Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Racist shitbag Donald "Not Exonerated" Trump and his Pecksniffian son- in- law Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner both have intimate knowledge of rats and infestations:

Mice in the kitchen, filthy food prep areas and broken sewage systems are on the list of recent stomach-turning health code violations at a number of Trump-branded restaurants in the city, the Daily News has learned.

Health inspections at Trump properties from Midtown Manhattan to the Bronx’s Ferry Point reveal the President’s eponymous company still struggles to keep its day-to-day operations clean — though similar infractions have been reported for years.

Violations at the President’s crown jewel and Manhattan residence — Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue — are perhaps the most gag-inducing. (February 2019)

Trump's "Mr. Fix-it" doesn't do much fixing on his properties:

You can see why Trump's taken such a liking to the guy: he's a Trump man through and through. Trump will charge lower-income Americans extravagant prices for not-classes at his not-university, and Kushner will sue them for past rent when they get back home.

And so we're told the tale of collapsed drywall ceilings, mice in beds, nonworking appliances, and the usual signs you're living in a complex owned by someone who may or may not later end up in jail. Those go alongside tales of Kushner's company aggressively pursuing $5,000 judgments against deceased cancer patients, or people who have been made sick from the mold or rodent droppings, or people who got permission to leave their leases early from the local property manager but the head office never got the paperwork so screw you, that's why. (May 2017)

Following the protests this weekend in Trump handler Vladimir Putin's Russia, the main opposition leader has suddenly developed an allergy (to a chemical agent?):

A day after an unauthorized election protest he planned drew mass arrests in Moscow, Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, was hospitalized with a “severe allergic reaction” in jail, his spokeswoman said on Sunday.

“Over his whole life, Aleksei has never experienced an allergic reaction,” the spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, wrote on Twitter. But she said that his face was severely swollen and he had red spots on his skin.

Mr. Navalny was arrested on Wednesday and sentenced to 30 days in jail for calling a rally on Saturday to protest a decision by the election authorities to bar several opposition candidates from running for Moscow’s City Council.

The protest led to the arrests of more than 1,300 demonstrators. The rally was the latest in a series of street demonstrations staged as President Vladimir V. Putin’s approval ratings have dropped amid economic hardship.  [snip]

“As the doctor who treated Aleksei’s severe eye burn two years ago, I can say with confidence that both today and in 2017 what happened was a result of the damage inflicted by an undetermined chemical substance,” Ms. [Anastasy] Vasilyeva wrote on Facebook.

You can be sure Trump fantasizes about doing this to his political enemies, since he's encouraged his thug supporters to do violence against protestors at his Nuremberg rallies.

You may have seen this Trump ass- kisser at the recent Mueller hearing before the House Intelligence Committee.  Well, now he's his master's pick to replace Dan Coats as Director of National Intelligence:

Rep. John Ratcliffe criticizes Robert Mueller for writing "about decisions that weren't reached" regarding obstruction of justice: "I agree with the Chairman ... when he said Donald Trump is not above the law, but he damn well shouldn't be below the law" https://t.co/ujKkMtZXvq pic.twitter.com/ETcyT0Cqgs

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) July 24, 2019

David Rothkopf has an encouraging thread:

Ratcliffe as DNI, like Barr at Justice, like Trump's appointees to the Supreme Court and McConnell in the Senate, will be part of the president's praetorian guard, men given positions of great power who have but a single mission, to protect and enable Trump.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) July 28, 2019

He's apparently so far up Trump's ass that he was considered to be a replacement for Jeff Sessions before Trump picked his Roy Cohn, William "Low" Barr, to be Attorney General.  We can certainly count on him to provide honest, unbiased intelligence to decision- makers, as well as non-partisan direction to the agencies he'll be overseeing.

Here's what reactionary, corrupt Republican governance in a State will get you:

Amid a flurry of ambitious state action on climate change policy, the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature has just passed an energy bill that represents an enormous step backward. It is the most counterproductive and corrupt piece of state energy legislation I can recall in all my time covering this stuff — the details must really be seen to be believed. [snip]

[T]he bill would subsidize four uncompetitive power plants, remove all incentive to build more renewable energy projects, and cancel efforts to help customers use less energy. It is a bill only a utility (and the lawmakers who do its bidding) could love, an extravagant gift to utility investors that hoses Ohio ratepayers.  [snip]

Gutting Ohio’s clean-energy mandates saves ratepayers a few dollars in the short term, but binds them to money-losing power plants and rising costs in the long term.

To put it plainly: the Republicans behind HB6 are telling Ohioans that halting the shift to cheaper power sources, halting reductions in energy consumption, and (re-)subsidizing increasingly uneconomic dinosaur power plants will save ratepayers money over the long-term. Black is white, up is down.

Here's what reactionary, theocratic Republican governance in a State will get you:

South Dakota’s Republican lawmakers said it was about history — the motto appears on money, on license plates and in the fourth stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It’s also likely to be discussed in the classroom, where historical inquiry is a key part of the state’s social studies curriculum.

But legislators said they wanted to make it more clear; they wanted to “reaffirm” it. So this fall, when students return to school, a new and compulsory message will greet them: “In God We Trust.” It’ll be the first new academic year since South Dakota’s GOP leadership passed a law requiring every public school to display the American maxim “in a prominent location” and in a font no smaller than 12 by 12 inches.

South Dakota joins a growing list of states that force their schools to display the motto. At least half a dozen passed “In God We Trust” bills last year, and 10 more have introduced or passed the legislation so far in 2019. Similar signage is going up in Kentucky schools this summer, and Missouri could be next.

They're the same rotted out, hypocritical Republicans, whether on the local, state or national level.

Finally, we urge you to head over to Infidel 753's link round- up, a cornucopia of items of interest that he works hard to assemble every week.  We got wind of the South Dakota Bible- thumping bill (above) from one of his links!