turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalGOP's minority leader Kevin McCarthy doesn't want to be called 'minority leader'
TANA GANEVA
12 DEC 2018 AT 13:52 ET
As Congress prepares for the Democratic majority to take over, some Republicans may be having a tough time relinquishing power.
ABC News reporter Tim Calahan reported Wednesday that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) asked him to refer to his position as “Republican leader.”
Calahan reportedly shot back that the public is more familiar with the official terminology of “minority leader.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/gops-minority-leader-kevin-mccarthy-doesnt-want-called-minority-leader/
The tweets nail it....................
UK Disarray: May To Face Vote To Oust Her Amid Brexit Chaos
Source: Talking Points Memo
By JILL LAWLESS
December 12, 2018 8:22 am
LONDON (AP) — A no-confidence vote in British Prime Minister Theresa May Wednesday threw U.K. politics deeper into crisis and Brexit further into doubt.
May vowed to fight for the leadership of her party and the country “with everything I’ve got” after opponents who have been circling for weeks finally got the numbers they needed to spark a vote among Conservative Party lawmakers.
The threat to May has been building as pro-Brexit lawmakers within the Conservative Party grew increasingly frustrated with May’s conduct of Brexit and the divorce deal she has agreed with the European Union.
The challenge throws Britain’s already rocky path out of the EU, which it is due to leave in March, into further chaos and comes days after May postponed a vote to approve the divorce deal to avoid all-but-certain defeat.
-snip-
Justice Secretary David Gauke said: “I think it’s vital for the country that she wins tonight.”
He said that if May lost, “I don’t think we will be leaving the European Union on the 29th of March.”
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/world-news/theresa-may-no-confidence-vote-tory-brexit-uk
Hey Gauke, did you by some chance, talk to the workers in the Airbus plants what they think of Brexit, or for that matter Airbus for example, and did you by chance have a discussion with the air carrier FLYBE, what they think of your Brexit plan...................I bet you one donut that you didn't.................not once did you speak with them..................Did you by chance also speak with the owners of the airlines in your country that are foreign players that hold stock and bonds in the airlines......................I bet you didn't.................your Brexit model of bull shit is just that..........................right wing fascist bull shit.......................and you really need to adjust your ....................
Your gross domestic product (GDP) is going to fall....................and then your right wing shit and May's and your right wing Tory party will say that it's the people on social programs fault.................................correct..................
Breaking News Today w/ Stephanie Ruhle 9AM Dec 12, 2018
Maria Butina's boyfriend claimed he set up Trump-Russia NRA "conduit" as campaign funds flowed
Source: Salon
Republican operative Paul Erickson claimed in an email he’d set up a private Russia-GOP channel through the NRA
IGOR DERYSH
DECEMBER 12, 2018 12:00PM (UTC)
Admitted Russian spy Maria Butina’s Republican operative boyfriend wrote in private communications that he was involved in setting up a “very private line of communication” between Russia and the Trump campaign using the National Rifle Association as a “conduit.”
Butina, a 30-year-old Russian gun rights activist, worked for years to cultivate relationships within Republican and NRA circles. She was charged with working as an agent of the Russian government earlier this year and on Monday agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges and cooperate with prosecutors.
In her plea deal, Butina admitted that she and “US Person 1,” who is longtime Republican operative Paul Erickson, “agreed and conspired, with a Russian government official,” whose description matches Russian banker and close Putin ally Alexander Torshin, for Butina to “act in the United States under the direction of Russian Official without prior notification to the Attorney General,” ABC News reported.
Under Torshin’s direction, the document said, Butina “sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics.”
Read more: https://www.salon.com/2018/12/12/maria-butinas-boyfriend-claimed-he-set-up-trump-russia-nra-conduit-as-campaign-funds-flowed/
A fucking traitor....................end of story
And as for the NRA........................they need to be stripped of there 501(c) tag, they operate under, and then run around hiding behind the second amendment..............................fucking traitors.......................nothing more and nothing less....................enabling fucking traitors....................
Bring there asses into Congressional hearings.................January 3, 2019..................
November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough.......................
Laura Ingraham Calls Time's Person Of The Year Pick 'Transparently Self-Serving'
By Nicole Lafond
December 12, 2018 8:42 am
Fox News host Laura Ingraham had an odd target for ire on Tuesday evening: Time Magazine.
During her show’s opening segment, Ingraham scolded the magazine for choosing journalists who have been targeted, arrested or killed as their “Person of the Year,” calling the decision “transparently self-serving.”
“Of course, we love objective journalists, and the targeting of reporters because they are doing their jobs is despicable, but isn’t there something transparently self-serving about journalists giving awards to other journalists?”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ingraham-time-magazine-person-year-self-serving
First and foremost Laura , can I call you Laura..................your one sick person, and being given a format to basically diss journalists which you are not..............says everything...................this man and other journalist have died to get information to people to understand that it is truthful.
You on the other hand are pissed off that you were not on the front cover of Time, because they don' allow propagandist on the cover, that are vile and full of right wing shit and hate........................I guess you forgot to mention that his two kids were American Citizens...................
Here is a fact witch.....................52 Journalists Killed
in 2018 / Motive Confirmed.........................52 Journalists Killed in 2018 / Motive Confirmed ( MOTIVE CONFIRMED)
https://cpj.org/data/killed/2018/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&start_year=2018&end_year=2018&group_by=location
Judge Poised To Hand Down Sentence For Michael Cohen
By Allegra Kirkland
December 12, 2018 6:00 am
A federal judge in Manhattan set to determine Michael Cohen’s fate on Wednesday has been presented with two starkly different assessments of Cohen’s conduct.
Attorneys for President Trump’s former lawyer have painted Cohen as a well-intentioned, loyal family man who got caught up in criminal activity as he sought to advance the interests of a boss he revered. Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York (SDNY) have portrayed Cohen as a greedy, self-interested con man with a wanton disregard for the law.
All eyes will be on the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse at 11 a.m. ET when U.S. District Judge William Pauley explains how he squares these two depictions of Cohen—and hands down his sentence.
Cohen has pleaded guilty to an array of federal crimes, including tax evasion, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress about his contacts with Russian officials. He faces the prospect of years beyond bars.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/michael-cohen-set-sentenced-judge-manhattan
Sex-trafficking victim Cyntoia Brown's 51-year prison sentence exposes holes in the justice system
In Tennessee alone, more than 180 people are serving life without parole for crimes committed as a child.
KAY WICKER
DEC 12, 2018, 8:00 AM
The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Cyntoia Brown, a sex-trafficking victim who was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery when she was 16 years old, must serve 51 years in prison before she is eligible for parole.
Brown was convicted in 2006 for the murder of 43-year-old Johnny Allen, a man who had hired her as a sex worker when she was a teenager. After Allen drove Brown to his home, she allegedly resisted his advances. At one point, Brown claimed she thought Allen was reaching for a gun to kill her and pulled a gun out of her bag instead, shooting and killing him.
Prosecutors claimed Brown had gone with Allen in order to rob him. Her lawyers argued that Brown, a runaway who had been raped, abused, and forced into prostitution by a man named “Kut Throat,” was acting out of self defense.
Brown was subsequently charged with one count of first degree premeditated murder, one count of first degree felony murder, and one count of “especially aggravated robbery.” She was tried as an adult and convicted two years later.
Brown’s story is not unique. In her home state of Tennessee, she’s one of at least 183 people serving life without parole for crimes committed as a child. It is estimated that there are around 2,100 people serving out sentences without parole for crimes committed as juveniles nationwide, according to The Sentencing Project, a D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for a fair and effective criminal justice system.
https://thinkprogress.org/sex-trafficking-victim-cyntoia-browns-51-year-prison-sentence-similar-cases/
-snip-
Since Brown was convicted, thirty-four states have passed safe harbor laws, which prevent children caught up in sex-trafficking from being charged for any crimes committed that were tied to their experience. Though Brown will not benefit from such a law, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has said his office is currently reviewing her case and is considering whether to grant her clemency.
Brett Kavanaugh's Court begins its inevitable power grab with Kisor v. Wilkie
We're going to miss judicial restraint now that it is gone.
IAN MILLHISER
DEC 12, 2018, 8:00 AM
The Supreme Court took two important actions on Monday, one which received a raft of high-profile coverage, and another that was barely noticed outside of the legal press. Together, these two actions offer a window into how the Court’s new Republican majority is likely to operate in the near future — slowly on hot button issues that will shine a spotlight on the Court’s conservatism, but much faster on the wonkier, more-difficult-to-understand issues that matter most to the conservative Federalist Society.
The biggest news out of the Court on Monday, at least if you judge by the number of headlines it produced, was the Court’s decision not to hear two lawsuits involving red states’ efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Much of the reporting on these cases inflates their significance, but the fact that neither Chief Justice Roberts nor Brett Kavanaugh agreed to hear these cases suggests that they “want to give the nation some time to forget about how Kavanaugh got his current job before they declare outright war on reproductive choice.”
The most important news, however, was the Court’s announcement that it will hear Kisor v. Wilkie, a case asking the Court to transfer power from the executive branch to the judiciary. Kisor is likely to be the first of many such cases, and the Court’s decision to hear this case so quickly after Kavanaugh’s confirmation suggests that the Court plans to consolidate power quite rapidly.
-snip-
t’s not hard to guess why conservatives on the Supreme Court and in the Federalist Society are so eager to see judicial forbearance doctrines fall. Again, the question these doctrines resolve is not what should our nation’s policies be. It is who should get to make that decision. Forbearance doctrines place power in democratically elected branches that will be controlled by Democrats at least some of the time. Overruling those doctrines shifts power to a Supreme Court that’s likely to be controlled by Republicans for the foreseeable future.
In a world without Chevron and Auer, Democratic administrations will have to seek permission from the Supreme Court’s Republicans every time an agency wants to take regulatory action. Republican administrations, meanwhile are much more likely to get a pass.
The impact of a Supreme Court veto over agency action, moreover, is compounded by the fact that the United States can barely still be described as a democratic republic. Trump is president right now because the Electoral College effectively counts votes cast by rural whites as more important than votes cast by more diverse residents of urban states. Recent elections notwithstanding, gerrymandering remains a yoke around the neck of Democratic House candidates. The malapportioned Senate treats every voter from blood red Wyoming as 67-times more important than a voter from blue California.
A Supreme Court veto over agencies means that Republicans will be able to promulgate new regulations if they only control the White House, but Democrats may be unable to govern unless they somehow manage to capture the presidency and both houses of Congress.
https://thinkprogress.org/brett-kavanaughs-court-threatens-auer-deference-80f4b3e3169d/
All one has to envision is what is going on in Wisconsin and Michigan right now...................voters wanted change, the criminal gang in the two mentioned states said FUCK YOU Voters...........................in this case the Federalist Society is saying FUCK YOU ............................this is why these right wing fascists judges that are being nominated and being confirmed by an asshole and his counsel in the white house should be annulled.......................after all he his from the very beginning of his rein of terror on this country a person that committed a felony.............................
Sarah Sanders hides from press even after Trump is accused of a felony
By Oliver Willis - December 11, 2018
The White House has not held a press briefing in two weeks, avoiding accountability on a host of scandals.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the White House press operation have not held a briefing with reporters for two weeks, even as new information emerges showing Trump in the center of crimes.
The last briefing given at the White House was on November 27. Since the G-20 meeting that ended on December 1, Trump has not made any foreign trips or otherwise been involved in events that would precipitate cancelling a briefing.
Usually the White House doesn’t hold briefings on days when Trump will be appearing publicly for a speech, rally, or signing ceremony. But on December 3, the schedule said Trump had his intelligence briefing and had a meeting with the HUD Secretary — but there was no press briefing. On December 10, when the only scheduled event was a Trump lunch with Mike Pence, there was no press briefing.
The White House has stayed away from cameras and questions from reporters that might require substantive or even honest answers.
In the meantime, more and more information has emerged about Trump and the likelihood that he broke the law.
By not holding a press briefing, the White House has avoided being held accountable as multiple stories and developments have emerged:
https://shareblue.com/sarah-huckabee-sanders-hides-from-press-trump-felony/
The Arctic has lost 2.6 million reindeer over the past 20 years
The Arctic is changing — fast. That’s bad news for reindeer and caribou.
By Brian Resnick@B_resnickbrian@vox.com Dec 11, 2018, 10:00am EST
Warning: This story may be upsetting to children who believe in Santa Claus.
Reindeer are perhaps best recognized by their magnificent antlers, the largest of any deer species in proportion to their bodies. They’re also notable for their epic thousand-mile journeys every year in search of food, in herds of 100,000 or more.
And they’re supremely important to the Arctic ecosystem as a source of food and livelihood for local people, and because of their power to reshape vegetation by grazing.
But the populations of reindeer, a.k.a. caribou, near the North Pole have been declining dramatically in recent years. Since the mid-1990s, the size of reindeer and caribou herds has declined by 56 percent.
That’s a drop from an estimated 4.7 million animals to 2.1 million, a loss of 2.6 million.
“Five herds,” out of 22 monitored “in the Alaska-Canada region, have declined more than 90 percent and show no sign of recovery,” according to the latest Arctic Report Card from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, out Tuesday. “Some herds have all-time record low populations since reliable record keeping began.”
Herds have lost hundreds of thousands of individuals, as measured by aerial photography of herds and counts in areas where caribou give birth. And their declines affect not just the landscape but the people who depend on it. The report explains that the declining number of animals are “a threat to the food security and culture of indigenous people who have depended on the herds.“
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/12/11/18134411/christmas-reindeer-north-pole-populations-decline-agu-arctic-report-card
I don't know about you..........................but I really want the species of this world to survive.....................this is just sad
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