July 19, 2018

gop confirm a 39 year old bigot for a life time appointment on US court of appeals

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-court-pick-restrict-voting-rights_us_5b4f5bc7e4b0fd5c73c143c7

Senate Confirms Trump Court Pick With Record Of Attacking Voting Rights
More than 200 civil rights groups opposed Andrew Oldham, but every Republican voted to make him a lifetime federal judge


WASHINGTON ― The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm another one of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, Andrew Oldham, despite more than 200 civil rights groups opposing him over his record of trying to restrict voting and civil rights.

Every Republican voted to put Oldham, 39, into a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans. Every Democrat opposed him. The final tally was 50-49.

Oldham, a former Texas deputy solicitor general who now serves as general counsel to Gov. Greg Abbott (R), in 2013 defended the state’s voter photo ID law, SB 14, which a federal judge later struck down as an “unconstitutional poll tax.” In his filing on behalf of the state, Oldham ripped the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division for refusing to preclear the law and argued that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act ― the heart of the historic federal civil rights law ― should be invalidated altogether.

In 2014, Oldham argued that housing discrimination cases should not be brought based on disparate impacts on minority communities. The Supreme Court rejected his argument, saying that the Fair Housing Act “must play a part in avoiding the… grim prophecy that ‘[o]ur Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.’”

July 19, 2018

Hawaii has gained 700 acres (and continues to grow) from the lava flow.

July 19, 2018

Today's political toons

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http://theweek.com/

July 19, 2018

Political toons

https://www.politico.com/gallery/2018/07/05/matt-wuerker-cartoons-july-2018-002892?slide=4

July 19, 2018

Huntsman's (Russia ambassador) urged 2 quit before his own reputation becomes enmeshed with Trump's

Huntsman’s longtime defenders urging him to quit before his own reputation becomes enmeshed with the president’s.



Trump’s Russia Ambassador Is Having A Very Bad Week
Jon Huntsman has spent decades cultivating a reputation as a pragmatic Republican. Now some of his allies are urging him to ditch the Trump administration.

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on Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, is in a terrible, but entirely predictable, situation: Days after Huntsman spoke about the need to hold Russian government officials accountable for interfering in the 2016 election, his boss, President Donald Trump, stood alongside Vladimir Putin on Monday and told the world he believed the Russian president’s denial of any wrongdoing.

Trump made a muddled attempt to walk back those comments on Tuesday, but the damage had been done. Huntsman’s former colleagues and even family members suggested the ambassador was wasting his time trying to represent U.S. interests in Russia under Trump.

“Resign, if you have any honor,” John Weaver, a political consultant who worked on Huntsman’s 2012 Republican presidential campaign, tweeted.

“You work for a pawn, not a president. It’s time to come home,” wrote a columnist at the Salt Lake Tribune — a paper owned and published by Huntsman’s brother Paul.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jon-huntsman-ambassador-russia-trump-urged-to-quit_us_5b4e7ce8e4b0b15aba89a6af

July 19, 2018

Giant Jeff Goldblum statue placed in London park

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https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/jeff-goldblum-statue-london/index.html

Twenty-five years ago, "Jurassic Park" brought velociraptors to a new generation -- and broke a few box office records in the meantime.
It also had the unlikely benefit of turning Jeff Goldblum, who played Dr. Ian Malcolm in the film, into a sex symbol.

Now, to commemorate both of those events, a 25-foot, 330-pound statue of Goldblum in character as Dr. Malcolm -- more specifically, as a reclining, open-shirted Dr. Malcolm -- has appeared in London next to the famous Tower Bridge.

The statue will be on display through July 26, giving Jeff-loving Instagrammers plenty of time to visit.

July 19, 2018

Trump Voter: "But he's affecting me now, and I don't appreciate it,"

“Obviously, moving nail production to Mexico or another country is a possibility, but it is a bad alternative. Mid Continent does not want to move and is not planning to do so,” said company spokesman Jim Glassman. “The workers there continue to hope and expect that President Trump will save their jobs.”

Philip Bennett, 37, a machine repairman at Mid Continent, appeared close to tears as he talked about his 5-year-old daughter, Aubree, who has a congenital heart condition that has required multiple surgeries. He has health insurance through Mid Continent that covers her.

“There’s a lot of good things that he is doing. But he’s affecting me now, and I don’t appreciate it,” Bennett, a Trump supporter, said of the president.

“I mean, I don’t expect him to come down here,” he added. “It’d be nice — and see what he’s affecting, and see the people he’s hurting.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trumps-tariffs-on-mexico-are-causing-layoffs-in-the-united-states/2018/07/18/03ec1e74-8473-11e8-9e80-403a221946a7_story.html?utm_term=.fc6e4bb408e7

July 18, 2018

"So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki

You just aren't smart enough to understand what Donald Trump was doing with Vladimir Putin


CNN)Just hours removed from attempting to clean up his disastrous performance beside Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki, President Donald Trump took to Twitter Wednesday morning to make a startling claim: Smart people recognized that the summit -- and the press conference that followed it — was actually a massive win for him (and the United States).

Trump tweeted. "Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!"


Let's break this down.
On the most basic level, Trump appears to be re-defending comments he made in the news conference with Putin that he spent Tuesday trying to get out from under. "I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place -- could be other people also," Trump said on Tuesday in an attempt to get beyond the chaos he created by saying that both sides deserved blame in Russian election interference in 2016 — even though Trump also seems to believe it's not entirely clear that Russia actually was the lone actor meddling in the last presidential campaign. (If you are confused by that, you are not alone. In the words of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski: "This is a very complicated case, Maude. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you's.&quot

Trump's tweet on Wednesday affirms the fact that he doesn't really think he said anything wrong with Putin. What Trump and his administration are trying to do is present the whole thing as one big mix-up -- when the President said "I don't see any reason why it would be" Russia meddling in the election, what he really meant to say was "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be." Explained Trump: "In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word 'would' instead of 'wouldn't.'"

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/18/politics/trump-putin-summit-helsinki/index.html

July 18, 2018

the kiss the cost CEO his job and $3 million was caught on camera

in restaurant, he grabs waitress and kisses her.. about 33 second in

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/43845-video-the-kiss-that-cost-a-mortgage-ceo-3-million-and-his-job

“You’ve been walking by me all night, and I want a kiss,” the 6-foot-4, 250-pound Englesbe allegedly told Lisi, grabbing her by the throat and planting a kiss on her, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

According to Fox News, Lisi soon after reported the incident to the management of the upscale restaurant, Scarpetta, and the police were called. Englesbe was not criminally charged, though the incident was caught on the restaurant’s surveillance camera.

Lisi won her case against Englesbe last week.

Englesbe resigned last week in the wake of the ruling, though no specific reason is given.

Daily managerial operations of the company will continue to be spearheaded by EMM President and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Crichton and current management team. Additionally, Crichton will be assuming responsibilities of the CEO, the company said in a statement.

July 18, 2018

Tucker Carlson's racist attempt to deflect outrage over the Trump-Putin saga

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/18/opinions/tucker-carson-mexico-lame-deflect-trump-russia-outrage-reyes/index.html

When in doubt, blame brown people. That's what one leading voice on the right is doing in response to the fallout over President Donald Trump's disastrous summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland.

In an interview with "The Five," Fox News host Tucker Carlson said that Russia had sought to meddle in US affairs. But he asserted that other countries, such as Mexico, have been more successful in doing so. "I don't think Russia is our close friend or anything like that. I think of course they try to interfere in our affairs. They have for a long time. Many countries do. Some more successfully than Russia, like Mexico, which is routinely interfering in our elections by packing our electorate."

Nice try. This is Carlson's attempt to deflect attention from the national outrage over Trump casting doubt on the US intelligence community's determination that Russia meddled in our 2016 election.



That this brand of racism is still alive and well speaks volumes about the state of conservative thought in the age of Trump. American citizens of Hispanic descent who are voting are participating in democracy. And for the record, there is no evidence to support Carlson's claims.