WTF Community

What The Fuck Happened Over The Weekend?

Thanks for posting all of this round up…it is head spinning. :exploding_head:

Will be away from the news for a few weeks (and posting)…thanks @Windthin @Pet_Proletariat @Keaton_James and @matt for rounding up all the news and keeping up with this extradinary torrent of news, impeachment hooo haaa, recent International crises with Iran which T just whipped up.

Watch Nancy slow walk McConnell down his own road of 'we do what we see is right to do."
See T splain away how much he does not want war.
See OMB possibly fess up…

And so much more…

Onward…2020’s gotta be the year T gets counter-punched.
:boxing_glove:

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@dragonfly9 - Wishing you the best as you are away from the news. We will miss you and will welcome your return! In the meantime, your expert sleuthing, keen eye, and perceptive analysis will be sorely missed. Cheers!

And yes, 2020 will be the year Trump is ousted – by the Senate, by the Courts, or by the People – one way or another, it will happen! :muscle:

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Thanks @Keaton_James!! No stone will go unturned with this posse…hitting it daily with truth to power.

Yes!!!

:hugs:

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@dragonfly9

Be well, enjoy your time off, and don’t worry, we’ll hold down the fort. I mean, I am typing this at 8:05 am on a Saturday.

Yeah, so ignore that bit. But have fun!

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Iran Iran So Far Away

The Trump Israeli-Palestinian “Peace” Plan was finally released this weekend.

It is an unmitigated disaster so bad that Palestinian officials have cut ALL ties with the U.S. and Israel, even security ones.

Palestinians cut ties with Israel and US after rejecting Trump peace plan

Trump regime hopes that a coalition of Arab countries it has built over the last several years would prevent a resolution from Arab League foreign ministers rejecting the Trump peace plan were also dashed.

When Jared Kushner on CNN accused the Palestinians of ‘screwing up another opportunity,’ he not only overlooked Israel’s own screw-ups, but entirely mischaracterized the Trump plan as an opportunity for peace

By giving Israel a greenlight to do this, it can be argued their status as a democracy is in danger & U.S. support will continue to wane as they advance a unilateral “solution” while blaming Palestinians for rejecting a poor-faith proposal.

Sign Up to Trump’s Peace Plan, Sign Away Israel’s Special Status in America

By giving Israel a green light to do whatever it wants, the Trump plan threatens its very future as a democracy. That will change how Democrats view Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship – possibly profoundly


The plan effectively lets Israel annex most of the West Bank, including many illegal settlements, while retaining full control over Palestinian lands and security to the degree Israel need not agree to even a nominal Palestinian state.

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GAO probes alleged political bias in Trump’s farm bailout program (a bailout for a mess he made)

Republicans sure hate those “evil” social programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, but oddly will make an exception for Trump’s version of a social program that effectively bribes their constituents to vote for them. And to top it off, it’s now becoming clear that the money was distributed, not according to need, but according to who is in Trump’s pocket. :moneybag:

The U.S. Government Accountability Office is opening a review of President Trump’s $28 billion bailout for farmers harmed by his trade war amid allegations that the money was mismanaged and allocated unfairly.

The investigation came at the request of Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, who has been vocal in her concern that the aid program was biased, providing more funds to southern states that voted for Mr. Trump and favoring large and foreign agriculture companies over small farms.

The Trump administration, which signed an initial trade deal with China last month, said the farm subsidies would end this year. The program began in 2018 as a $12 billion effort to mitigate losses for farmers who lost sales or faced retaliatory tariffs from China, the European Union, Canada and Mexico as a result of the trade war. The program grew to $28 billion last year as Mr. Trump’s conflict with China festered.

Critics have faulted the program for the formulas it used to determine payments for certain crops and for providing funds to big corporate farms. The program, which used a Depression-era fund, allowed farmers earning less than $900,000 a year to receive money if they produced one of the agricultural products that faced retaliation. The government also purchased certain products, such as apples, oranges and pork.

“It’s clear that the Trump administration’s trade assistance payments pick winners and losers rather than help the farmers who have been hit the hardest by this president’s trade policies,” Ms. Stabenow said in a statement on Friday.

Ms. Stabenow requested that the G.A.O. study why payments disproportionately went to large farm operations, if the Agriculture Department was effectively preventing fraud, waste and abuse in the program and whether the model the U.S.D.A. used to distribute payments accurately reflected trade damage that farmers experienced. Democrats have complained that the program paid subsidies to some farmers that did not need them while leaving those that were suffering from Mr. Trump’s tariff war with China without benefits.

The G.A.O. is a nonpartisan congressional watchdog that audits government programs. The agency notified Ms. Stabenow’s office in a letter transmitted on Thursday that it would take up the investigation.

Democrats are not the only ones that have expressed concerns with the farm bailout program.

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, joined with Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, in asking Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, to investigate JBS, a Brazilian-owned meat-processing that received $67 million in bailout funds. Lawmakers raised concerns about the payments given the company’s past legal problems: In 2017, two of JBS’s former top executives, brothers Wesley Batista and Joesley Batista, pleaded guilty to corruption charges in Brazil. The brothers remain majority shareholders with control over the company.

Mr. Rubio and Mr. Menendez also asked the Treasury Department to investigate possible ties that JBS has with the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, whom the United States does not recognize as the legitimate president.

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Trump has flipped the 9th Circuit — and some new judges are causing a ‘shock wave’

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This hacking by one of Katie Hill’s team may well have stolen the CA-25 House seat from Bryan Caforio, a Democrat, who was barely edged out in the primary by Hill, also a Democrat. In an alternate universe (sans shameful hacking by Hill), Caforio won the seat for the Democrats instead of Hill, and then did not resign following a scandal as Hill did. And in that universe, we the Democrats would still be comfortably holding this seat and not wasting precious resources trying to protect it in a special election. Bottom line: Election hacking must be called out and extinguished by all parties. If allowed to spread, it will rot our democracy from within. Are you listening, Mr. Trump?

Federal agents arrested a man in California on Friday on a charge of computer hacking for attacks that disrupted the website of a California Democratic congressional candidate in 2018.

The man, Arthur Dam, is married to a former fundraiser for the campaign of former Rep. Katie Hill, who won the race for California’s 25th District, according to a criminal complaint.

Hill later resigned from office after nude photos of her were published on a conservative blog and allegations surfaced of an inappropriate relationship with staffers.

Dam is accused of conducting Distributed Denial of Service attacks against one of Hill’s opponents. In such an attack, a website is overloaded with traffic, causing it to crash and go offline.

Hill said she was “surprised and disturbed” by the news.

Federal Election Commission records show Dam donated hundreds of dollars to Hill’s campaign, including one contribution with a memo line reading, “In kind: Graphic design and website security consultation.”

Democrat Bryan Caforio, a California attorney who lost to Hill in the primary by less than 3,000 votes, said he was the target of the attacks. Reports at the time said his website was compromised during a candidate debate, which the complaint notes.

The four attacks took down the website for a total of about 21 hours, according to the complaint.

“The Victim reported suffering losses, including website downtime, a reduction in campaign donations, and time spent by campaign staff and others conducting critical incident response,” the complaint reads.

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Trump is gaslighting again.




Basically, Robert O’Brien, a man who worked for Scott Walker and Ted Cruz before being appointed by Donald Trump as his National Security Adviser, ACTUALLY stated he had “got the information second hand”; that he has not seen any reports saying that. Meaning he’s seen nothing, likely on purpose so he can make these denials.

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Judge is saying that Roger Stone may not make a statement with the words ""Judge and “bias.” In other words, he won’t be given an opportunity to spray his disinformation campaign. Don’t worry T will certainly do that.

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We have a joke in my household: loudest bird wins.

This is the primary tenet of the Trump regime, that if you shout it loud enough, it will become true.

And so Trump keeps shouting “PROMISES KEPT.”

But they are not.




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Trump tweeted out a blatant lie against Gavin Newsome this morning in a tactic designed to attack a major rival and gaslight in favor of Roger Stone.

Newsome actually declared a moratorium on the death penalty and still supports life sentences. Trump basically invoked the age-old GOP lie of “the Dems are releasing criminals!”

It’s a tactic best remembered from Bush’s use of Willie Horton against Dukakis:
Bush Made Willie Horton an Issue in 1988, and the Racial Scars Are Still Fresh

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Dow drops more than 900 points as coronavirus cases outside of China surge





https://twitter.com/girlsreallyrule/status/1231941738748575744

And most frightening of all, people who get it may not get tested for fear of going broke:


https://twitter.com/CREWcrew/status/1231908208228343808


Michael McFaul has a thread on Trump’s occasional talking point of “nobody is tougher on Putin than me!”

It does, of course, expose that as a total lie. Please read it:


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Press conference on Saturday…T is going after the unsual suspects…

And for F’s sake…

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Coronavirus concerns come in a distant second in eastern Africa, where a second, larger wave of locusts, 20 times bigger than the first (which was already the largest in 70 years), threatens millions.

Trump Campaign Secretly Paying $180,000 A Year To His Sons’ Significant Others

Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle are each receiving $15,000 per month through the campaign manager’s private company, GOP sources said, to dodge FEC rules.

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‘They’re killing us,’ Texas residents say of Trump rollbacks


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When asked about stoking more racial violence, Trump says MAGA loves black people. :woman_shrugging:t2:

Click tweet for video :point_down:


Adding this story to give more context the the amount of unrest and anger within our country juxtaposed to President’s response above.

National Guard summoned to aid cities amid police clashes

Protesters burned businesses in Minneapolis. They smashed police cars and windows in Atlanta, broke into police headquarters in Portland, Oregon, and chanted curses at President Donald Trump outside the White House. Thousands also demonstrated peacefully, demanding justice for George Floyd, a black man who died after a white officer pressed a knee into his neck.

As anger over Floyd’s killing spread to cities nationwide, local leaders increasingly said they could need help from National Guardsmen or even military police to contain the unrest.

Georgia’s governor declared a state of emergency early Saturday to activate the state National Guard as violence flared in Atlanta. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler also declared an emergency and ordered a nighttime curfew for the city.

Another 500 Guard soldiers were mobilized in and around Minneapolis, where Floyd died and an officer faced charges Friday in his death. But after another night of watching fires burn and businesses ransacked, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said early Saturday that he was moving to activate more than 1,000 more and was considering federal help.

The Guard was also on standby in the District of Columbia, where a crowd grew outside the White House and chanted curses at President Donald Trump. Some protesters tried to push through barriers set up by the U.S. Secret Service along Pennsylvania Avenue, and threw bottles and other objects at officers wearing riot gear, who responded with pepper spray.

“I just feel like he’s just one of many names that we’ve had to create hashtags and T-shirts and campaigns for and I feel like nothing has changed,” district resident Abe Neri said of Floyd. “And so that’s why I’m out here. Yeah, when you say nothing you’re taking the side of the oppressor.”

Many protesters echoed that frustration, that Floyd’s death was one more in a litany. The anger that seized the nation comes in the wake of the killing in Georgia of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot after being pursued by a white father and son while running in their neighborhood, and in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic that has thrown millions out of work, killed more than 100,000 people in the U.S. and disproportionately affected black people.

In scenes both peaceful and violent across the nation, thousands of protesters chanted “No justice, no peace” and “Say his name. George Floyd.” They hoisted signs reading: “He said I can’t breathe. Justice for George.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted that up to 500 members of the Guard would deploy immediately “to protect people & property in Atlanta.” He said he acted at the request of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who earlier appealed in vain for calm.

Some demonstrators smashed police cars and spray-painted the iconic logo sign at CNN headquarters in downtown Atlanta. At least three officers were hurt and there were multiple arrests, Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos said, as protesters shot at officers with BB guns and threw bricks, bottles and knives.

Atlanta officials said crews were temporarily unable to reach a fire at Del Frisco’s restaurant in the Buckhead neighborhood several miles north because of protesters there.

“This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Bottoms said. “You are disgracing the life of George Floyd and every other person who has been killed in this country.”

Bottoms was flanked by King’s daughter, Bernice King, and rappers T.I. and Killer Mike.

“We have to be better than burning down our own homes. Because if we lose Atlanta what have we got?” said Killer Mike, crying as he spoke.

A person was killed in downtown Detroit just before midnight after someone in an SUV fired shots into a crowd of protesters near the Greektown entertainment district, police said. In Portland, Oregon, protesters broke into police headquarters and authorities said they lit a fire inside. In Virginia’s capital, a police cruiser was set on fire outside Richmond police headquarters, and a city transit spokeswoman said a bus set ablaze was “a total loss,” news outlets reported.

Video posted to social media showed New York City officers using batons and shoving protesters down as they took people into custody and cleared streets. One video showed on officer slam a woman to the ground as he walked past her in the street.

Demonstrators rocked a police van, set it ablaze, scrawled graffiti across its charred body and set it aflame again as officers retreated. Blocks away, protesters used a club to batter another police vehicle. The police department said numerous officers were injured.

The names of black people killed by police, including Floyd and Eric Garner, who died on Staten Island in 2014, were on signs and in chants.

“Our country has a sickness. We have to be out here,” said Brianna Petrisko, among those at lower Manhattan’s Foley Square, where most were wearing masks amid the coronavirus pandemic. “This is the only way we’re going to be heard.”

Protesters in Houston, where Floyd grew up, included 19-year-old Jimmy Ohaz from the nearby city of Richmond, Texas: “My question is how many more, how many more? I just want to live in a future where we all live in harmony and we’re not oppressed.”

Demonstrators on the West Coast blocked highways in Los Angeles and Oakland, California.

About 1,000 protesters in Oakland smashed windows, sprayed buildings with “Kill Cops” graffiti and were met with chemical spray from police, who said several officers were injured by projectiles.

One Los Angeles officer received medical treatment, police said. An LAPD vehicle had its windows smashed, and at least one city bus was vandalized. Police declared an unlawful assembly throughout downtown, where aerial footage from KTLA-TV showed scored of people corralled by police.

San Jose, California, police said that Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies shot at a fleeing SUV that was shown on video striking protesters, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Protesters repeatedly clashed with police in San Jose, said Mayor Sam Liccardo, and police responded with flash-bang grenades and rubber bullets. One officer was hospitalized with a non-life-threatening injury, officials said.

Liccardo said his city’s officers shared the community’s outrage over Floyd’s death.

“It was a horrible injustice,” he told the AP.

Portland, Oregon, police said at least one shooting was tied to the protest, although details weren’t immediately released. Two people were arrested during overnight riots in which protesters set fires throughout downtown and smashed storefront windows, police said, but arrest details were immediately available.

Police, who declared the protest a riot, said they deployed gas after people threw projectiles at them.

Mayor Wheeler tweeted a plea to protesters to remain peaceful and said that, while he had left the city to attend to his dying mother, he was heading back. He later declared a state of emergency.

“Portland, this is not us,” he wrote. “How does this honor the legacy of George Floyd?”

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:woman_shrugging:t2:

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