August 9, 2018

Chris Collins supports Workfare - work requirements for people on welfare. ha!!!

Voted YES on maintaining work requirement for welfare recipients.
Congressional Summary:
Prohibits any experimental pilot or demonstration project that: waives compliance with mandatory work requirements
Rescinds and nullifies any such waiver granted before the enactment of this Act.

Supports workfare.
Collins supports the CC Voters Guide question on workfare
Christian Coalition publishes a number of special voter educational materials including the Christian Coalition Voter Guides, which provide voters with critical information about where candidates stand on important faith and family issues. The Christian Coalition Voters Guide summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: "Requiring welfare recipients to work or get job training"

http://www.ontheissues.org/NY/Chris_Collins_Welfare_+_Poverty.htm

August 9, 2018

Chris Collins insider trading scandal puts deep red district on the midterm map. Dems raising $$

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/08/chris-collins-insider-trading-arrest-puts-gop-district-on-midterm-map.html

GOP Rep. Chris Collins' insider trading arrest puts a deep-red seat on the House battlefield
GOP Rep. Chris Collins' arrest on insider trading charges makes his deep-red New York district more competitive in November's House elections.
Supporters of his Democratic opponent, Nate McMurray, have already started to raise money on Collins' indictment.
Still, the 27th District favors Republicans, as it voted overwhelmingly for both Collins and President Donald Trump in 2016.

Liberals seized on the news of Collins' arrest almost immediately. The New York Working Families Party started to raise money for the Democratic candidate in the race, Grand Island Town Supervisor Nate McMurray. The party said, "We can defeat this corrupt Trump Republican and win this seat in November." Collins was Trump's first supporter in Congress during the 2016 campaign.

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1027261552943132673/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1027261552943132673&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2018%2F08%2F08%2Fchris-collins-insider-trading-arrest-puts-gop-district-on-midterm-map.html

August 8, 2018

Ivanka Trump says her mother immigrated legally--that may not be true

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/ivanka-trump-ivana-legal-immigrant/

Ivanka Trump says her mother immigrated legally—that may not be true



Expanding on her comments, Ivanka Trump said that as “the daughter of an immigrant” she experienced these “incredibly difficult issues” in “a very emotional way” but maintained that “illegal immigration is incredibly complicated.”

“I am the daughter of an immigrant, my mother grew up in communist Czech Republic, but we are a country of laws,” the first daughter continued, talking of her mother. “She came to this country legally and we have to be very careful about incentivizing behavior that puts children at risk of being trafficked, at risk of entering this country with coyotes or making an incredibly dangerous journey alone.”

Journalist Aura Bogado of Reveal took to Twitter, pointing to Ivana Trump’s own autobiography, Raising Trump, to challenge the assertion that the president’s first wife made it to the U.S. entirely legally.

Born in the Czech Republic, as her daughter said, Ivana Trump by her own admission used a fraudulent marriage in 1971 to acquire an Austrian passport that would allow her to immigrate to Canada.

https://twitter.com/aurabogado/status/1025076793282183168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1025076793282183168&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailydot.com%2Flayer8%2Fivanka-trump-ivana-legal-immigrant%2F

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/ivanka-trump-ivana-legal-immigrant/

August 8, 2018

Trump Loses a Battle in His War on Truth

Trump Loses a Battle in His War on Truth
The torrent of false speech is largely quarantined in the executive branch

President Donald Trump admitted over the weekend that the true purpose of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his senior campaign team and a group of Russians was to obtain actionable information on Hillary Clinton. The admission is a landmark in Trump's awkward struggle to contain the Russia scandal. But it may also signal a landmark defeat in Trump's larger battle against truth.

The essential tool of democratic politics is speech. As Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson wrote in “Deeds Done in Words,” their study of U.S. presidential rhetoric, “Public communication is the medium through which the national fabric is woven.”

Trump's furious assault on truth claws at that fabric daily. But it has yet to shred it. When he is forced to retreat from falsehoods -- such as the series of lies that he and his aides told about the Trump Tower meeting -- it's a victory for truth and for democratic institutions.

While Trump's unprecedented dishonesty is well-documented -- see Susan Glasser's fine piece last week in the New Yorker -- it's still unclear what it means for American democracy. "I don't believe our democracy can function for long on lies," writes former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a new book.

That's no doubt true. But how many political lies, of what sort, does it take to break the democratic camel’s back?

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-06/trump-loses-a-battle-in-his-war-on-truth

August 8, 2018

White House of Lies

White House of Lies
Aug 7, 2018 JOSEPH S. NYE
US President Donald Trump’s supporters justify his mendacity on the grounds that “all politicians lie,” and a little introspection leads us to admit that all humans do. But the amount and type of lying make a difference.

CAMBRIDGE – By June 1 of this year, US President Donald Trump had made 3,259 false or misleading claims, according to The Washington Post Fact Checker’s database, which tracks and categorizes every suspect statement uttered by the president. That’s an average of more than 6.5 false claims a day, up from a daily average of 4.9 untrue claims in his first 100 days, and reaching eight per day in May. Trump is clearly going for a record.



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The damage that Johnson and Nixon did was not only to their presidencies but also to public trust. At the beginning of the 1960s, polls showed that three-quarters of Americans had a great deal of confidence in government. By the end of the following decade, only a quarter felt that way. While the causes of the decline were complex, presidential lies played a part.

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Some observers, pointing to his record in the private sector, argue that Trump merely lies out of habit. Others believe that the frequency, repetition, and blatant nature of his lies reflect not habit but a deliberate political strategy to damage institutions associated with truth. Either way, Trump has eroded the credibility of institutions such as the press, the intelligence agencies, and the US Department of Justice, making everything relative and playing to his extremely loyal base.

Can a post-Trump America recover? It is worth remembering that Johnson and Nixon were succeeded by Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, who were notably more honest, and that public trust in government rose somewhat under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. But as the sheer number of lies indicates, the US has never seen a president like Donald Trump.


https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-record-number-of-lies-by-joseph-s--nye-2018-08

August 8, 2018

"super conservative" Trump supporter - wife is deported. "I'm eating my words"

Sgt. Temo Juarez was a Trump guy. An Iraq combat veteran who served as a Marine infantryman and then an Army National Guardsman, his friends called him a “super conservative.” With his wife, he brought up their two daughters in Central Florida. He supported Trump in 2016, eager for a change.

But now, “I am eating my words,” he told the military newspaper Stars and Stripes in an interview published last week.

On Friday, Juarez and his family became the latest victims of Trump’s zero-tolerance policy on immigration.

On that day, his wife, Alejandra, left the country under a deportation order. She had come to the United States from Mexico illegally as a teenager two decades ago and had until now being living undisturbed with Temo, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and daughters, both natural-born Americans. This week, Temo will fly to Mexico with his daughters, 9-year-old Estela and 16-year-old Pamela — and leave his younger daughter there, even though English is her first language. He can’t do his construction job and take care of her in Florida by himself.

Temo Juarez believed Trump would deport only illegal immigrants who were criminals, and his wife had no record.

Instead, as the family fought Alejandra’s deportation, young Estela, with unicorns on her T-shirt, wept as she spoke to TV cameras: “I really do want to stay with my mom and dad. I want us to be together and stay in my house. I don’t want to go to Mexico. I want to stay here.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-veteran-supported-trump-until-trump-deported-his-wife/2018/08/06/33083252-99bc-11e8-b60b-1c897f17e185_story.html?utm_term=.359d4bba9251

August 7, 2018

Alabama beach goers used the eggs of protected birds as sand decoration

Alabama Beachgoers May Have Killed Hundreds of Protected Birds, Experts Say

Beachgoers in Alabama who descended on the breeding ground of a threatened seabird species this summer scared adults away from their nests and used the eggs to decorate the sand, most likely killing hundreds of chicks, wildlife experts say.

The exact number of least tern birds that died in Mobile Bay is unknown, but it was “a tragic loss of a colony that size,” said Katie Barnes, a senior biologist at Birmingham Audubon who oversees the protection, monitoring and surveying of Alabama’s coastal bird species.

Least terns, which are protected by the federal government under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, often lay their eggs on wide-open beachfronts, digging shallow nests beneath the sandy surface. The diminutive birds — adults weigh just 1.5 ounces — are considered a threatened species for several reasons, including beach recreation, Ms. Barnes said.

“They’re very sacred to us because they are so sensitive,” she said.

--------------

Beachgoers in Alabama who descended on the breeding ground of a threatened seabird species this summer scared adults away from their nests and used the eggs to decorate the sand, most likely killing hundreds of chicks, wildlife experts say.

The exact number of least tern birds that died in Mobile Bay is unknown, but it was “a tragic loss of a colony that size,” said Katie Barnes, a senior biologist at Birmingham Audubon who oversees the protection, monitoring and surveying of Alabama’s coastal bird species.

Least terns, which are protected by the federal government under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, often lay their eggs on wide-open beachfronts, digging shallow nests beneath the sandy surface. The diminutive birds — adults weigh just 1.5 ounces — are considered a threatened species for several reasons, including beach recreation, Ms. Barnes said.

“They’re very sacred to us because they are so sensitive,” she said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/science/birds-alabama.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=1&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2018%2F08%2F07%2Fscience%2Fbirds-alabama.html&eventName=Watching-article-click

August 7, 2018

nail salon turned away woman with cerebral palsy because her hands shake. walmart cashier steps in

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/08/06/walmart-employee-nail-salon-vpx.hln

Walmart cashier praised for heartfelt move
When a nail salon turned away a woman with cerebral palsy, Walmart employee Ebony Harris stepped in.Source: HLN

https://www.10tv.com/article/walmart-employee-steps-after-nail-salon-refuses-woman-cerebral-palsy

A Michigan woman with cerebral palsy was recently denied a manicure at a Walmart nail salon.

The employees told the woman that due to her medical condition, the manicurist could not paint her nails because her hands were took shaky.


That’s when a nearby Walmart employee stepped in.

Tasia Smith captured cashier Ebony Harris skipping her break to paint the woman’s nails at the Subway inside the store.

"Ebony deserved all the appreciation she could get,” Smith said.

Harris said she watched the nail salon refuse to do Angela Peters’ nails and decided to do something about it.

"I just wanted to make her day special. I didn't really want her day to be ruined. That's why I did it. Because and plus she's a sweetie,” Harris said.

Together, the two picked out some polish and posted up for a manicure.

"And you know, she moved her hands a little bit and she kept saying she was sorry, And I told her don't say that. I said you're fine,” Harris said.

The simple act of patience and kindness that’s still making Peters smile.

August 7, 2018

woman high on something calls cops on black woman waiting for Uber

On Wednesday, July 25, Darsell Obregon shared a video on Facebook of a White woman, later identified as Arabella Juniper Torres, calling the police on her after she sought shelter from the rain in a doorway while waiting for an Uber in Brooklyn, New York.

Obregon detailed the incident, which happened the Sunday before her public post. “I was in #Brooklyn walking to the train when a sudden rain storm began and I hid in the doorway OUTSIDE of a random apartment in #ParkSlope to shield myself from the rain and call an Uber,” she wrote. “No more than 3 minutes later a young woman who lives in the building opened the front door and told me that I can not stand there and had to leave. I told her I was not going to move (unbeknownst to her I was just waiting for my ride and would be leaving in a couple of minutes) so then she proceeded to call the police.”


“Ma’am this is not public property,” Torres can be heard saying to the dispatcher. “So you’re sending an officer because now she’s recording me … I asked her to leave and now she’s refusing.”

Later in the video, Obregon got into her Uber and was followed by the young White woman. The driver began to slowly pull off when Torres told him, “If you go anywhere, you’ll be committing a crime as well; you know that, right?” She then frantically provided the license plate to the 911 operator.

https://www.ebony.com/news-views/white-woman-calls-cops-black-woman-uber-video

https://www.facebook.com/Darsell/videos/pcb.10160664328000187/10160664326740187/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/Darsell/videos/pcb.10160664328000187/10160664327270187/?type=3&theater

August 7, 2018

woman demands that black family leave pool

In the latest incident of swimming while Black, a Florida lawyer says she felt like a criminal in her own neighborhood after a woman questioned her family’s presence at the pool, then demanded they leave.

Nadia Policard of Jacksonville detailed the incident in a Facebook post on Wednesday, saying she and her kids were lounging poolside and enjoying pizza at the Mira Vista condos when a random woman approached and asked if they were residents.

“So the kids and I are at the pool today minding our own business,” Policard wrote. “I ask my son to snap a photo of me (for the Insta) when lady pictured here asks me where I live and tells me this pool is only for residents! So I tell her I am.”



“Then she asks me where I live,” the post continues. “I ask why she thinks I am not a resident. She tells me they’ve had ‘a problem with non-residents bringing truckloads of people to the pool.’ So I ask her, ‘Do the three of us look like a truckload to you? What’s the real issue?'”

The woman, who identified herself as the “Pool Queen,” refused to believe they were residents, however, and demanded they leave the pool. This didn’t sit well with Policard, who’s lived in the complex since 2016.

“We stare at each other,” she recalled of the incident. “I can tell she’s deciding what to say next. THEN, she tells me if I don’t live here I should leave. And I tell her that I already told her I was a resident!”

That’s when Policard says the woman demanded to know her building number, which she eventually gave to her after repeatedly being questioned. The woman eventually stormed off in frustration.

https://atlantablackstar.com/2018/08/04/self-avowed-pool-queen-storms-off-after-failing-to-intimidate-black-family-enjoying-their-neighborhood-pool/