Middleboro Review: profiling

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Matt Taibbi | On Iran, Trump Is All Talk, and Thank God

22 September 19

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22 September 19

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Reader Supported News

DISASTER FUNDRAISING: IS THAT ALL THAT WORKS? It’s nearly impossible at this point to run a normal fundraiser. Unless things get seriously dire we get no support. That is one bad formula. We need fewer donations now than we have ever needed before. That should be easier, not harder. If you are going to be a part of this, be a part of it. Let’s finish the July fundraiser. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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Matt Taibbi | On Iran, Trump Is All Talk, and Thank God

This is what wars look like. (photo: Muhmmad Al-Najjar/Sopa Images)

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
Taibbi writes: "Open newspapers this week, and you'll see hand-wringing galore. Supposedly we're about to go to war with Iran, suspected in last weekend's unmanned bombing of the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia."
READ MORE

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky speaks in Kiev, Ukraine, on Sept. 2. (photo: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Trump's Ukraine Call Reveals a President Convinced of His Own Invincibility
Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Rachael Bade, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "When the July 24 congressional testimony of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III deflated the impeachment hopes of Democrats, President Trump crowed 'no collusion' and claimed vindication from accusations that he had conspired with Russia in the 2016 election."

EXCERPT:

Trump’s sense of himself as above the law has been reinforced throughout his time in office. As detailed in the Mueller report, he received help from a foreign adversary in 2016 without legal consequence. He sought to thwart the Russia investigation and possibly obstruct justice without consequence. Through the government, he has earned profits for his businesses without consequence. He has blocked Congress’s ability to conduct oversight without consequence.

Now he is alleged to have leveraged taxpayer dollars and U.S. military might to extort a foreign government for opposition research on a political opponent, and it is unclear what consequences, if any, he may face.

“We got progressively desensitized,” said Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in the Obama administration. “We’re learning progressively about wrongs, and one part gets absorbed before the next part gets revealed, so for whatever reason the public doesn’t get excited about it. It’s mystifying.”

One explanation is that Republicans in Congress have almost uniformly fallen in line behind Trump, reacting with instinctive nonchalance and blocking efforts to investigate his actions or hold him accountable.

“What we’re discovering is that the Constitution is not a mechanism that runs by itself,” Galston said. “Ultimately, we are a government of men and not law. The law has no force without people who are willing to enforce it. The ball is now squarely in the court of the Republican Party, and particularly Senate Republicans. Will they ever be prepared to say enough is enough?”

Legal experts said it is extraordinary that Trump allegedly sought political assistance from a foreign government after a tortured, nearly three-year national conversation about the illegality of doing so. Asked what the president had learned from the Mueller investigation, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman said, “Nothing. Zero.”

Muslim community leader Abderraoof Alkhawaldeh (right) spoke during a press conference at the Council on American-Islamic Relations office in Dallas on Thursday. Alkhawaldeh and another Muslim community leader, Issam Abdallah (second from left), said they were profiled and discriminated against during a recent American Airlines flight in Alabama. (photo: Lynda M. Gonzalez)

Two Muslim Passengers Onboard an American Airlines Flight Say They Were Racially Profiled
Helen Coffey, The Independent
Coffey writes: "Two Muslim passengers onboard an American Airlines flight have said they were racially profiled after the service was cancelled due to 'safety and security concerns.'"
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New soldiers arriving for their first day of basic combat training at Fort Jackson, S.C., are 'welcomed' by drill sergeants from both the Army and Army Reserve. (photo: Sgt. 1st Class Brian Hamilton/Army)

Student Loan Crisis Helped Army Leaders Exceed Recruiting Goals This Year
Kyle Rempfer, Army Times
Rempfer writes: "Army leadership gathered Tuesday to announce that they surpassed their recruiting goal for 2019, signing up more than 68,000 active duty soldiers before the end of the fiscal year, but the long wars in the Middle East weren't exactly part of the sales pitch."
READ MORE

On a recent day, the sidewalk school in Matamoros, Mexico, began with arts and crafts. (photo: Reynaldo Leaños Jr. /Texas Public Radio)

Sidewalk School Aims to Give Migrant Kids a Sense of Stability
Reynaldo Leanos Jr., NPR
Leanos writes: "It's back-to-school time on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, and in the border town of Matamoros, Mexico, migrant children are attending a different kind of classroom."
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Small groups of protesters gathered in central Cairo shouting anti-government slogans. (photo: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)

Egyptian Forces Fire Teargas on Anti-Government Protesters
Ruth Michaelson, Guardian UK
Michaelson writes: "Hundreds of Egyptians took to the streets in Cairo and other cities in rare protests against the country's president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, responding to an online call for a demonstration against government corruption."
READ MORE

California governor Gavin Newsom. (photo: Elijah Nouvelage/EPA)

Automakers Defy Trump, Stick With California in Climate Change Standoff
Dale Kasler, The Sacramento Bee
Kasler writes: "California officials, teeing up an epic fight with President Donald Trump's administration over climate change and air pollution rules, have potentially powerful allies in their corner: four of world's largest automakers."
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Sunday, August 4, 2013

This, That.....and The Republican Sickness

Wake up call shared Citizens Action Network's photo.

Real Truth Now

"Here is more from the same opinion piece: 'Over the longer run the point is that one of America’s two major political parties has basically gone off the deep end; policy content aside, a sane party doesn’t hold dozens of votes declaring its intention to repeal a law that everyone knows will stay on the books regardless. And since that party continues to hold substantial blocking power, we are looking at a country that’s increasingly ungovernable.'" -- Quotable Liberals ~ PL

Read the rest here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/01/chaos-looms/

Wake up call shared Citizens Action Network's photo.

Join Citizens Action Network

Think for yourself. . .

#PMDro

The Pragmatic Progressive Page

From Our Time--Dave.

From @[160389977329803:274:Our Time]--Dave.

The Sierra Club

Activists in St. Louis staged a Hazmat Swimsuit Contest last week to highlight the immense amount of toxic pollution that local ‪#‎coal‬ plants dump into the area's waterways. Read more -> http://sc.org/hazmat_beauty_contest

At least we know his extremist views will provide levity!

The Raw Story

His views on ‪#‎LGBT‬ people are less popular than ever, his name is associated with "froth," but he still thinks he can be president:

Santorum ‘headed back’ to Iowa and ‘open’ to 2016 run

WATCH -->http://bit.ly/182RYcn

Stop the World, the Teabaggers Want Off

Found at political despot.

Shared by Stop the World, the Teabaggers Want Off

Bernie Sanders Exposes The Republican Goal of Abolishing The Minimum Wage
By: Jason Easley
Aug. 4th, 2013

bernie-sanders-minimum-wage

Sen. Bernie Sanders is talking about something that few other politicians will mention. Republicans aren’t just opposed to the minimum wage. They want to abolish it.

Video:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Transcript:

ED SCHULTZ: Senator, do you believe, of course, the Republicans have not helped out on any jobs package whatsoever they’re stuck in the mud. They don’t want to work with the Democrats or help this president on a jobs bill in any way, shame or form. Do you think the Republicans want higher unemployment so people will be so desperate, they will go to the corporations and work for $7.25 an hour and have no voice and no push and no union to stick up for them whatsoever? Do you think the Republicans, do you think that this is a conservative utopia? That they like everything the way it is right now?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Let me take it a step further and this will shock you and your viewers.This is the truth. The fact of the matter is that there are many many Republicans in Congress right now, perhaps a majority, who not only are opposed to raising the minimum wage. They want to abolish the minimum wage. That’s the truth. In a city like Detroit, remember, 40% of the black kids in this country are facing unemployment. 20% of the young people in this country facing unemployment. 14% of the American people unemployed. They believe that if they can hire, if an employer can hire a worker at $3 and $4 an hour that’s fine. That’s freedom. Get government out of the business of regulating a minimum wage. What I happen to believe is very, very different.
SCHULTZ: Go ahead.
SANDERS:It’s just that if we’re going to grow the middle class, we have to create decent paying jobs. One way to do that is to raise the minimum wage to at least $10 an hour which is what the American people want.

Bernie Sanders was speaking from experience. In June, during a committee hearing, he got Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN) to admit that he supports abolishing the minimum wage. This isn’t some theoretical Republican fantasy discussion centered around the great what if of abolishing the minimum wage. Republicans in power want to abolish the minimum wage. It is part of their goals and agenda. Earlier this year, Forbes ran an article from the Ayn Rand Center titled, To Protect The Defenseless, We Must Abolish The Minimum Wage.

The basic Republican argument against the minimum wage is the same as their argument against unemployment benefits. The minimum wage creates an entitled class of freeloaders that want to be paid more than what they are really worth. It is the standard makers and takers argument that Republicans use to defend their positions on everything from cutting food stamps to denying children healthcare.

The problem is that the Republican argument is based on ideology. Studies have repeatedly found that raising the minimum wage doesn’t negatively impact job growth. In June, President Obama called for the minimum wage to be increased to a living wage.

While Republicans are plotting to abolish it, seventy one percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage. Republicans want an America where workers will have no healthcare, privatized retirement benefits, no workplace safety regulations, no overtime pay, and will take whatever few pennies employers are willing to offer as compensation.

Republicans are pushing to take America back 100 years, but they never counted on are elected leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders, President Obama, and the American people pushing back.

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/04/bernie-sanders-exposes-republican-goal-abolishing-minimum-wage.html