babylonsister
babylonsister's JournalInside the Biden Bubble
https://politicalwire.com/2021/04/27/inside-the-biden-bubble/Inside the Biden Bubble
April 27, 2021 at 10:48 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
“Still, some aides complain Biden is kept in too much of a bubble, one where few people can get his ear outside of a cadre of loyalists he’s cultivated for decades. Exhaustion is setting in amid a punishing — and relentlessly serious — remote work regimen, with little opportunity for the levity breaks of past White Houses. Others concede that the heavy-handedness is mucking up the works.”
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https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/27/biden-white-house-culture-484836
Inside Biden’s bubble: How an insular White House has kept drama and leaks at a minimum
snip//
By and large, however, it is working. Biden has befuddled critics and pleased progressives. He’s taken myriad actions, big and small, using executive orders, the bully pulpit and Congress. He’s done it in a way so drama-free, it couldn’t be more antithetical to his predecessor. There’s little infighting or even signs of internal disagreement.
“They used to say ‘no drama Obama’ but honestly this White House is even more devoid of that,” said one White House official who also worked in the Obama administration.
LaBolt added that the experience of the people Biden put around him is paying off. “They’re technocrats who understand politics — that’s a powerful combination when it comes to government.”
more...
In Sworn Testimony in Inauguration Scandal Case, Donald Trump Jr. Made Apparently False Statements
Crooks! 
12 hours ago
In Sworn Testimony in Inauguration Scandal Case, Donald Trump Jr. Made Apparently False Statements
Look at this video.
David Corn
On February 11, Donald Trump Jr. sat in front of his computer for a video deposition. He swore to tell the truth. But documents and a video obtained by Mother Jones—and recent legal filings—indicate that his testimony on key points was not accurate.
The matter at hand was a lawsuit filed in 2020 against Donald Trump’s inauguration committee and the Trump Organization by Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, DC. The suit claims that the inauguration committee misused charitable funds to enrich the Trump family. As the attorney general put it, the lawsuit “alleges that the Inaugural Committee, a nonprofit corporation, coordinated with the Trump family to grossly overpay for event space in the Trump International Hotel. Although the Inaugural Committee was aware that it was paying far above market rates, it never considered less expensive alternatives, and even paid for space on days when it did not hold events. The Committee also improperly used non-profit funds to throw a private party [at the Trump Hotel] for the Trump family costing several hundred thousand dollars.” In short, the attorney general has accused the Trump clan and its company of major grifting, and he is looking to recover the amounts paid to the Trump Hotel so he can direct those funds to real charitable purposes.
As part of the case, Racine has taken depositions from Tom Barrack, the investor and Donald Trump pal who chaired the inauguration committee; Rick Gates, the committee’s former deputy chair, who subsequently pleaded guilty to two charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation; and two of Trump’s adult children: Donald Jr. and Ivanka. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a top producer for the inauguration committee, was deposed as a lead witness cooperating with the investigation. Racine has also collected internal emails and material from the committee, its officials, and others who worked on the inauguration.
During his deposition, Trump Jr. frequently replied, “I don’t recall,” and he downplayed his involvement in preparation for his father’s inauguration in January 2017. In several exchanges, he made statements that are contradicted by documents or the recollections of others and that appear to be false.
During his deposition, Trump Jr. was asked about Winston Wolkoff: “Do you know her?” He replied, “I know of her. I think I’ve met her, but I don’t know her. If she was in this room I’m not sure I would recognize her.” He added, “I had no involvement with her.”
more...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/04/in-sworn-testimony-in-inauguration-scandal-case-donald-trump-jr-made-apparently-false-statements/
Trump Dragged Closer to Testifying in Protesters' Suit Accusing His Guards of Assault
Trump Dragged Closer to Testifying in Protesters’ Suit Accusing His Guards of Assault
‘VIOLENTLY ATTACKED’
Trump had tried to quash a subpoena that would force him to testify—but a N.Y. court just dismissed his appeal as moot since he’s no longer a sitting president.
Kate Briquelet, Senior Reporter
Updated Apr. 27, 2021 6:40PM ET / Published Apr. 27, 2021 2:15PM ET
Former President Donald Trump is one step closer to testifying in a New York lawsuit filed by a group of protesters who claim his bodyguards assaulted them in 2015.
As The Daily Beast previously reported, the activists had gathered outside Trump Tower to protest the Republican candidate’s derogatory comments on Mexican immigrants. On that September day, soon after the demonstrators assembled on Fifth Avenue outside the skyscraper, several members of Trump’s security team allegedly “violently attacked” them and destroyed their protest banners before a crowd that included reporters.
While president, Trump had tried to quash a subpoena that would force him to testify at the civil trial in the Bronx and sit for a videotaped deposition beforehand. In 2019, his lawyers appealed a judge’s order denying his request.
On Tuesday, the state’s Appellate Division dismissed Trump’s appeal as moot.
“This appeal concerning the proper standard for determining whether a sitting President may be compelled to give videotaped trial testimony about unofficial acts in a civil action against him or her is moot given that the rights of parties will not be directly affected by our determination,” the court said in its ruling, “and that there will not be an immediate consequence of the judgment.”
more...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-dragged-closer-to-testifying-in-protesters-suit-accusing-his-guards-of-assault?ref=home
Eric Boehlert: Rick Santorum and CNN's long history of sponsoring GOP prejudice
https://pressrun.media/p/rick-santorum-and-cnns-ugly-historyRick Santorum and CNN's long history of sponsoring GOP prejudice
Cut him loose
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago
snip//
Santorum has been a staple of ignorance for years at CNN — in 2018 he cheered a report that Trump had tried to bury a government report on climate change, insisting, "A lot of these scientists are driven by money."
That same year he made hateful and foolish comments about students trying to change gun laws after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. "How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that," Santorum said, incredibly.
CNN's professional embrace of a bigot like Santorum highlights the branding conundrum the network faces — CNN wants to position itself as occupying the center of American politics, which means CNN has to have conservative voices on to match liberal voices so it can stage Both Sides debates. (Think: Crossfire format.) For decades, that worked for the network.
And on paper, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is trying to find honest conservatives in the GOP that's been remade in the image of Trump.
It's not up to CNN and other media players to hire and platform bad actors like Santorum simply because the conservative movement is filled with so many bad actors. All news outlets ought to have easily identifiable standards, and if paid contributors can't meet those standards, they should not be associated with the network. Being pro-genocide ought to be an easy demarcation line for CNN.
snip//
Over the years, CNN tried hiring lots of Trump loyalists who chewed up the cable news scenery, spreading lie after preposterous lie, including ones spun by Jason Miller, Jack Kingston, Ed Martin, Jeffrey Lord, and Corey Lewandowski, among others. None of them, to be generous, covered the network in glory. Following the Parkland school shooting, Kingston told CNN viewers that students who rallied against gun violence were being taken advantage of by "left-wing gun control activists" led by billionaire George Soros.
Santorum’s attempt to erase both Native American culture and white settlers’ mass killings ought be reason enough for CNN to show him the door.
Is Tucker Carlson Losing His Mind?
https://politicalwire.com/2021/04/27/is-tucker-carlson-losing-his-mind/Is Tucker Carlson Losing His Mind?
April 27, 2021 at 7:16 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
“But on Monday night, during a rant where it was hard to tell whether Carlson was serious or not — his Trump-like way of distancing himself from the content of his monologues is to always keep you guessing as to whether he’s just putting you on — Carlson made a comment that was beyond the pale even for him, and especially strange for a self-styled anti-nanny state libertarian.”
Said Carlson: “Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid at Walmart. Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives.”
Eric Boehlert: The press keeps chasing unicorns -- "moderate" Republicans offering "compromise"
The press keeps chasing unicorns — “moderate” Republicans offering “compromise”
They're not a thing
Eric Boehlert
4 hr ago
Busy pursuing the mythical creature known as the Republican "moderate" — that rare species of conservative who's willing to work with Democrats— the Beltway press recently announced a key sighting. A gaggle of influential "moderates" were willing to work with President Joe Biden to pass a sweeping infrastructure bill.
Those handful of GOP senators include Shelly Capito (R-W.V.), Patrick Toomey (R-PA), John Barrasso (R-WY), and Roger Wicker (R-MS), and they've been eagerly portrayed in the press as middle-of-the-road deal-makers in search of bipartisan compromise. Slight problem, there's nothing "moderate" about these Republicans, all of whom were Trump loyalists for four years and served as his lapdogs in the Senate. Also, the comically small infrastructure "compromise" they offered up last week was deeply unserious.
This kind of misleading coverage has been a long running staple of the Beltway media, which loves the idea of "moderate" Republican stepping forward, in part because journalists have been ceaselessly harping on the idea that all legislation in the Biden era needs to be bipartisan because the Democrat had promised to "unite" the country during the campaign. Also, because the press embraces the narrative that there's a group of thoughtful centrists at the heart of today's GOP — pragmatic do-gooders, happy to occupy the middle ground.
The media bar is set so low for Republicans that apparently the simple act of being willing to discuss a pressing piece of lawmaking with a Democratic White House makes GOP senators "moderates.” But are the Republicans actually "moderates"? Do they hold a worldview that places them in the middle of the political spectrum, and do they often work with both sides of the aisle?
No, no, and no. In fact, it's not even close. The so-called moderates spent the last four years voting with Trump 80 and 90 percent of the time. There's nothing centrist about their view, not when they were in bed with the most radical player in modern American politics. Still, the press loves to tell a pleasing tale about Republicans.
more...
https://pressrun.media/p/the-press-keeps-chasing-unicorns
Political Engagement Is Surging Among Young Voters
https://politicalwire.com/2021/04/23/political-engagement-is-surging-among-young-voters/Political Engagement Is Surging Among Young Voters
April 23, 2021 at 3:58 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
“A dozen years ago, after President Obama’s election, 24% of Americans younger than 30 reported themselves to be politically active, according to the poll, conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. At the time, the Obama campaign was widely credited with having energized young Americans.”
“Today, that engaged number stands at 36%, maintaining an extraordinarily high level seen during last year’s election. Young Black Americans report the most political engagement — 41%, the survey found.”
Op-Ed: Maxine Waters: I'm not new to this
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-04-22/maxine-waters-protest-rodney-king-george-floydOp-Ed: Maxine Waters: I’m not new to this
By Maxine Waters
April 22, 2021 3:22 PM PT
snip//
Over this past year, our young people have shown the world the level of dedication that is required to achieve even the smallest of triumphs, and the courage and tenacity they’ve displayed despite the setbacks have inspired me. I traveled to Minnesota to be with other members of Congress, civil rights leaders and other local officials to give support to the families affected by police violence, and to stand in solidarity with the young people protesting — many of whom are understandably traumatized by the killings that are taking place at the hands of police officers in this country.
I attended a peaceful rally to demonstrate my support in this fight to get justice for people of color who are violated and killed day in and day out. While there, I was asked: Ms. Waters, what do we do if we don’t get a guilty verdict? What should protesters do? I responded: “We got to stay on the street. And we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational.” Confronting injustice has been my life’s work.
Now, because of who I am, the right wing and members of Congress who subscribe to the views of groups like QAnon, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the KKK have targeted me. Those very people have done so to divert attention from the fact that they aided and abetted a violent, domestic terrorist insurrection led by Donald Trump.
To target me and say that I was violent or encouraging violence is a blatant distortion of the truth.
I am nonviolent.
Howard Dean: The Republicans Are Now a Neo-Fascist Party
https://www.thedailybeast.com/howard-dean-the-republicans-are-now-a-neo-fascist-party?ref=homeThe New Abnormal
Howard Dean: The Republicans Are Now a Neo-Fascist Party
THE NEW ABNORMAL
The former presidential candidate says the Republican Party has plunged into a “crazy” abyss of “whack jobs,” “autocrats” and “nutjobs.”
The Daily Beast
Published Apr. 23, 2021 7:41AM ET
snip//
“You have a Republican Party, which emotionally, essentially are neo-fascist. They fundamentally do not believe that another legitimate point of view exists other than theirs.”
The former governor of Vermont said he had never been a Biden supporter but he’s been stunned by the president’s performance so far and is pleased he wasn’t making the same mistake as President Obama, who spent too much time waiting around for bipartisan support.
Val Demings Mulls Bid for Higher Office
Make my day! 
https://politicalwire.com/2021/04/23/val-demings-mulls-bid-for-higher-office/
Val Demings Mulls Bid for Higher Office
April 23, 2021 at 8:26 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
Said Demings: “I’ve received so many calls and texts and emails, and have been stopped when I’m out and about by people who are asking me that very same question. Matter of fact, they think I should run for statewide office and maybe challenge the governor, or challenge Sen. Rubio next year. I’m seriously considering a statewide run. And we’ll see what happens.”
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