My president.
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Well I guess that’s all over now. I would have preferred justice for those young women.
Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced millionaire who was facing federal sex trafficking charges, died by suicide early Saturday in his Lower Manhattan prison cell, law enforcement sources and the Bureau of Prisons confirmed to ABC News.
Epstein hanged himself, the sources said.
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There are SO many questions on this one, like why the man MOST in danger of suicide or homicide in the prison system was taken off of suicide watch. The speculation is insane.
EPA REAUTHORIZES CONTROVERSIAL ‘CYANIDE BOMBS’ FOR KILLING WILD ANIMALS: ‘A COMPLETE DISASTER’
In other news…
Trump administration says it won’t approve Roundup cancer-warning labels
Khashoggi killing: Judge orders federal agencies release records
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Trump is re-tweeting right-wing conspiracy posts accusing the Clintons of having Jeffrey Epstein killed while naturally ignoring his own connections to the man and the fact that his DOJ removed the suicide watch and failed to keep Epstein surveilled. The height of hypocrisy.
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I don’t know why the media continues to sugar coat Trump’s appalling behavior. On CNN, the headline is similar: Trump promotes Epstein-Clintons conspiracy theory
Headlines should read: Trump Accuses Clintons of Murder. Because that’s exactly what he is doing. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. Without one shred of evidence, the President of the United States is claiming that a former President committed murder to cover up crimes. This is just too astounding to wrap my head around. 
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I agree…this is unheard of…well except we always hear the conspiratorial stuff coming from the T camp.
Quite a few legal types have written these renunciations
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More discussion of how to grasp this conspiratorial theory and what of it…? Are we in for more undecipherable news? …looks like it.
The dueling hashtags and their attendant toxicity are a grim testament to our deeply poisoned information ecosystem — one that’s built for speed and designed to reward the most incendiary impulses of its worst actors. It has ushered in a parallel reality unrooted in fact and helped to push conspiratorial thinking into the cultural mainstream. And with each news cycle, the system grows more efficient, entrenching its opposing camps. The poison spreads.
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Remember “The Mooch”?
Anthony Scaramucci, who famously served as President Trump’s communications director for 11 days, says Republicans may need to pick a different candidate in 2020.
Driving the news: In a phone interview on Sunday afternoon, Scaramucci compared Trump to a melting nuclear reactor and said he may support a Republican challenger to Trump.
- “We are now in the early episodes of ‘Chernobyl’ on HBO, where the reactor is melting down and the apparatchiks are trying to figure out whether to cover it up or start the clean-up process,” Scaramucci said.
- “A couple more weeks like this and ‘country over party’ is going to require the Republicans to replace the top of the ticket in 2020.”
Scaramucci, who has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates, including Trump’s 2016 campaign, said that if Trump “doesn’t reform his behavior, it will not just be me, but many others will be considering helping to find a replacement in 2020.”
- “Right now, it’s an unspeakable thing. But if he keeps it up, it will no longer be unspeakable. The minute they start speaking of it, it will circulate and be socialized. We can’t afford a full nuclear contamination site post 2020.”
The big picture: Scaramucci has said that Trump’s attacks on congresswomen of color “divide the country.” And yesterday the president attacked his former communications director in a couple of tweets.
- White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham had this short response to Scaramucci’s comments about opposing Trump in 2020: "It sounds like his feelings are hurt."
Why does the White House Coms team always sound like every lazy troll ever?
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So true. And here’s a list from CNN:
It is no longer surprising when President Donald Trump fuels a conspiracy theory online, as he did over the weekend with regard to the apparent suicide of multimillionaire financier and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
This is the man who built a political career by fanning the fringe of American politics with fevered insinuations or allegations, including, but not limited to the baseless theories that:
- Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US
- A rival’s father was in on the John F. Kennedy assassination
- The 2016 presidential election was rigged against him even though he won
- Millions voted illegally for Hillary Clinton
- The US government spied on his campaign
- There’s a deep state of bureaucrats organized against him
- The special counsel appointed by his Justice Department was actually a witch hunt organized by Democrats
He’s done a bang-up job on Twitter using the term “fake news” as a weapon against media organizations that deal in reporting and fact. And the ultimate irony is that he so often misleads his followers with fiction.
His latest trip into fantasy comes after the death of Epstein in a federal jail cell in New York.
Trump pushed a quick-moving conspiracy theory online that maybe the Clintons, his old nemeses, were involved. Never mind that as US President he’s got more to do with oversight of New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal facility, than a former President and Secretary of State.
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I don’t know why the media keeps reporting ANY of his tweets. It would cut down on the public angst if the regular media stopped repeating his inane crap. It’s time to stop!
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‘Casually tweeting out national secrets’: Internet stunned as Trump tweets about previously unknown US nukes
Trump tore out magazine picture of Justin Trudeau, scrawled odd message and mailed it to Canadian embassy, report claims
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A friend of mine who lived in Alaska tells me this is not an uncommon event; it can happen in cycles. The bears will have a feast on the dead fish. But if they have a banner year for cubs with the bounty this year and it happens against next year, it could be truly serious, especially for the long-term.
The water is so hot in Alaska it’s killing large numbers of salmon
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Wait continues on additions to VA’s Agent Orange connected illnesses
“They told us they were ready to go, and we haven’t gone anywhere,” said Rick Weidman, executive director for policy at Vietnam Veterans of America. “It feels like they just don’t want to spend any money on this.”
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This has been rumored for awhile – now it’s confirmed. There’s no AG Barr to obstruct this investigation. Let justice be served for Epstein’s victims. 
French prosecutors said Friday they are opening an investigation into possible crimes, including the rape of children and minors, related to the sex-trafficking case of deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The Paris Public Prosecutors’ Office said it was launching a “preliminary investigation” based in part on “the exchanges with the competent American authorities in the so-called ‘Epstein’ case,” according to a translation of that office’s statement.
The investigation “will aim to uncover possible offenses committed not only on the national territory, but also abroad to the detriment of French victims or in France against individuals of French nationality,” the statement said.
…
Epstein reportedly owned an apartment in a high-end Paris neighborhood near the Arc de Triomphe.
…
The French prosecutors’ investigation will look into a variety of crimes, such as rape, sexual assault of minors and conspiracy.
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I almost posted this in the humor thread. Just listen to Trump’s chief economic adviser squirm as he desperately tries to bring consistency to the wildly erratic pronouncements that Trump has been making. I mean it’s really laughable. Is Trump backing off on tariffs? Or is he thinking of raising them even higher? Or maybe just leaving them where they are now? Is he “hereby ordering” US businesses out of China? Or is he just making a suggestion? Who knows! We have never had a President as volatile (and infantile) as this one.
Business abhors instability – so on top of the damage he is doing with his tariff wars, Trump is creating an environment fraught with peril that will cause businesses to circle their wagons and rein in spending, exactly what we don’t need when we’re on the brink of a recession.
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President Trump asserted on Saturday that he has the authority to make good on his threat to force all American businesses to leave China, citing a national security law that has been used mainly to target terrorists, drug traffickers and pariah states like Iran, Syria and North Korea.
As he arrived in France for the annual meeting of the Group of 7 powers, Mr. Trump posted a message on Twitter citing the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, a law originally meant to enable a president to isolate criminal regimes, not sever economic ties with a major trading partner over a tariff dispute.
“For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc., try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Case closed!”
The president’s threat to all but cut off one of America’s most important trading relationships amid a so-far-unsuccessful trade war could disrupt a global economy already on the edge of recession while further unsettling companies in the United States that rely on China in their production of everything from clothing to smartphones.
Mr. Trump has often made drastic threats as a negotiating ploy to extract concessions, as when he vowed to close the border with Mexico or impose tariffs on its goods to compel action to halt illegal immigration. But if he were to follow through in this case, it would be the most significant break with China since President Richard M. Nixon’s diplomatic opening to Beijing in the early 1970s.
[…]
Peter Baum of Baum-Essex, a firm that makes products like umbrellas for Costco and cotton bags for Walmart, said he had already moved much of his manufacturing to factories in Vietnam and Cambodia over the last year because of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
As the trade war shows up in American cash registers, stock markets and retirement account statements, American shoppers and retirees will grow angry, Mr. Baum said.
“Both Trump and Xi have backed themselves into such a corner that this will go on through the U.S. election,” he said. “These two guys don’t realize that this could cause a global depression, not recession.”
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Trump expresses regret about escalating China trade war, then reverses course and says he wishes he raised tariffs higher
https://wapo.st/2zpxyQ5?tid=ss_tw
Mitch McConnell’s Nightmare Continues As Kentucky Coal Miners Expose Him As A Fraud
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Macron surprised everyone at the G7 with a visit from
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif!! So our fearless leader went back his room and didn’t come out until after the Foreign Minister was gone. 
How Macron Pulled a Fast One on Trump With a Gamble Over Iran
In a break in summit talks on Sunday afternoon, cameras caught British Prime Minister Boris Johnson congratulating his French host on his handling of a tense dinner the night before.
“Well played,” Johnson told Emmanuel Macron, breaking, momentarily, into French. Conversations between U.S. President Donald Trump and other Group of Seven leaders had grown heated around the issues of Iran and particularly Russia.
“You did very well last night,” Johnson went on. “My God, that was a difficult one.”
Macron’s response: “I’m not finished…”
[…]
Onboard, was Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Iran has divided the G-7 ever since Trump pulled out of a nuclear deal with the country in 2018. European countries want to salvage the agreement but the U.S. president is holding firm. Zarif himself is under U.S. sanctions and had his movements heavily restricted during a recent visit to New York.
Barack Obama’s team choreographed his movements around the United Nations headquarters in 2009 to avoid a chance run-in with the Iranians. Bringing Zarif to the same beach resort as Trump could easily be seen as a provocation for a U.S. administration that is very hostile to the Iranian regime.
[…]
By Sunday afternoon, Zarif was installed in the mayor of Biarritz’s office for three hours of meetings – including a brief greeting with Macron himself.
Trump retreated to his room in the Hotel du PalaIranian, just 500 meters away and didn’t reemerge until Zarif had left. You could almost pretend that the past six hours had never happened.
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Looks like T got a LOT of push back from the other five nations represented at the G7 when T insisted Russia be let back in…and only the outgoing head of Italy supported T. Seems like a lot of maneuvering around T and outpacing him. Even having no agreed upon joint statement that T could avoid signing was a good move by Macron.
Donald Trump has rowed with his fellow G7 leaders over his demand that Russia be readmitted to the group, rejecting arguments that it should remain an association of liberal democracies, according to diplomats at the summit in Biarritz.
The disagreement led to heated exchanges at a dinner on Saturday night inside the seaside resort’s 19th-century lighthouse. According to diplomatic sources, Trump argued strenuously that Vladimir Putin should be invited back, five years after Russia was ejected from the then G8) for its annexation of Crimea.
Of the other leaders around the table, only Giuseppe Conte, the outgoing Italian prime minister, offered Trump any support, according to this account. Shinzo Abe of Japan was neutral. The rest – the UK’s Boris Johnson, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, the EU council president, Donald Tusk, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron – pushed back firmly against the suggestion.
“On that point … it became a bit tense to say the least,” a European diplomat said. “Most of the other leaders insisted on this being a family, a club, a community of liberal democracies and for that reason they said you cannot allow President Putin – who does not represent that – back in.”
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