The most appealing part of Trump's presidency to most supporters? Approach and personality by a 3-to-1 margin over policies and values. https://t.co/o9QiMLVEF3— Philip Bump (@pbump) August 23, 2018
more bluntly, assholes like him because he's an asshole https://t.co/Gk2F3YDStS— Tom Tomorrow (@tomtomorrow) August 23, 2018
"Pecker 'offered to help deal with negative stories about (Trump’s) relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided,' the court papers say.Rump and Pecker have been close for years, benefitting from a symbiotic media relationship: Rump would provide Pecker's rags with "exclusive" stories, and Pecker would publish only positive stories about Rump. With Pecker "flipping" -- as Rump would put it in his Mafioso style of speaking -- Rump is running out of allies in his fight with the Southern District of New York's prosecutorial team, which already has his former "fixer" Michael Cohen accepting a plea deal that names Rump as an unindicted co-conspirator in his hush money payoffs to Ms. McDougal and adult film actress Stormy Daniels. With Pecker letting it hang out, there may be more felonious tales to tell to prosecutors about his former friend.
The Journal reported Pecker shared with prosecutors details about payments that Cohen says Trump directed in the weeks and months before the election to buy the silence of McDougal and another woman alleging an affair, porn star Stormy Daniels. Daniels was paid $130,000. McDougal was paid $150,000."
Paula Duncan, a juror on the Manafort trial, joined Fox News to talk about her experience serving on the jury. Duncan is a fervent Trump supporter, but she appears to have been able to separate herself from her politics in order to do her civic duty on the jury.
“It was one person who kept the verdict from being guilty on all 18 counts,” Duncan told Fox News. Apparently the evidence was overwhelming enough on the other 8 counts, but there was doubt on for another juror on the other 10. To be perfectly clear: Duncan was NOT the holdout.That should send a chill up the spines of Manafort's defense team as they head into trial #2 next month, where the evidence is far greater (and perhaps the judge will keep his Republican finger off the scales).
A majority-black county in rural Georgia announced a plan last week to close seven of its nine polling places ahead of the November election, claiming the polls cannot continue to operate because they are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The move sparked instant opposition from voting rights advocates, who have threatened legal action if Randolph County follows though with the plan. Activists are also scrambling to collect enough signatures to stop the effort before Friday, when the election board will make a final determination.
The racial implications of the closures have generated significant attention. The county is over 61 percent black, and one of the polling locations that would be shuttered serves a precinct where more than 95 percent of voters are African American. Had the U.S. Supreme Court not gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the closures would most likely have been blocked by the Department of Justice. (our emphasis)And, it's not the only time Republicans have used the ADA to subvert the Voting Rights Act:
Under President Trump, the federal government has been employing the same strategy. Jim Tucker, an attorney and member of the Native American Voting Rights Coalition, said he learned earlier this year that the Department of Justice’s Disability Rights Section is targeting at least three largely Native American counties, where facilities used as polling locations often lack paved parking lots, designated handicapped parking spots, entrance ramps, wide doorways, and other ADA-required features. In several counties, the Justice Department has threatened enforcement actions if local governments do not either spend large sums of money to modernize polling locations or shutter them altogether. (our emphasis)Disenfranchising voting rights for minorities and other Democratic constituents isn't the only focus of Republicans. Billionaire bozo Betsy DeVos is hard at work at the "Education" Department considering whether to use grants under the Student Support and Academic Enrichment program in an end run to provide more
The Education Department is considering whether to allow states to use federal funding to purchase guns for educators, according to multiple people with knowledge of the plan.
Such a move appears to be unprecedented, reversing a longstanding position taken by the federal government that it should not pay to outfit schools with weapons. And it would also undermine efforts by Congress to restrict the use of federal funding on guns. As recently as March, Congress passed a school safety bill that allocated $50 million a year to local school districts, but expressly prohibited the use of the money for firearms.
But the department is eyeing a program in federal education law, the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants, that makes no mention of prohibiting weapons purchases. That omission would allow the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, to use her discretion to approve any state or district plans to use grant funding for firearms and firearm training, unless Congress clarifies the law or bans such funding through legislative action. [snip]
The $1 billion student support program, part of the Every Student Succeeds Act, is intended for academic and enrichment opportunities in the country’s poorest schools and calls for school districts to use the money toward three goals: providing a well-rounded education, improving school conditions for learning and improving the use of technology for digital literacy. (our emphasis)It's sometimes hard to believe the lengths to which Republicans will go to keep you from voting, while pandering to their National
EXCLUSIVE: President @realDonaldTrump on if he knew about the Cohen payments. See more from his interview with @ainsleyearhardt tomorrow 6-9amET. pic.twitter.com/HPJPslOG6X— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) August 22, 2018
BREAKING: In running away from Cohen's claims today, Trump bumbled right into admitting that he lied on his financial disclosures & violated 18 USC 1001. This was already the subject of a @CREWcrew criminal complaint that led to an OGE referral to DOJ--Trump just proved our case! https://t.co/8poUAIhtQf— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) August 22, 2018
Following her meeting with #SCOTUS nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, @SenatorCollins says on Roe v. Wade that "he said that he agreed with what Justice Roberts said at his nomination hearing in which he said that it was settled law." pic.twitter.com/mHmFD3b6Tr— CSPAN (@cspan) August 21, 2018
Responding to @SenatorCollins, anti-abortion group Americans United For Life says Kavanaugh calling Roe "settled law" merely states what SCOTUS has done and doesn't indicate he'd uphold it. pic.twitter.com/q3yA03fECp— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) August 21, 2018
"I can tell you that Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell special counsel all that he knows -- not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about, but also, knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on."So, Cohen
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter and his wife, Margaret E. Hunter, were hit Tuesday with federal charges that they "converted and stole" more than a quarter million dollars in campaign funds, according to a 47-page grand jury indictment.
The San Diego County couple used the cash to take trips to Italy, Hawaii, London and elsewhere, and even used the funds to cover school tuition, dental work and theater tickets, the federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California said in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Hunter, a Republican and the son of a retired congressman who also represented a section of San Diego County, was an early and staunch supporter of President Donald Trump. [snip]
The only other elected member of Congress who endorsed Trump earlier than Hunter during the 2016 campaign was Rep. Chris Collins of New York — who now faces federal charges of his own. (our emphasis)Being amoral grifters themselves, both Hunter and Collins saw a kindred spirit in Rump.
This is practically Hillary's emails level coverage. https://t.co/ANkLBxHgvc— Schooley (@Rschooley) August 22, 2018
President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Tuesday was found guilty of eight criminal counts, including five counts of tax fraud.
Manafort was also found guilty of two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to file foreign bank account reports.The judge declared a mistrial on the additional 10 counts after the jury indicated it was deadlocked on those counts.
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) August 21, 2018
Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, on Tuesday reached a plea agreement with prosecutors investigating payments he made to women on behalf of Mr. Trump, a deal that does not include cooperation with federal authorities, two people familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Cohen is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts of bank and tax fraud charges and campaign finance violations. For months, prosecutors in New York have been scrutinizing him for those crimes and focusing on his role in helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump.
The United States attorney’s office announced that there would be a “proceeding of interest” in a case against a defendant identified only as John Doe, language that almost always indicates a guilty plea. One person with knowledge of the matter said the proceeding would be the guilty plea by Mr. Cohen.It's official. Cohen surrendered to the FBI a short time ago. Stay tuned.
Today he stood up and testified under oath that Donald Trump directed him to commit a crime by making payments to two women for the principal purpose of influencing an election. If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn't they be a crime for Donald Trump?— Lanny Davis (@LannyDavis) August 21, 2018
"Over the weekend, Jared Kushner described Trump’s mood as 'rip-shit,' according to one of the advisers. 'Total meltdown' was how another adviser put it. 'He’s extremely frustrated,' a Republican close to the White House said."Rump's main fear over the past few days is that the Mueller investigation is targeting his greasy, treasonous son Don Jr. over the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian officials to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. With e-mails and other evidence in the hands of Robert Mueller, and the bungling, shifting stories to explain away that pivotal meeting, Rump feels his grip slipping away.
