All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tami]

Cory Booker: failure to engage black vote could hand White House to Trump

In an interview with the Guardian, Booker said he was “worried, very worried” that the party was heading towards a repeat of the 2016 election in which Trump snatched an unexpected victory partly because of the softness of the African American vote.

About 4.4 million voters who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 stayed home in 2016. More than a third were black.

“There would be a President Hillary Clinton right now if the African American turnout had been close to what it had been in 2012,” Booker said. “That’s how real is the power and influence of the Democratic party’s most loyal voting base.”

[Jack Dracula]

Twitter Link with video

Does Ted Cruz know how idiotic he sounds? Watch the video.

I watched this interview this morning. Cruz is such a greasy little toady. It turned my stomach.

[Tami]

For Trump, Instinct After Florida Killings Is Simple: Protect Saudis

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — When a Saudi Air Force officer opened fire on his classmates at a naval base in Pensacola, Fla., on Friday, he killed three, wounded eight and exposed anew the strange dynamic between President Trump and the Saudi leadership: The president’s first instinct was to tamp down any suggestion that the Saudi government needed to be held to account.

Hours later, Mr. Trump announced on Twitter that he had received a condolence call from King Salman of Saudi Arabia, who clearly sought to ensure that the episode did not further fracture their relationship. On Saturday, leaving the White House for a trip here for a Republican fund-raiser and a speech on Israeli-American relations, Mr. Trump told reporters that “they are devastated in Saudi Arabia,” noting that “the king will be involved in taking care of families and loved ones.” He never used the word “terrorism.”

What was missing was any assurance that the Saudis would aid in the investigation, help identify the suspect’s motives, or answer the many questions about the vetting process for a coveted slot at one of the country’s premier schools for training allied officers. Or, more broadly, why the United States continues to train members of the Saudi military even as that same military faces credible accusations of repeated human rights abuses in Yemen, including the dropping of munitions that maximize civilian casualties.

“The attack is a disaster for an already deeply strained relationship,” Bruce Riedel, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and a former C.I.A. officer who has dealt with generations of Saudi leaders, said on Saturday. It “focuses attention on Americans training Saudi Air Force officers who are engaged in numerous bombings of innocents in Yemen, which is the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world,” he said, noting that the Trump administration had long been fighting Congress as it seeks to end American support for that war.

But even stranger, said Mr. Riedel, was “the president’s parroting of the Saudi line” before learning the results of an investigation into whether the gunman acted alone, or had allegiances to Al Qaeda or terrorist groups.

[Tami]

NATO Conference Is Canceled After U.S. Ambassador Barred a Trump Critic

The United States ambassador to Denmark barred an American NATO expert critical of President Trump from speaking at an international conference hosted by the American embassy and a Danish think tank, prompting the event’s cancellation, organizers said.

The expert, Stanley R. Sloan, was scheduled to give a keynote speech at the conference, which was celebrating the 70th anniversary of NATO, on Tuesday.

Mr. Sloan, a visiting scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont, a fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, planned to speak about the future of trans-Atlantic relations.

One day before he was set to leave for Copenhagen, Mr. Sloan was informed that the United States Embassy in Copenhagen had vetoed his participation because of his previous criticisms of President Trump, Mr. Sloan said on Facebook on Saturday.

Carla Sands, the United States ambassador to Denmark, did not want Mr. Sloan to participate, and the Danish Atlantic Council “had no other option” than to revoke his invitation to speak, Lars Bangert Struwe, the secretary general of the council, said in a statement.

Mr. Sloan said the decision had left him “stunned and concerned about our country.”

On Sunday morning, Mr. Struwe canceled the NATO conference.

“After serious consideration, we have decided not to proceed with the conference,” he said on Twitter. “The progress of the process has become too problematic; and therefore, we cannot participate in the conference, let alone ask our speakers to participate.”

From a Danish point of view, the decision to bar Mr. Sloan would turn the conference’s focus to internal American politics and away from the future of NATO, Mr. Struwe said in an interview on Sunday. There were 12 people scheduled to speak, and about 100 attendees were expected, he said.

“We have all the time known that Mr. Sloan has a critical approach towards President Donald Trump,” Mr. Struwe said in the statement. “That is no secret, especially when following his Twitter and Facebook profile. We have, however, never doubted that Mr. Sloan at our conference would deliver an unpolitical and objective lecture.”

[Tendrin]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/...041402071.html

A controversial bill, which will grant citizenship to religious minorities from India's neighbouring countries, was passed in the lower House of Parliament (Lok Sabha) on Monday amid concerns it violates the spirit of the country's secular constitution.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) seeks to amend 1955 law to grant citizenship to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis facing persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan - but excludes Muslims.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump Slammed For Insisting ‘Killer’ Real Estate Jews Will Back Him To Save Their Wealth

The president’s comments at the Israeli American Council summit were called “vile and bigoted.” The response from Republicans........ *crickets* But, if a Democrat were in the White House and said something that obscene, the howls of outrage from the GOP could be heard on the International Space Station.

**********

Ted Cruz Becomes Latest Republican To Push Ukraine Election Interference Claim

His comments come a week after Sen. John Kennedy claimed a former Ukrainian president “actively worked” for Hillary Clinton. Remember, once upon a time, Trump insulted Cruz's wife and claimed his daddy was involved in JFK's assassination. Today, Cruz can't kiss Trump's ass hard enough or long enough. Deplorable.

**********

House Judiciary Chairman: Jury Would Find Trump Guilty In ‘3 Minutes Flat’

Jerry Nadler said the House has a “rock solid case” against the president regarding his dealings with Ukraine. Will that matter since the Republican controlled Senate will absolve Trump of his crime?

**********

Church Nativity Scene Shows Jesus, Mary and Joseph As Refugee Family Split At Border

The Claremont United Methodist Church in California made a statement with their depiction of the “most well-known refugee family in the world.”



**********

Trump Rages At ‘Pathetic’ Fox News For Putting Democrats On Air

The president claimed the network “panders” to the left by having “loser” Democratic lawmakers Eric Swalwell, David Cicilline and Pramila Jayapal on air. I guess Trump's love affair with his personal propaganda network has cooled. What a shame.

[Tami]

Trump Privately Frets ‘What’s Going on With Drudge?’ During Impeachment, Asks Jared Kushner to ‘Look Into It’

As House lawmakers move quickly toward a likely impeachment vote before the year’s end, President Donald Trump has kept a close eye on his conservative media allies—and hasn’t been shy about trashing them for projecting insufficient fealty.

But it’s been one media outlet in particular that has caught the president’s ire, even though it has so far been spared his Twitter rage: the Drudge Report. Publicly, Trump hasn’t said a peep about the highly popular news aggregator run by right-wing media impresario Matt Drudge. But privately, he has simmered over the critical coverage that the site has run and linked to, with regards to the impeachment proceedings.

“What’s going on with Drudge?” Trump has been asking allies since Democratic lawmakers launched the impeachment probe in late September, according to a person with knowledge of his private remarks. Two other sources who’ve heard the president complain told The Daily Beast that Trump has asked those close to him why they think Drudge and his website have seemed “so anti-Trump” lately.

In recent weeks, Trump has even asked Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a top White House official—who has had a friendly relationship with the site’s creator—to “look into it” and reach out to Drudge, the sources said.

It is unclear if Kushner has done so. The White House and Drudge did not respond to requests for comment on this story as of press time.

The president’s concern over Drudge’s coverage of the impeachment proceedings underscores how sensitive he has been to ensuring that his fellow travelers, in Republican politics and in influential media, do not break from him as Democrats take steps to remove him from office over the Ukraine scandal.

[Malvolio]

Trump Slammed For Insisting ‘Killer’ Real Estate Jews Will Back Him To Save Their Wealth

The president’s comments at the Israeli American Council summit were called “vile and bigoted.” The response from Republicans........ *crickets* But, if a Democrat were in the White House and said something that obscene, the howls of outrage from the GOP could be heard on the International Space Station.

**********

Ted Cruz Becomes Latest Republican To Push Ukraine Election Interference Claim

His comments come a week after Sen. John Kennedy claimed a former Ukrainian president “actively worked” for Hillary Clinton. Remember, once upon a time, Trump insulted Cruz's wife and claimed his daddy was involved in JFK's assassination. Today, Cruz can't kiss Trump's ass hard enough or long enough. Deplorable.

**********

House Judiciary Chairman: Jury Would Find Trump Guilty In ‘3 Minutes Flat’

Jerry Nadler said the House has a “rock solid case” against the president regarding his dealings with Ukraine. Will that matter since the Republican controlled Senate will absolve Trump of his crime?

**********

Church Nativity Scene Shows Jesus, Mary and Joseph As Refugee Family Split At Border

The Claremont United Methodist Church in California made a statement with their depiction of the “most well-known refugee family in the world.”



**********

Trump Rages At ‘Pathetic’ Fox News For Putting Democrats On Air

The president claimed the network “panders” to the left by having “loser” Democratic lawmakers Eric Swalwell, David Cicilline and Pramila Jayapal on air. I guess Trump's love affair with his personal propaganda network has cooled. What a shame.

Trump can't be anti-Semitic. His son-in-law's Jewish. SMH.

Oh, and expect Trump to call in to FOX and Friends some time this week to whine for 45 minutes about the other shows on the network that have interviews with Democrats.

[Tami]

At war with the truth: The Afghanistan Papers A secret history of the war

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.

The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.

The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.

With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”

[Tendrin]

Trump can't be anti-Semitic. His son-in-law's Jewish. SMH.

Oh, and expect Trump to call in to FOX and Friends some time this week to whine for 45 minutes about the other shows on the network that have interviews with Democrats.

Stephen Miller can't be a white nationalist, he's a jew!

*sigh*

[Tami]

The protester is Owen Shroyer, an InfoWars reporter who has pushed the false Pizzagate conspiracy theory and other outrageous and false right-wing claims

Impeachment Hearing news, Twitter Link

[Tami]

I feel for Rep Nadler, having to put up with the Republicans who, all they can do is throw Points of Order and try to delay and obstruct the hearings.

If i was in his seat, I'd be tempted to fire back, 'Shut the *bleep* up and stop with the pointless, ridiculous objections! Stop wasting the Committee's time.'

Republicans are seriously arguing that the impeachment witnesses should be barred from "impugning the motives of the president"

Twitter Link

[InformationGeek]

Impeachment Hearing news, Twitter Link

Ah yes, this guy. The one who called for Obama to be lynched and was flipped off by a little girl during live recording on InfoWars.

[BeastieRunner]

GOP has yet to deny anything, they are just yammering about process. If fact Gohmer and a couple have flat out said Trump broke the law, but since the process is borked, it should be thrown out.

That's a ... defense?

[Tami]

GOP has yet to deny anything, they are just yammering about process. If fact Gohmer and a couple have flat out said Trump broke the law, but since the process is borked, it should be thrown out.

That's a ... defense?

The news banner read 'GOP stalls impeachment hearings'; that's is all they have left in their bag of tricks.