Category: Domestic Affairs,

Trump Foundation to liquidate remaining material assets, mainly schlocky portraits of Donald Trump.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

[The] Trump Foundation agreed to dissolve itself as part of an agreement with the New York Attorney General’s office. The state attorney general said an investigation into the foundation’s finances uncovered “a shocking pattern of illegality” as the now-president of the United States used the nonprofit as a receptacle to accept donations and spent them on things Trump didn’t want to spend his own money on.

Trump Foundation to liquidate remaining material assets, mainly schlocky portraits of Donald Trump.

hmmmm

Trump Organization: Democrats raise ethics concern about deal in Dominican Republic.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Rep. Elijah Cummings, who will soon chair the House Oversight Committee, said Democrats plan to ask the Trump Organization for records related to the company’s talks with developers in the Dominican Republic because of concerns one of the president’s sons attempted to discuss a deal after his father’s inauguration , he told ABC News. The conversation could hint to a potential violation of the ethics rules that deal with the president’s business dealings.

Trump Organization: Democrats raise ethics concern about deal in Dominican Republic.

hmmm

Amtrak falls below Trump in governor’s pecking order

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Infrastructure and Transportation,Leave a comment

Gov. Andrew Cuomo powwowed with President Donald Trump in Washington last week to discuss the Gateway Program, a $30 billion project that would repair and replace Amtrak infrastructure along the Northeast Corridor. He returned with a radical revision: decoupling the biggest piece—the construction of a new conduit under the Hudson River to carry commuter trains between New York and New Jersey—from the larger enterprise, as well as booting Amtrak’s representative from overseeing the Gateway Program Development Corp. and inserting a Trump appointee.

Amtrak falls below Trump in governor’s pecking order

Whaaaaaaaaaaaa?

New Hampshire Police Arrested a Man for Being Mean to Them on the Internet

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Granite State,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

There’s a long history of law enforcement officials using defamation laws to silence their critics. Under English common law, the crime of “seditious libel” prohibited criticism of the government because it could lead to insurrection. And in the Sedition Act of 1798, Congress criminalized false statements criticizing the federal government.

But, as the Supreme Court recognized in a landmark 1964 decision, New York Times Company v. Sullivan, the First Amendment was meant to repudiate the whole notion of seditious libel. 

…In its decision upholding the newspaper’s First Amendment rights, the Supreme Court recognized the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

….In states that still have criminal defamation laws on the books, public officials still use them to prosecute their critics.

For example: The editor and publisher of a small newspaper in Kansas were convicted of criminal defamation after the paper published an article suggesting that the mayor lived in another county and was therefore ineligible for public office.  …A Kansas man was charged with criminal defamation after he posted a yard sign criticizing his local government’s inaction on a water drainage problem; the lawsuit was dropped after the ACLU got involved.

…The Exeter Police Department’s criminal complaint against Frese is a textbook example of the use and abuse of criminal defamation laws. Someone who has had a history of trouble with the police went to the internet to air his grievances, and the police department itself decided to prosecute him[.]

This is absurd, and it’s a telling reminder of what happens when law enforcement is given the power to crack down on expression. It’s time we toss criminal defamation laws into the dustbin of history, where they belong.

New Hampshire Police Arrested a Man for Being Mean to Them on the Internet | American Civil Liberties Union

hmmmm

Trump Quietly Starts Firing Servicemembers Living with HIV Just Before the Holidays

On By peanutgallerynhIn Military,Leave a comment

The plaintiffs received notification just days before Thanksgiving, denying their discharge appeals despite compliance with fitness assessments and medical treatment, as well as strong support from commanding officers. 

…The lawsuit challenges the Pentagon’s discriminatory deployment policies, which prevent servicemembers living with HIV from deploying outside the United States without a waiver. For years, these policies have restricted the opportunities of servicemembers with HIV. Now these same deployment restrictions are being used to justify separating servicemembers solely based on HIV status.

The “Deploy or Get Out” policy, unveiled by the Trump administration in February 2018, directs the Pentagon to identify servicemembers who cannot be deployed to military posts outside of the United States for more than 12 consecutive months and to separate them from military service. Since current U.S. military policy identifies servicemembers living with HIV as non-deployable, they face immediate discharge under this Trump policy.

Trump Quietly Starts Firing Servicemembers Living with HIV Just Before the Holidays | Lambda Legal

sigh…

Trump administration defies court order by pushing abstinence, Democrats say

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The Trump administration may be violating federal court orders that found it had unlawfully canceled a federal program to prevent teen pregnancies and shifted that funding to efforts focused primarily on abstinence.

…Earlier this year, federal courts ruled five times against the administration’s termination of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, an annual $101 million effort created under the Obama administration with bipartisan support in Congress to help teenagers avoid unwanted pregnancies. Later, courts in New York and Oregon found that redirecting the funds to abstinence programs that are not “proven effective through rigorous evaluation” is “unlawful.”

…Critics say the administration’s opposition to the TPPP is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to target programs intended to improve women’s reproductive health. This includes attempting to roll back a federal contraceptive coverage provision allowing women to avoid out-of-pocket costs for birth control and the targeting of the Title X family planning program, which has a disproportionate impact on low-income women.

Trump administration defies court order by pushing abstinence, Democrats say

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Two active shooter drills at an air force base turned into a panic about a real shooting

On By peanutgallerynhIn Military,Leave a comment

On an August morning at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the medical treatment facility was holding a mass casualty drill. Personnel acting as the injured streamed in.

Across the base, unbeknownst to the medical staff, a second active shooter drill was taking place, with a second set of people pretending to be injured.

Then a real injured person came on the scene: someone who worked at the medical facility hurt their ankle jogging on base, and called another employee screaming and crying.

…In the confusion, someone in the emergency room called the Base Defense Operations Center reporting a real active shooter. Events spiraled from there.

“A breakdown of communication led to a completely uncoordinated and ineffective combined response that could have resulted in serious injury or property damage,” the Air Force said in a report summarizing the findings of its investigation into the incident.

…Units from the Dayton area and the state of Ohio responded en masse.

At the same time, authorities on base requested a SWAT team.

…Air Force security went into the hospital. And when one airman encountered a locked door, five shots were fired.

Other people in the hospital heard those shots, and more calls went out to 911.

Though the incident commander quickly learned that Air Force security had fired the shots, 50 other civilian responders didn’t get the message, the report said, “breached the front door of the hospital and entered with weapons drawn.”

Two active shooter drills at an air force base turned into a panic about a real shooting – CNN

SNAFU?

Donald Trump Cancels Pay Raise for Most Federal Workers | Fortune

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

President Donald Trump said he’s canceling pay raises for most federal workers that were to take effect in January, citing “serious economic conditions” and the strain that the raises would place on the federal budget.

The move would undo a planned raise for most federal workers, including a 2.1% across-the-board increase as well as raises that account for higher costs of living in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C. The pay raises were intended to help federal salaries keep pace with inflation. Consumer prices have risen 2.9% in the 12 months through June.

In a letter informing Congress of the canceled raises, Trump said the raises would cost $25 billion. 

…In April, the Federal Salary Council reported that the overall salaries of federal workers lags the salaries of similar workers in the private sector by about 32%.

Donald Trump Cancels Pay Raise for Most Federal Workers | Fortune

This bit of news slid by….

Texas board of education exposes how poorly we teach history

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Education,, Media and Culture,, Schools,Leave a comment

Texas has maintained a special sway over the content of textbooks that serve students across the United States. During the Cold War, Texas shaped the work of every major national textbook publisher. Today, one of every 10 public school students in the United States is a Texan, and publishers still don’t want to print books that can’t be used in the state. 

…It was during the Cold War that Texas conservatives truly found their footing. The Daughters of the American Revolution allied with the recently formed John Birch Society and Texans for America to push the state board to fight communism. The board enthusiastically accepted the task, repeatedly mandating the censorship or diminishment in history textbooks of, among others, labor unions, Social Security, the United Nations, racial integration and the Supreme Court. It compelled the inclusion of “the Christian tradition,” the free market and conservative heroes Joseph McCarthy, Herbert Hoover, Douglas MacArthur and Chiang Kai-shek.

……Liberals, less cohesively organized, risked being charged with subversion if they spoke out. Texas officials made textbook authors and teachers sign loyalty oaths. Publishers quickly complied with the demands of the Texas board.

…More than the inclusion of any particular event or figure, it is this deeply simplistic, often anti-historical approach that presents the greatest obstacle to Texas students learning how the past can inform contemporary problems and debates.

…This approach fails to teach students about the often complicated, sometimes painful reality of our nation’s history, with its equal parts violence, dispossession and disenfranchisement and democracy, individual freedoms and justice. More broadly, it does startlingly little to engage or invite students into doing history. If students have tears in their eyes, they are unlikely tears of inspiration so much as boredom.

Texas board of education exposes how poorly we teach history [Opinion] – HoustonChronicle.com

hmmm

Texas Will Finally Teach That Slavery Was Main Cause of the Civil War

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Education,, Media and Culture,, Schools,Leave a comment

Since 1917, when state law authorized the board, which is often staffed by non-educators, to purchase all public school textbooks, it has maintained control of Texas’ public school curriculum. Lundstrom of the Tribune reports the board’s standards have turned into a battleground for conservatives and liberals over what students should be taught.

…The new curriculum still lists only one cause for the extremely fraught Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it cuts out many historical figures, including Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner, African-American poet Phillis Wheatley, as well as several Confederate leaders. Under pressure, the board voted to keep Helen Keller and Hillary Clinton on a list of notable Americans that could be included in lessons, though Oprah Winfrey, Barry Goldwater and astronaut Ellen Ochoa got the nix. The board also voted to keep in a specific description of the defenders of the Alamo as “heroic.”

…Texas represents one-tenth of grade school and high school students in the U.S., and the textbooks written to Texas standards [are used in several] other states as well.

Texas Will Finally Teach That Slavery Was Main Cause of the Civil War | Smart News | Smithsonian

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New reports detail sophistication of Russian influence efforts in U.S.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Some content that was initiated by the Russian government, operating through the Internet Research Agency (IRA), still lives on social media platforms here and the Kremlin’s interference operations are likely to continue – now and through 2020, experts found.

…The Oxford report, which also drew from data provided to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said IRA’s activities began on Twitter in 2013, before evolving into a “multi-platform strategy” that included Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms.

“The scale of their operation was massive,” New Knowledge’s authors wrote, citing the 126 million Facebook users and 20 million Instagram users whom they estimated were reached by IRA content. The IRA’s efforts also included posting more than 10.4 million tweets and 1,000 YouTube videos, as well as targeting other, less prominent platforms, including Tumblr, Reddit and Pinterest.

…”The most prolific IRA efforts on Facebook and Instagram specifically targeted Black American communities,” New Knowledge’s report said, “and appear to have been focused on developing Black audiences and recruiting Black Americans as assets.”

The report included new details on the ways in which IRA operatives engaged in direct outreach and recruitment of American citizens, coaxing them to protest or perform specific jobs or tasks, and even attempting to forge personal connections around difficult personal struggles like sex addiction.

…Facebook and Instagram posts targeting right-wing users and mocking the idea of Russian interference as well as the media outlets that covered it sprouted up in the election’s immediate aftermath.

“What we’ve seen here is a sophisticated operation that does not hesitate to reach out to individual Americans, that does not hesitate to turn them into unwitting tools of the Russian government,” said Renee DiResta, one of the principal authors of New Knowledge’s report. “We believe they are going to spend less time creating their own, easily-detectable pages in bad English, and begin engaging in even more targeted outreach, including by infiltrating political fringe groups to opportunistically exploit divisions.”  

New reports detail sophistication of Russian influence efforts in U.S. – CBS News

hmmmm

Instagram Called Bigger Russia Influence Tool Than Facebook

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Instagram played a much bigger role in Russia’s manipulation of U.S. voters than the company has previously discussed, and will be a key Russian tool in the 2020 elections, according to a report commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The Russian Internet Research Agency, the troll farm that has sought to divide Americans with misinformation and meme content around the 2016 election, received more engagement on Instagram than it did on any other social media platform, including Facebook, according to a joint report by three groups of researchers.

…There were 187 million interactions with Instagram content, compared with 77 million on Facebook and 73 million on Twitter, according to a data set of posts between 2015 and 2018, analyzed by New Knowledge, Columbia University and Canfield Research.

…It could also mean the IRA used click farms to boost their numbers.

…Content that the IRA posted sparked conversation, with the overall goal of emboldening followers of Donald Trump and criticizing Hillary Clinton, sometimes in subtle ways. About 40 percent of the Instagram accounts achieved more than 10,000 followers, and 12 had over 100,000 followers. The biggest account, @blackstagram__, attracted 303,663 followers, and may have used e-commerce to make money or gather information about U.S. voters. Another account, @femenism_tag, promoted feminist ideas and the idea that Clinton was a bad feminist.

Instagram Called Bigger Russia Influence Tool Than Facebook – Bloomberg

hmmm

Michael Flynn’s Business Partner Indicted Ahead of Trump Aide’s Sentencing

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Former Flynn business partner Bijan Rafiekian ― aka Bijan Kian ― and Turkish businessman Kamil Alptekin were named in a Dec. 12 indictment alleging illegal work in the United States on behalf of the government of Turkey. Kian appeared in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, according to the Washington Post, while Alptekin remains overseas.

Flynn, President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, and Kian were involved in a scheme to attempt to extradite Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the Turkish government blamed for instigating a failed coup in 2016, back to Turkey, according to the indictment. Trump reportedly told the Turkish foreign minister recently that they were “working on” Gulen’s extradition.

Michael Flynn’s Business Partner Indicted Ahead of Trump Aide’s Sentencing | HuffPost

hmmm

Michael Flynn’s criticism of FBI interview slammed by special counsel

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Mueller on Friday also released memos written by the FBI agents, and emphasized that when Flynn lied to them on January 24, 2017, about the substance of his policy conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, he had already lied to several members of Trump’s team and was “committed to his false story” that he and Kislyak did not discuss sanctions.

The FBI memos make clear that top Justice Department and bureau officials knew that Flynn’s public story about his calls with Kislyak differed from what he actually said to the ambassador on the phone during the presidential transition — and the agents who spoke with him at the White House about it were prepared to confront him.

…It’s widely believed that at that time, the FBI was aware of the conversations Flynn had with Kislyak because the intelligence community had listened in on the foreign diplomat’s calls. On the calls, Flynn discussed Russian sanctions and a UN Security Council vote with Kislyak.

Michael Flynn’s criticism of FBI interview slammed by special counsel – CNNPolitics

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Trump was in the room during hush money discussions with tabloid publisher

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Donald Trump was the third person in the room in August 2015 when his lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker discussed ways Pecker could help counter negative stories about Trump’s relationships with women, NBC News has confirmed.

…The “statement of admitted facts” says that AMI admitted making a $150,000 payment “in concert with the campaign.” 

…The statement of admitted facts says that AMI’s “principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman’s story so as to prevent it from influencing the election.”

Trump was in the room during hush money discussions with tabloid publisher

hmmm

Michael Flynn: Judge suggests ex-Trump aide ‘sold out’ US

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“A high-ranking senior official of the government making false statements to the FBI while on the physical premises of the White House.”

At one point, Judge Sullivan asked the prosecutor whether the special counsel’s office had ever considered charging Flynn with treason.

The judge told Flynn: “Arguably, you sold your country out.”

Judge Sullivan also said he “can’t hide my disgust, my disdain” for the offence.

Flynn reaffirmed his guilt in court and said he “was aware” at the time of his FBI interview that lying to them was a crime.

…The retired US Army three-star lieutenant general lied to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ex-ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak.

He falsely told investigators in January 2017 that he had not discussed US sanctions against Moscow with Mr Kislyak before Mr Trump had taken office, according to his plea agreement.

Flynn also lied about his request to Mr Kislyak that Russia delay or block a vote at the United Nations on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

…Given the district court judge’s stern words, it appeared entirely possible Flynn would receive some sort of prison sentence.

That was enough to leave Flynn and his [defense] team scrambling – and perhaps wondering whether there are other ways he could co-operate, such as in the upcoming trial of two of his business partners accused of acting as unregistered agents of the Turkish government.

…In addition to the possible collusion line of inquiry, the special counsel is understood to be [scrutinizing] whether Mr Trump or aides sought to obstruct justice by blocking scrutiny of Flynn.

Michael Flynn: Judge suggests ex-Trump aide ‘sold out’ US – BBC News

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Donald Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Race,, Southern Central Asia,Leave a comment

In essence, the administration has now decided that Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in the country before the establishment of diplomatic ties between the United States and Vietnam are subject to standard immigration law—meaning they are all eligible for deportation.

…Many pre-1995 arrivals, all of whom were previously protected under the 2008 agreement by both the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, were refugees from the Vietnam War. Some are the children of those who once allied with American and South Vietnamese forces, an attribute that renders them undesirable to the current regime in Hanoi, which imputes anti-regime beliefs to the children of those who opposed North Vietnam. This anti-Communist constituency includes minorities such as the children of the American-allied Montagnards, who are persecuted in Vietnam for both their ethnicity and Christian religion.

…“Forty-three years ago, a lot of the Southeast Asian communities and Vietnamese communities fled their countries and their homeland due to the war, which the U.S. was involved in, fleeing for their safety and the safety of their families,” said Kevin Lam, the organizing director of the Asian American Resource Workshop, an advocacy group. “The U.S. would do well to remember that.”

Donald Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees – The Atlantic

WTF?! Unamerican son-of-a-festering-putrid-asshat