FM123
FM123's JournalCarmen Yulin Cruz (mayor of San Juan, PR) is on msnbc
Every time I hear her speak, I am so impressed with her.
She has brains, heart and grit - oh and not only does she hate trumpy she is not afraid of him!
Official Number : Hurricane Maria caused 2,975 deaths in Puerto Rico
(CNN)Hurricane Maria caused an estimated 2,975 deaths in Puerto Rico, according to a new report from George Washington University -- 46 times more than the official toll given by the Puerto Rican government.
Researchers calculated excess deaths that occurred in the US commonwealth between September 2017 and February.
The study was commissioned by the Puerto Rican government after the September 2017 storm.
The latest estimated death toll is far higher than the current official toll of 64.
A key unanswered question: Will the Puerto Rican government now revise its official tally as a result?
Read more:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/health/puerto-rico-gw-report-excess-deaths/index.html
Donald Trump's Worst Nightmare May Come In The Form Of Rep. Elijah Cummings
(Huffington Post)
SNIP
If Democrats retake the majority in November, Cummings will no longer have to rely on Trey Gowdy to call hearings, summon witnesses and subpoena documents. He will have the authority to pursue answers to all of his questions. To call hearings on any topic he sees fit. To depose any administration official he wants to question. There’s no question in my mind that White House chief of staff John Kelly will be the focal point of a hearing about White House security clearance procedures. White House senior adviser Jared Kushner will be asked to explain the questionable intersection of his government job and his business enterprises. Veterans Affairs chief Robert Wilkie will be called to testify about the relationship between officials at the department and members of Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club.
The Trump administration will be put on trial and the full scope of its corruption will be exposed. Congressional hearings will be covered wall-to-wall on cable news, dominating news cycle after news cycle. Trump, more than any president in history, evaluates his success based on how the media covers the day. A barrage of hearings and subpoenas will have a deteriorating effect on Trump and completely stall the White House’s agenda.
Cummings is a forceful speaker and a deliberate operator. He cannot be bullied or intimidated. He will not be goaded into making a mistake. He has the tools and the authority to compel cooperation and documents. Unlike special counsel Robert Mueller, he cannot be fired by the president or dismissed by the attorney general. Make no mistake about it: Elijah Cummings could turn out to be Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-elijah-cummings-trump_us_5b805b25e4b0cd327dfc9502
It is election day here in Florida...
...and we are going to the polls and taking our friends to the polls and our kids to the polls and we are going to make as many trips bringing as many people and do everything we can until we are BLUE in the face! Wish us luck America!
It Would Only Take a Single Senator
(Atlantic Monthly Article)
With Republicans clinging to a precarious 50–49 majority, every individual GOP senator can serve as a check on Trump’s excesses whenever they choose to act.
(Snip) This means that just one Republican senator joining the Democrats and independents would give them 50 votes, against only 49 Republicans, until McCain’s successor is sworn in. And even after that, a total of two Republican senators would have it in their power to create a 51-vote majority and impose limits on an executive they know to be out of control.
Who might those two senators theoretically be? A list I offered early this year still applies:
Two like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker who are not running for re-election and have no primary-challenge consequences to fear;
Two like Orrin Hatch and John McCain who mainly have their places in history to think about (written before his passing)
Two like the young Ben Sasse and the veteran Lamar Alexander who pride themselves on being “thoughtful”;
Two like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski who pride themselves on being “independent”;
Two like Rand Paul and Mike Lee who pride themselves on their own kind of independence;
Two like Rob Portman and John Barrasso who pride themselves on being decent;
Two like Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton with conceivable long-term higher-office hopes;
Two like Tim Scott and James Lankford who jointly wrote a statement on the need for broad-minded inclusion;
Two like Chuck Grassley and Richard Shelby, who like Hatch and McCain are in their 80s and conceivably have “legacy” on their minds (remember that in the Alabama Senate race Shelby took a stand against his party’s odious nominee, Roy Moore);
One like Dean Heller, facing a tough re-election race, plus maybe Lindsey Graham, who used to be among the leaders in blunt talk about Trump’s excesses.
That’s 20 senators total. The current GOP majority includes 31 more, most of whom are even stauncher party-line voters than those listed above and thus would give rise to sarcastic “Oh, sure!” eye-roll reactions at the mere idea of their breaking ranks.
But remember: Every one of them swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, not simply their own careerist comfort. And not a one of them, yet, has been willing to risk comfort, career, or fund-raising to defend the constitutional check-and-balance prerogatives of their legislative branch.
They now confront a president who has been named in a felony guilty plea as having directed criminal activities. (It didn’t get this far or this crystal-clear with Richard Nixon.) Read more...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/senate-inaction/568606/?utm_term=2018-08-27T10%3A00%3A33&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=edit-promo
Oh No! Just now - a mass shooting in Jacksonville, FL at a video game tournament!
The Jacksonville, Florida, Sheriff's Office said there was a mass shooting with multiple fatalities at a downtown shopping-dining complex on Sunday and urged people to stay far away from the area.
"Mass shooting at the Jacksonville Landing. Stay far away from the area. The area is not safe at this time. STAY AWAY #TheLandingMassShooting," the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said on Twitter.
(read more)
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/26/us/jacksonville-madden-shooting/index.html
How This Will End
(Atlantic Monthly)
Sooner or later, tyrants are always abandoned by their followers.
Michael Gerson, one of the most eloquent and principled critics of Donald Trump, insists that we are at June 1973, the moment when John Dean’s testimony broke the dam that a year later swept Richard Nixon off into disgrace. Others agree: This is an inflection point. And yet an equally well-informed friend insists, “I no longer believe in political inflection points and neither should you.” Who knows? But even if we do not recognize the turning points in the moment, we can anticipate what the end will feel like when it does arrive.
But to really get the feel for the Trump administration’s end, we must turn to the finest political psychologist of them all, William Shakespeare. The text is in the final act of what superstitious actors only refer to as the “Scottish play.” One of the nobles who has turned on their murderous usurper king describes Macbeth’s predicament:
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
And so it will be for Trump.
But in the moment of losing power, the two will be alike. A tyrant is unloved, and although the laws and institutions of the United States have proven a brake on Trump, his spirit remains tyrannical—that is, utterly self-absorbed and self-concerned, indifferent to the suffering of others, knowing no moral restraint. He expects fealty and gives none. Such people can exert power for a long time, by playing on the fear and cupidity, the gullibility and the hatreds of those around them. Ideological fervor can substitute for personal affection and attachment for a time, and so too can blind terror and sheer stupidity, but in the end, these fall away as well. (Read More)
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/the-end-of-trumps-reign/568480/
Lindsey Graham sells out Jeff Sessions
(CNN)For those waiting for a profile in courage to emerge from Republicans in Congress after President Donald Trump was implicated by his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to eight criminal counts, stop holding your breath. Sen. Lindsey Graham, formerly one of Trump's harshest critics, just paved the way for the post-midterm election fate of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, telling reporters on Capitol Hill that Trump is "entitled to an attorney general he has faith in."
(snip)
Why does this matter? Because, along with Sens. John McCain, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and a handful of others, Graham has been one of the last bastions of sanity and accountability in the Republican caucus. As recently as last summer, Graham said there would be "holy hell to pay" if Trump fired Sessions.
What is with the about face? It is hard to say. There is an ongoing fear in the Republican Party about unsettling Trump's loyal base. But Graham isn't up for re-election until 2020. Does Trump or someone else have something on him? Hard to say.
But whatever the reason, the formerly outspoken critic of Trump's disrespect for law enforcement and the rule of law, and cozy relationship with Russia, just retired from the service of sounding the alarm. And as a result it will be easier for other Republicans to also defend Trump's desire to fire Sessions.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/23/opinions/lindsey-graham-sells-out-jeff-sessions/index.html
"My wife did it!"
Indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter: "My wife handled my finances."
(CNN)Rep. Duncan D. Hunter seemed to shift any blame onto his wife, Margaret, on Thursday for alleged campaign fund abuses, saying she was the one handling his finances.
"She was also the campaign manager, so whatever she did that'll be looked at too, I'm sure," the California Republican said on Fox News.
"But I didn't do it," Hunter said. "I didn't spend any money illegally."
Duncan and Margaret Hunter pleaded not guilty Thursday morning to federal charges that they had stolen a quarter of a million dollars in campaign funds to furnish their lavish lifestyle. The Hunters had been indicted earlier this week, accused of spending the campaign money on expenses including a $14,000 Italian vacation, groceries and other household items. (read more)
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/23/politics/duncan-hunter-wife-margaret-campaign-finances/index.html
Toobin: Cohen's Plea Deal Means Trump Trusted A 'Credentialed Criminal'
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin weighed in on Michael Cohen entering into a plea agreement Tuesday with federal prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office.
Toobin, who stated that the plea deal is an “enormous development” in Trump’s presidency, said “no one was closer” to Donald Trump before his presidency.
“No one knows more or almost no one knows more of his secrets and the fact that he’s pleading guilty, apparently, to a wide range of felonies in many different areas suggest that Donald Trump placed his trust in someone who was a very elaborately — a very extensively credentialed criminal,” Toobin said.
Toobin argued that the biggest question out of Cohen’s plea deal is whether he will “cooperate in a way that is at all damaging to Donald Trump.”
(On Twitter) CNN Newsroom @CNNnewsroom
"The fact that Michael Cohen is pleading guilty is just an enormous development in the history of the Trump Presidency... Almost no one knows more of his secrets" says @JeffreyToobin
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