “pee” incident.
Well, who’s laughing now? Christopher Steele is vindicated for the most part (even the “pee” incident which was possible despite Trump initially claiming it wasn’t). Michael Cohen’s Prague meeting is not disproven by his Passport. Steele is even today answering questions for the Senate Intelligence Committee (well, also according to Buzzfeed)-
The head of the top congressional committee investigating Russian election interference says that the panel has been in “weekly” contact with lawyers for former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of a dossier alleging years of links between President Donald Trump and the Kremlin.
“We’re still in conversation weekly,” North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, chair of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told BuzzFeed News. Asked if Steele had provided any information to the committee, Burr said: “That continues to be the topic weekly.”
…
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the committee’s vice chair, said that he was unsure whether the committee was in weekly contact with Steele’s attorneys. “I know that we are in communications and we obviously would like to get that hearing,” he told BuzzFeed News.
Warner said that interviewing the former MI6 agent has been a priority for the committee, which started its investigation in early 2017. “We’ve had that goal obviously from the outset,” he said.
It’s unclear why the interview has failed to take place. Burr simply cited Steele’s “cooperation” as the reason. Warner, asked what is preventing the interview from happening, said: “It’s a good question, since there were indications earlier on at least through intermediaries that he was willing to have an interview.”
I don’t really know how reliable Buzzfeed’s reporting is. They had the goods on the Steele Dossier, at least in terms of the content which most people seem to accept now. The recovered documents appear genuine enough and their content likewise has been checked out by more conventional publications. Do they have these quotes (named and on the record) from Burr and Warner? Easily disproven if untrue.
I wish the sourcing was more wide spread. They don’t seem to have much that we didn’t already know. If they were leaked it wasn’t the Southern District of New York Federal Attorneys, the Court, the Special Master, or the FBI Agents. It was Trump’s defense team which leaks like a sieve, whether by accident or on purpose.
In the Grand Scheme of Things the documents, and everything else, lead me to believe that the SDNY (not Mueller who handed the Cohen investigation back to the regular DoJ) is ready to act with an indictment of Cohen soon, maybe by the end of the week though it is a Holiday week so perhaps by the middle of next.
I don’t expect it will be any longer than that.
And then we will know if Cohen is going to flip or go to jail for a very long time. The DoJ is never happy with tax evasion and perjury and the State of New York and Taxi Medallion fraud?
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
Union forces win the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War; George Washington takes charge of the Continental Army; Algeria gains independence; Actor Tom Cruise born; Singer Jim Morrison dies.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
We operate under a jury system in this country, and as much as we complain about it, we have to admit that we know of no better system, except possibly flipping a coin.
As a way of looking at a presidency that is enamored of every possible felony — self-dealing, conflicts of interest, emoluments, collusion with foreign governments and domestic corporations — crime-breeds-crime is a reasonable way to look at any Trump-related event.
…
What started the speculation about dirty money connecting Trump, Kennedy and his son is the revelation that Kennedy and Trump have had a longstanding relationship through their children and their children’s success. We knew about Trump’s dealings with Deutsche Bank, the only bank willing to do business with him. (It’s also, perhaps not coincidentally, the bank that seems to have the longest illegal relationship with laundered Russian money. In January 2017, it was fined $425 million by New York regulators to settle allegations that it helped Russian investors launder as much as $10 billion through its branches in Moscow, New York and London.) But we’re just finding out about the Trump relationship with Justin Kennedy, the justice’s son, who worked at Deutsche Bank for a decade.
Media speculation about Trump’s surprising relationship with Justice Kennedy started with The New York Times.
…
Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC has reported, Justin Kennedy left Deutsche Bank long before the money laundering and had no direct connection to the bank’s loans to Trump. The more interesting fact is where Justin Kennedy went next — he became the co-CEO of LNR Property. And that brings us straight to the most immediately vulnerable member of the Trump family, Jared Kushner.
…
The 666 Fifth Avenue deal is generally regarded as the all-time stinker in New York commercial real estate. What did LNR see as the upside? Better question: Was there any upside? As we know, 666 Fifth Avenue went badly for the Kushners, so badly that they were scrambling for a partner. Where might one be?
The Intercept reported earlier this year that Charles Kushner, Jared’s father, had discussed a financing deal for 666 Fifth Avenue with Qatari finance minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi in April 2017. A month after that deal cratered, a group of Middle Eastern countries, with Jared Kushner’s backing, led a diplomatic assault that culminated in a blockade of Qatar. NBC News reported that Qatari government officials visiting the U.S. “considered turning over to Mueller what they believe is evidence of efforts by their country’s Persian Gulf neighbors in coordination with Kushner to hurt their country.”
The younger Mr. Kennedy spent more than a decade at Deutsche Bank, eventually rising to become the bank’s global head of real estate capital markets, and he worked closely with Mr. Trump when he was a real estate developer, according to two people with knowledge of his role.
During Mr. Kennedy’s tenure, Deutsche Bank became Mr. Trump’s most important lender, dispensing well over $1 billion in loans to him for the renovation and construction of skyscrapers in New York and Chicago at a time other mainstream banks were wary of doing business with him because of his troubled business history.
About a week before the presidential address, Ivanka Trump had paid a visit to the Supreme Court as a guest of Justice Kennedy. The two had met at a lunch after the inauguration, and Ms. Trump brought along her daughter, Arabella Kushner. Occupying seats reserved for special guests, they saw the justices announce several decisions and hear an oral argument.
Ms. Trump tweeted about the visit and posted a photo. “Arabella & me at the Supreme Court today,” she wrote. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to teach her about the judicial system in our country firsthand.”
So, while Kennedy’s resignation may not be motivated by Trump financial coercion (indeed all evidence suggests Trump, Kushner, et al are fully leveraged and then some), it may turn out Justice Kennedy through his son Justin, Deutsche Bank, and loans to Jared Kushner is colluded up to his eyeballs.
Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence. We have known knowns, we have known unknowns, and we have unknown unknowns. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
So if you didn’t spend yesterday under a rock (and you should have, Heat Index 116) the most encouraging news of the day was the George Stephanopoulos interview with Michael Cohen.
Cohen all but said he’d be a cooperating witness, and made clear he’s not taking any bullet, as he once said, for Trump. (“To be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter and my son, and this country have my first loyalty.”) In criticizing the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016, he suggested he knows quite a bit more than what has publicly been revealed. He opined that it demonstrated “poor judgment” by those involved.
Most ominous for Trump were Cohen’s high praise of prosecutors, his selection of a new lawyer (“a highly regarded former federal prosecutor who once led the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan — the very same office currently conducting the criminal investigation of Cohen”) and his impending decision to end a joint defense deal with Trump.
This is not a man who sounds as though he has no legal liability, or that he is mounting a defense resting on prosecutorial excess. This is a man desperate to remain in the good graces of prosecutors — who hold his fate and that of his family in their hands. And here’s the kicker: Even if Trump decided to pardon Cohen (a move that would set off impeachment talk), Cohen almost certainly has state criminal charges to worry about. Trump cannot pardon him for those. Cohen has zero incentive to stick by Trump at the expense of his own freedom and his family’s well-being.
I’ll pause here to note that’s the most significant point of all. Trump can not pardon Cohen for violations of State Law and he has sufficient liability under New York Statutes to keep him in Ossining for the rest of his life as well as bankrupting him and his family (his wife is reportedly not a big Trump fan).
I am told by people who would know that Cohen would do much better in the friendly confines of FCI Danbury than the General Population of OCF, who would eat him alive.
Several points deserve emphasis: First, if Cohen flips and begins providing evidence that could support serious charges against Trump, the argument for delaying any Supreme Court confirmation hearing becomes stronger. Does the Senate want to risk confirming a justice nominated by a president accused of serious wrongdoing by his own attorney, a president who might have committed actions that call into question the legitimacy of his presidency?
Second, we saw from the handling of documents seized from Cohen that very little of his work is protected by attorney-client privilege. That goes for Cohen’s own recollection of conversations with Trump, as well as with Trump associates and family members.
Third, aside from any potential liabilities, Cohen surely has knowledge of Trump’s finances — how rich he really is, how deep in debt he is, the identity of lenders, etc. For Trump, that might be the scariest part of all.
So, done deal right? Cohen flips and Trumpland starts its swift and inevitable collapse.
The lawyer for Trump mistress Stormy Daniels told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson that Cohen’s off-camera interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos was “a big nothingburger.”
“This is Michael Cohen trying to send a message to the president that he wants the president to pay his legal bills or he’s going to flip,” Avenatti said.
“You know, he’s playing games with the American people,” he continued. “If he has information that’s damaging to this president — and I know for a fact that he does — then he should come forward and state it and disclose it now. He doesn’t have to wait for anything. He doesn’t have to wait for charges to be issued. He could do the right thing now.
Instead, Avenatti noted, Cohen is “playing games by giving these off-camera interviews like you saw today.”
Unfortunately Michael Avenatti has a disturbing habit of being right most of the time. The most balanced assessment I’ve found so far is this one-
Cohen makes a number of points during the interview indicating to someone that he’s willing to cooperate. He said his loyalty is not to President Trump. “My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will,” Cohen told George Stephanopoulos. “I put family and country first.”
This should worry Trump, for whom Cohen said he would “take a bullet,” and on whose behalf Cohen has made nasty legal threats in previous years. Cohen is no longer Trump’s lawyer, and he resigned from the Republican National Committee’s finance team in a public letter two weeks ago, oddly citing immigration as a reason.
Stephanopoulos also asked Cohen about what would happen if Trump’s legal team began to target Cohen as the investigation ramps up. “I will not be a punching bag as part of anyone’s defense strategy,” Stephanopoulos reported Cohen replied with a stiff spine. “I am not a villain of this story, and I will not allow others to try to depict me that way.”
Another point Cohen made relates to the question of who — essentially either Cohen or Trump — paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels to stay silent about her relationship with Trump during the 2016 campaign. Cohen said he would like to provide answers about who directed him to give the $130,000 to Daniels, but he cannot do so in public. “I want to answer. One day I will answer,” he said. “But for now, I can’t comment further on advice of my counsel.” Of course, Donald Trump knows the answer to this, so there is little other reason for Cohen to dangle this in a public setting. Cohen gave a similar answer when asked about the meeting senior members of the Trump campaign took with Russians at Trump Tower in June 2016.
Cohen is not attacking Mueller or the FBI as his old boss does. For someone whose office and hotel room were famously raided by the FBI — which prompted a great deal of uproar from Trump and his allies — Cohen has nothing but respect for the FBI.
“I don’t agree with those who demonize or vilify the FBI. I respect the FBI as an institution, as well as their agents,” Cohen said. “When they searched my hotel room and my home, it was obviously upsetting to me and my family. Nonetheless, the agents were respectful, courteous and professional. I thanked them for their service and as they left, we shook hands.” He also said he did not like the term “witch hunt.”
Though Cohen claims he cannot talk about the specifics of the case, there are some areas where Cohen provides detail. He denied going to Prague for Trump, and further denied colluding with Russians in any way, according to ABC News.
Cohen has a new lawyer, Guy Petrillo, and once he officially comes on board, the legal relationship between Cohen and Trump will change drastically. In Stephanopoulos’ story about his Cohen interview, he said that “ABC News has learned” — from an anonymous source that may or may not be Cohen himself — that “a joint defense agreement Cohen shared with the president, which allowed their lawyers to share information and documents with each other, will come to an end.”
Cohen will therefore soon be charting out his own legal strategy, giving Trump no visibility into what his old fixer is planning for his defense against prosecutors. Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, target of the Russia investigation, also had his lawyers stop sharing information with Trump’s lawyers right before he flipped on Trump and cooperated with prosecutors.
If Cohen truly wanted to cooperate with prosecutors as he said in the interview, he would not be doing an interview. Cohen’s lawyer could speak to prosecutors and reach an agreement.
Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, told MSNBC on Monday morning that Cohen would flip on Trump “to avoid significant prison time,” and giving an interview like this is an example of him “playing games.”
It all goes back to Trump. Cohen’s phone calls in the weeks leading up to the FBI raid were monitored, if not wiretapped, which makes attempting to privately speak to Trump over the phone or in person very difficult. If Trump and Cohen were to talk at this point in the investigation, it would risk accusations of colluding together to get their story straight.
So the only way he can speak to the only person who has the power to pardon him is through someone like George Stephanopoulos.
But remember, a Trump pardon won’t do it in the State of New York under their new AG Barbara Underwood.
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all of us command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
In French-
Ô Canada!
Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
In French, translated back into English (Canadian Parliamentary Translation Bureau)-
O Canada!
Land of our ancestors
Glorious deeds circle your brow
For your arm knows how to wield the sword
Your arm knows how to carry the cross;
Your history is an epic
Of brilliant deeds
And your valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights,
Will protect our homes and our rights.
So slightly more bellicose and christian than non-Francophones might expect.
Because we have a tendency to fetishize our northern neighbors as a peaceful, polite, and European style Socialist paradise, there’s a lot of pro-Canadian (as in, it’s 1937- time to get out of Germany to nice safe Austria) sentiment marking their 151st Independence Day.
July 1 is Canada Day, the Canadian equivalent of Independence Day in the United States (basically). And because Canada’s neighbor to the south has become an out-of-control tire fire of political and social unrest, folks in the U.S. are feeling some remorse.
So they’re using the occasion of Canada Day to apologize. The holiday’s celebratory Twitter hashtag is currently overrun with various flavors of “I’m sorry” from U.S. residents who are very much aware of and embarrassed by our shared racist uncle who’s been charged with running the country.
Some of the utterances are vague “this situation sucks” acknowledgments. Others address The Current State of Things with more specificity. A few try to defuse the obvious tension with stabs at humor. But the common thread is, simply: “I am so so sorry about this.”
Many funny twts follow.
Now, given that we’ve made at least two attempts to conquer Canada (Arnold’s Expedition in 1775 and the 1812 Invasion of Upper and Lower Canada) I think we need a grand gesture to illustrate how truly penitent we are.
Thus, I reiterate my modest proposal of September 16th, 2017
I’ve been considering our current social and political condition and have arrived at the sad and reluctant conclusion that our Founding Fathers were all wrong about that “Declaration of Independence” thing.
Recent studies have shown that in terms of Median Household Income (the value separating the higher half of a sample from the lower half) the top 5 States are-
New Hampshire
Connecticut
Alaska
Maryland
Massachusetts
Hmm… that’s a pretty strong New England core, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, #1, #2, and #5. If you take a look at the map I linked you’ll see that some of our less fortunate neighbors are not so unfortunate either. New Jersey clocks in at #11, Rhode Island at #15, New York at #16, Pennsylvania at #18, and Vermont at #19.
That’s a fair swath of territory but if we open our minds a little and add States like Maryland (#4), D.C. (#7 and it should be a State), and Virginia (#14) we might find some charity for our below median step children Delaware (#26) and Maine (#44).
California (only #13 but the 6th largest economy in the world) eat your heart out, though you can have Washington (#10) and Oregon (#23) as consolation prizes. Frankly the rest should belong either to the Native Americans or Mexico, or for that matter anyone who will take it- I’m not particular.
I propose calling the North Eastern part Acela for obvious reasons and also because it’s so much more mellifluous than “BoWash Corridor”.
Now, here’s where I get radical.
Instead of declaring independence we get in touch with Queen Liz (who seems a good sport) and Britain and admit we were wrong and we’d like to be back in the Commonwealth please, and we contact Canada and get adopted as a new Province.
Think of the benefits! Universal Health Care! Good Beer! Curling instead of Golf! Not being hated and despised abroad!
I’ll pause and note Virginia gets to be the new Florida unless Maryland beats them to it. A not inconsiderable benefit in the light of Global Warming. To continue-
There are drawbacks I admit. Canada is not as Left as you think. Tim Horton’s coffee is terrible and their breakfast wraps have this inedible mystery sauce even if you specifically order them without it (though they do use these light and fluffy scrambled eggs instead of the hard boiled hockey pucks we serve here). A&W hamburgers are cooked Well Done. All hamburgers are cooked Well Done, it’s the law, order steak instead. On the other hand they have A&Ws, frosty mugs included.
These topics should be debated at a new Hartford Convention. I expect Dunkin’ Donuts will throw its corporate might in opposition though they shouldn’t because if they just serve better eggs they’ll dominate (did I mention terrible coffee?).
I missed publishing this yesterday because I was busy sweltering (102 where I was) and celebrating.
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
Continental Congress votes to break away from Britain; Civil Rights Act signed; Amelia Earhart disappears; President James Garfield shot; Author Ernest Hemingway commits suicide; Actor Jimmy Stewart dies.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Instead of building walls, we should be building bridges.
Well, Susan Collins announced today that she’ll not vote for a Justice who would repeal Roe v. Wade. Good for her. A primary problem is that any nominee will simply lie about it with no remorse, compunction, or any prospect of accountability for lying.
To be a member of the Federalist Society from whom the entire pool of candidates is chosen, you must explicitly endorse the proposition that Roe was improperly decided and should be reversed.
Period.
A big secondary problem is that just Sue doesn’t make the nut. On a 51 to 49 vote the nominee is confirmed, at least one other Republican will be required. Some put their hope in Murkowski and she has little reason to do Trump’s bidding. He opposed her in the Primary which she lost and had to win as a write-in. She don’t owe him nothin’.
On the other hand it’s a serious mistake to think Trump’s fecklessness and faux Republicanism is the Party Policy. Trump doesn’t care about this either way, Republicans do.
For 40 years or more they have had a program to seize control of the Supreme Court and overturn its “liberal” decisions, chief among which is Roe. Don’t delude yourself that Roe is everything they want either, they’re coming after Griswold v. Connecticut (medical privacy, contraception) and Brown v. Board of Education (integration) too.
Expecting anyone who’d made that a core political belief to change their minds now, with victory in grasp, is a big ask.
Unless they’re the venal hypocritical fools we’ve come to know.
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 10:30am (ET) 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.
The Civil War Battle of Gettysburg begins; The first nuclear weapons test in peacetime; TR’s assault on San Juan Hill; Britain’s Princess Diana born; Hong Kong returned to China; Actor Marlon Brando dies.
The nation’s attention is currently on the southern border, where the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy has caused a crisis over separated immigrant children.
Sometimes forgotten as the nation focuses attention on migrants currently trying to cross the border is that millions of undocumented immigrants continue to live in the U.S. – and most of them work.
And in fact, these workers play vital roles in the U.S. economy, erecting American buildings, picking American apples and grapes, and taking care of American babies. Oh, and paying American taxes.
My work as the director of the Cornell Farmworker Program involves meeting with undocumented workers in New York, and the farmers who employ them. Here’s a snapshot of who they are, where they work – and why Americans should care about them.
Battling to unseat powerful Democrat and incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley from his seat in New York’s 14th Congressional District in next week’s primary, progressive challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday issued a rousing challenge to her party—and its wouldbe voters—as she offered a critique of the status quo and explained why it is time for constituents to demand more and better from their elected leaders.
With less than a week to go, Ocasio-Cortez has an uphill battle in New York’s closed Democratic primary against Crowley, a veteran member of Congress who has climbed the ranks of the Democrat’s House leadership.
But on Friday, she had a few things to say about the campaign she is running and where she believes the party needs to be heading.
She started by saying, “We need to talk about the future of the Democratic Party.” And then it went like this:
We need to talk about the future of the Democratic Party.
We are at a crisis point in our country.
If we continue to vote for the same leadership & tactics that lost us 1,000 seats, the House, the Senate, AND the Presidency, we will continue to be a nation in decline.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 22, 2018
We cannot afford to stay the course and elect the same exact leadership over + over.
People ask me, “How do you plan to change the party?”
Can’t be me. WE have to ELECT a new Democratic Party – one that fights doggedly for working class Americans and stands for the vulnerable.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 22, 2018
Incumbent Democrats voted to create ICE.
Incumbent Democrats voted to gut Dodd-Frank before passing.
Incumbent Democrats voted to lower the Federal minimum wage in Puerto Rico to $4.25/hour.
We need to change the Democratic Party because that is what we CAN change.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 22, 2018
Red to Blue is critically important. But many Red to Blue Dems will always have pressure to be moderate so they can keep their seats.
Safe Blue Dems should be charting the most ambitious visions and ideas for future.
Instead, they are raking in Republican lobbyist cash.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 22, 2018
What we desperately need right now are fierce advocates for economic, social, and racial justice.
Experienced new candidates that present new ideas – Abolish ICE, a Fed Jobs Guarantee – to influence National discourse and ORGANIZE the electorate, not BUY the electorate.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 22, 2018
An ORGANIZED electorate is far more powerful, because a purchased electorate does not engage.
ORGANIZED electorates win midterms and build power. Purchased electorates remain expensive and don’t push for change in the off-season.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 22, 2018
When I started this race, I pretty much did everything they told you not to do: I engaged non-primary voters, young people, poc, people w/o college degree.
Because that’s what organizers do.
I refuse to accept that 97% of New Yorkers are “non-voters.” We are changing that NOW.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 22, 2018
