USA under presidency of a know-nothing, neo-fascist, racist, sexist, mobbed-up narcissist!!

[Peter Lemkin]

JUNE 26, 2017 | MARTIN J. SHEIL

WHY DONALD TRUMP SHOULD BE NERVOUS

Could Trump's Suspicious Financial Transactions Be Scrutinized?

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, President Donald Trump. Photo credit: FBI and Gage Skidmore / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Editor's note: Martin J. Sheil is a retired branch chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation division.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has apparently expanded his investigation of the Trump campaign's connections to Russia to include examination of suspicious financial transactions of White House-connected individuals.
Recent media reports have indicated that the finances of Trump campaign associates Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Paige, Roger Stone and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner are coming under Mueller's microscope.
This raises important questions: Will President Donald Trump's finances and his tax returns be next? What might such a financial inquiry of Trump himself find? What led Mueller to broaden his investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election to now include the finances of Trump associates?
WhoWhatWhy recently discussed how following the money might turn out with regard to Flynn. WhoWhatWhy has also recently looked into possible illegal dealings with Russian officials by Kushner.
Answers to these questions might well be found in the vast financial repository of the US Treasury organization, the Financial Criminal Enforcement Network, also known as FinCEN.
Left to right: Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Carter Page. Photo credit: US Embassy in Syria, Lori Berkowitz Photography / Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0), Watch the video on C-SPAN, Watch the video on C-SPAN and MSNBC / YouTube (Creative Commons Attribution license reuse allowed).

Done in by the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act

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The Trump administration has reason to be worried: Financial shenanigans have tripped up notable political figures in the past.
In 2008, Eliot Spitzer resigned as Governor of New York after embarrassing revelations that he had engaged an escort service while he was married.
The Spitzer investigation was triggered by a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) issued by a New York bank and filed with the IRS. Special Agents with the IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) reviewed the SAR, which indicated suspicious financial dealings by two shell companies.
Upon drilling down, the IRS agents found that someone by the name of Spitzer was making wire transfers totaling just under $10,000; the money ultimately ended up at the escort service supplying Spitzer with companions for his scandalous soirees at the Mayflower Hotel.
Ex-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was indicted in May of 2015 for violating bank reporting requirements. The indictment accused Hastert of structuring withdrawals to avoid these reporting requirements, and lying to the FBI about the nature of the withdrawals.
It came out that Hastert had agreed to pay $3.5M in hush money to keep someone quiet about his "prior misconduct." The banks that Hastert frequented, the indictment stated, were required to "prepare and file with FinCEN, a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) for any transaction or series of transactions involving currency of more than $10,000."
From 2010 to 2012, Hastert made 15 withdrawals of $50,000 from multiple bank accounts in order to make the hush money payments, according to the indictment. The Huffington Post, among other media, reported that one or more of the banks flagged the transactions as suspicious.
Spitzer and Hastert are only two of the well-known politicians ensnared by the Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act, which together form the substantive efforts of the Federal Government to ensure that the American banking system is not willy nilly manipulated to facilitate financial transactions involving proceeds derived from unlawful activities.

The Investigator's Weapons

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Should a bank identify suspicious financial transactions by a customer, it is required to file a SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) with FinCEN. The SAR reports are reviewed periodically by designated law enforcement agencies that participate in what are known as Financial Investigative Task Forces. SARs are also available in the FinCEN database to law enforcement members who have been given access by both their agencies and FinCEN.
Eliot Spitzer and Dennis Hastert. Photo credit: Timothy Krause / Flickr (CC BY 2.0) and US Navy / Wikimedia.

Experienced financial investigators embark on sensitive investigations by querying FinCEN databases, using available target identifiers such as Social Security and phone numbers.
As in the Spitzer case, a Suspicious Activity Report from a bank often leads investigators to probe deeper. The next step is often a FinCEN query; such queries are quick and easy, providing immediate results that can be followed up with bank subpoenas to sustain the investigation.
In most cases, investigators will only request tax returns later in the process, since such requests are governed by strict IRS disclosure protocols and criteria, which are listed in the federal tax code.

Turning to Tax Returns

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One person in the Russian investigation who may have revealing tax returns is Michael Flynn. We know that he received specific items of income from foreign sources namely Russia and Turkey in 2015 and 2016. We also know that Flynn failed to disclose at least some of these payments on his Security Disclosure forms, and also failed to communicate the receipt of the income to the appropriate authorities at the Department of Defense (DoD), as required and directed.
Mueller would be well advised to request Flynn's personal and business tax returns to determine whether, in addition to his disclosure forms, he concealed the foreign income on his tax returns.
This would further document Flynn's overt acts of concealment of the income and help ascertain whether Flynn knowingly failed to disclose such income a finding necessary to prosecute him.
Although Mueller likely will pursue Flynn's tax returns, this might not be productive in Trump's case, at least for the time being.
Mueller can obtain Trump's tax returns via grand jury (GJ) subpoena or he can file what is known as an ex parte 6(e) request with IRS. This requires an affidavit outlining detailed probable cause as to the likelihood that Trump's tax returns are false or would serve as material leads to evidence of a crime, e.g. money laundering. This 6(e) request must be signed off by a federal judge. Both of these methods of requesting tax returns can be slow.
Should Mueller opt for use of a GJ subpoena, Trump's tax returns will be forever shielded from public scrutiny given that they would fall under GJ secrecy requirements.
The quickest way for Mueller to obtain tax returns would be to request IRS Criminal investigators be assigned to the Special Counsel's investigation. IRS special agents can then use internal protocols to quickly obtain whatever tax returns they need.

What Should Make Trump Nervous

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Mueller will undoubtedly jump through the hoops needed to obtain Trump's tax returns if the investigation reaches the point where the returns can be informative and probative of potential crimes as in the Flynn situation.
It is likely that Mueller's team will first exhaust FinCEN queries before requesting tax returns. Criminal tax crimes are historical in nature, and usually require proof of a pattern of evasion over two or more past years; for this reason, tax investigations can drag on for years.
Investigations of money laundering, however, focus on more recent or contemporary individual financial transactions that are characterized as "present-day tax evasion" or tax evasion in progress.
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. Photo credit: The White House / Flickr

Investigations of individual financial transactions such as payment of millions of dollars for a luxury condominium with proceeds of a specified unlawful activity can be quicker than long, drawn-out criminal tax cases. Money laundering charges also pack a wallop with up to a 20-year prison sentence for each count of the indictment, compared to the three to five-year penalty for tax charges. Every prosecutor looks for maximum flexibility in terms of charges and potential sentences with which to leverage the subjects of their investigations.

Damning Frames of Reference

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A tax return is most informative when examined within a frame of reference. For example, any probe of Flynn's tax returns would compel the agent to look for the already known specific amounts of income received by Flynn from Russia and Turkey via Flynn's LLCs. The foreign income needs to be examined separate and apart from any income received from his government salary, or paid to Flynn by the Trump campaign and likely reported on Flynn's SF-86 Disclosure forms.
Mueller now has possession of Trump's 2017 Financial Disclosure statement which makes his 2017 tax return fairly superfluous. Surely he would be interested in whether Trump listed any foreign bank accounts or foreign bank account activity on his Schedule B of his personal tax return. Trump's Financial Disclosure forms list hundreds of entities, many of which are LLC's, that he has joint investment interest.
Without a frame of reference, tracing income from real estate sales through hundreds of LLCs owned by Trump, and from shell company LLCs owned by the buyers, would be a challenge to the best of financial investigative teams.
This is where reference to FinCEN databases can help. The team investigating Trump will need to construct massive spreadsheets to list all of the properties and corresponding LLCs that Trump uses to control the sale and leasing of his properties.
Donald Trump's Financial Disclosure Report, 2017. Photo credit: documentcloud.org

His Financial Disclosure form lists approximately 500 companies/properties, a figure substantially confirmed by USA Today's lengthy catalogue. We know from Trump's disclosures that he has approximately $315 million in liabilities, the bulk of which emanate from Deutsche Bank, which has been the subject of multiple money laundering queries here and abroad.
More spreadsheets will be needed to corroborate those loans from Trump's business and personal tax returns. We also know from Trump's disclosure forms that he had minimum foreign investments and liabilities. A FinCEN analysis of their Foreign Bank Account Record database in concert with review of Trump's Schedule B should provide confirmation of his bank accounts and whether he has any overseas accounts.

Elusive Shell Corporations

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Foreign buyers of Trump luxury condos who conduct their investments through shell corporations called LLCs, and route their investments through offshore LLC bank accounts have come under suspicion of trying to "launder" ill gotten foreign monies by converting their income into above-board holdings of American real estate.
Not much was done about the situation over the years and many real estate moguls located in the big cities of the US profited greatly from US governmental inaction. Trump was one of them. The media is replete with stories of the many hundreds of luxury Trump condos sold to foreign- owned shell companies over decades.
Many of these properties were paid for without any mortgage loans, making the transactions all cash. Trump's sons were famously quoted in 2016, boasting of the influx of millions of dollars of Russian money invested in Trump properties.
So how does Mueller pin down the identities of the individual foreign investor into Trump properties? Tax returns will not be helpful, given the anonymous nature of the transactions.
Trump Tower Photo credit: CEBImagery / Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

USA Today has documented the sale of at least 58 units for about $90M by Trump companies since Trump announced his candidacy. Half of those sales were to LLCs.
While the President is immune from most conflict-of-interest rules that govern the rest of government employees, it would still be informative to know just who is buying Trump luxury condos and for how much.
This information could be valuable in deciding whether Trump violated the Emoluments provision of the Constitution, which bars sitting presidents from receiving income from any "foreign State." Multiple lawsuits are brewing on this very issue. Documentation of the sales of Trump properties to foreign owners would be central to any such suits. Should Congress find that Trump violated the Emoluments Clause, impeachment proceedings could be initiated.

Geographic Targeting Order (GTO)

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While we don't have Trump tax returns to pore over with regard to the sale of Trump luxury condos to foreigners, the government can use a recently devised financial tool directed at luxury real estate sales for cash.
This FinCEN mechanism is called a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO). It was first implemented on March 1, 2016, to require title insurance companies to identify the individuals behind large "all cash" purchases of high-end residential real estate in Miami and Manhattan transacted through shell companies. Using this GTO, FinCEN discovered that a significant portion of the transactions were linked to possible criminal activity by the individuals behind the shell company purchases.
This GTO is a powerful investigative tool because it penetrates shell companies (LLCs) by requiring title insurance companies to identify persons with a 25% or greater ownership interest in a legal entity purchasing residential real property without a bank loan or similar external financing above certain transaction thresholds, e.g., Manhattan $3 million, Brooklyn $1.5 million, Los Angeles $2 million, and $1 million for Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties in Florida.
Official portrait of former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who served from September 4, 2001 to September 4, 2013. Photo credit: FBI

So now Mueller has a real tool the GTO to apply to the dozens of properties sold by Trump companies to what may be shell corporations in the months since Trump announced his candidacy. If the Trump representative on the sale side of the all-cash transaction can be shown to have been aware that the buyer was investing illicit proceeds, that seller can be charged with conspiring to money launder or aiding and assisting money laundering.
Finally, if the buyers of Trump condos are really citizens of foreign countries who have used foreign-derived funds to invest in Trump properties since the inauguration, then Trump may well have violated the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution.
All of the above can be established without ever looking at Trump's tax returns however much we may want to see them. The Watergate investigation led to multiple criminal tax violations as a result of following the money. Given the evolution of modern financial investigative techniques and technology, Russiagate has the potential to expose multiple money laundering violations.
FinCEN databases are likely more critical to Mueller's probe than tax returns. But Mueller needs to staff his team with the best financial investigators in the world IRS Criminal Investigation and not rely solely on the newly created FBI money laundering unit reputedly tasked with this most challenging assignment.

[Peter Lemkin]

Poor women of color set to lose big under TrumpCare

[FONT=&amp]BY MAYA ROCKEYMOORE, - 06/26/17 [/FONT]

© Getty Images

[FONT=&amp][FONT=&amp]Remember when the Occupy Wall Street movement and Thomas Piketty's book caused policymakers on both sides of the aisle to wring their hands about growing inequality in America?
That was then, this is now.
The Republican's recent unveiling of their Senate health bill, which closely resembles their House version, illustrates that the GOP doesn't care about reducing inequality but is committed to expanding it.
I'm not just talking about the fact that both bills take critical resources away from low-, moderate-, and middle-income households to subsidize the wealth of the rich a form of class warfare and a gross bastardization of the family values the GOP once claimed to possess.
I'm talking about the fact that the world is watching as the Republican Party deliberately and systematically restructures the U.S. healthcare system to make it harder for a majority of Americans, but especially those whom they hold in low regard, to access care, stay out of debt, be healthy, live with dignity, or even live life.
And make no mistake, their health care bills make it clear whom they view as undeserving.
With the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, uninsured rates went down for all racial and ethnic groups but reductions were especially significant among people of color who benefitted from Medicaid expansion, the creation of the ACA marketplaces, and subsidies that made insurance more affordable.
Indeed, the ACA even managed to eliminate the disparities in coverage between black and white childrena feat that underscores how carefully crafted policies can close racial disparities that too many have incorrectly come to view as a natural part of life.
Yet, the so called Better Care Reconciliation Act and the American Health Care Act would reverse these critical gains by enacting provisionssuch as gutting Medicaid and cutting subsidiesthat would have a disproportionately negative impact on low-income people of colorexacerbating their already greater likelihood of being uninsured, sick and without the resources to get ahead in life.
Perhaps not surprising for a Senate bill crafted by 13 white men under the cloak of secrecy, women fare no better. The GOP who have made the sanctity of the unborn fetus a political rallying cry, have highlighted their hypocrisy yet again by designing Senate and House health bills that could make it prohibitively expensive for women to give birth to them.
Under the guise of offering more affordable insurance plan choices, the health bills make insurance coverage for childbirth optional. Coupled with the draconian reductions in Medicaid, which is the nation's largest payer of U.S. deliveries, they are creating deliberate disincentives for low- and moderate- income women, especially those of color, from giving birth to children while making the act of childbirth financially viable only for wealthier, and by statistical definition, whiter women.
The fidelity of their assault on low-, moderate-, and middle-income women is reinforced by multiple prohibitions against federal dollars or tax credits going towards financing abortions, which reiniforces the GOP's long-time efforts to force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term even as they make it financially perilous for many women to birth a baby.
And of course, no Republican bill would be complete without taking a gratuitous swipe at Planned Parenthood, which the Senate bill defunds for one year even though the organization is already prohibited from using federal dollars to finance abortion services.
This effort contradicts the GOP's supposed free market principles by using legislation to attempt to put the organization out of business. It also unjustifiably narrows healthcare options for consumers who choose to receive their health care services at Planned Parenthood.
Disregard for the dignity and livelihoods of older adults is also a hallmark of Republican health bills as seniors on limited incomes will be required to pay more for health care and may lose their ability to access nursing home care and other financial assistance due to Medicaid cuts.
The mentally ill, children, and those with preexisting conditions who rely on prescription drugs are among other groups who will be unfairly and severely disadvantaged by Trumpcare.
By advancing health bills designed to further impoverish already struggling families, the biggest takeaway from the GOP's efforts to repeal the ACA is that only the wealthy are deserving of federal support; everyone else is on their own.
Instead of being a great achievement in fiscal discipline, GOP health bills represent a failure of leadership; a historical departure from almost a century of grand policy initiatives seeking to reduce inequality by providing a better standard of living for all Americans.
That their efforts will cause untold millions of low-, moderate-, and middle-income workers and their families to experience preventable financial crises and to go without life-saving health coverageleading to unnecessary pain, suffering and early death will be a source of national shame if enacted and another signal to the world that U.S. is in decline.
Under Republican rule it seems that profound cruelty and disregard for the value of human life is the new American way.


[/FONT]

[/FONT]

[Peter Lemkin]

Senate GOP Healthcare Bill Estimated to Kill 28,600 More in U.S. Each Year & Drop 22,000,000 from Insurance in the first years...more afterwards. Unknown tens of millions would see premiums rise while coverage would fall.

the bottom line:

If you can't afford good private healthcare, you don't deserve your health or your life. It is Social Darwinism.

[Peter Lemkin]

Good short video by Naomi Klein on what Trump and those behind Trump have up their sleeves and how to prepare and resist. This is based on her work in the Shock Doctrine. http://theintercept.com/2017/06/13/video...-doctrine/

[Lauren Johnson]

Good short video by Naomi Klein on what Trump and those behind Trump have up their sleeves and how to prepare and resist. This is based on her work in the Shock Doctrine. http://theintercept.com/2017/06/13/video...-doctrine/

If I were going to write a novel along these lines, the story line would go like this: multiple dirty bombs are set off in Washington, D.C. and New York. (Of course, they aren't really dirty, but who needs to know.) ISIS is behind it since one of the terrorist dropped his ISIS id card. Trump shown on TV visiting dying victims, even to the point of him holding a child in his arms as she dies. He rises up and vows revenge. Then there is an outbreak of smaller dirty bombs across the country -- they are in cities, small towns, and in many symbolic areas. The finale happens on July 4th when a pregnant Christian mother is thrown off the Seattle Space Needle and is blown up with fireworks attached as well. The story line is complete -- ISIS is everywhere, killing freedom loving Americans and laughing at us.

Most shockingly, it turns out that the radioactive material has been smuggled into the country in container ships using some containers labeled as "diplomatic pouches." It turns out that the ratlines are being run by Hillary and the arch fiend Barack Hussein Obama simulating other countries' diplomatic pouches -- stabbed in the back by the Democrats and liberals.

In the meantime, a Constitutional Convention has been convened to improve the out of date Constitution. The Bill of Rights in particular is re-worded to include some exceptions.

You can see where this is going. Our dear leader vows to cleanse the country and the world of vermin. The Fourth Reich has risen from the ashes.

[Peter Lemkin]

Good short video by Naomi Klein on what Trump and those behind Trump have up their sleeves and how to prepare and resist. This is based on her work in the Shock Doctrine. http://theintercept.com/2017/06/13/video...-doctrine/

If I were going to write a novel along these lines, the story line would go like this: multiple dirty bombs are set off in Washington, D.C. and New York. (Of course, they aren't really dirty, but who needs to know.) ISIS is behind it since one of the terrorist dropped his ISIS id card. Trump shown on TV visiting dying victims, even to the point of him holding a child in his arms as she dies. He rises up and vows revenge. Then there is an outbreak of smaller dirty bombs across the country -- they are in cities, small towns, and in many symbolic areas. The finale happens on July 4th when a pregnant Christian mother is thrown off the Seattle Space Needle and is blown up with fireworks attached as well. The story line is complete -- ISIS is everywhere, killing freedom loving Americans and laughing at us.

Most shockingly, it turns out that the radioactive material has been smuggled into the country in container ships using some containers labeled as "diplomatic pouches." It turns out that the ratlines are being run by Hillary and the arch fiend Barack Hussein Obama simulating other countries' diplomatic pouches -- stabbed in the back by the Democrats and liberals.

In the meantime, a Constitutional Convention has been convened to improve the out of date Constitution. The Bill of Rights in particular is re-worded to include some exceptions.

You can see where this is going. Our dear leader vows to cleanse the country and the world of vermin. The Fourth Reich has risen from the ashes.

In fact, little known or reported, the main reason, IMO, Republicans have been working very hard to win statehouses and state legislatures IS to be able to convene a Constitutional Convention. I believe they are currently only a few states away from the possibility of doing this. Given that 'SHOCK' has been used to change the form of government and laws on liberties and rights in so many countries and locations in the past by US entities, there is no reason to believe they won't try it again on the entire Nation - in fact, I believe this has long been the plan and 9-11 was one step in that effort, as was 11-22-63 and many others......heads up! The constitutional convention would not be necessary, but would certainly make it easier to pull something like this off - and make it more permanent. ::darthvader::

[Peter Lemkin]

[FONT=&amp]Donald Trump physically attacks CNN in tweeted video
[/FONT]The tweet was put on the official account of the POTUS - and thus can not by law be removed.

[FONT=&amp]The footage was originally from WrestleMania 23
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]BREANNE L. HELDMAN@BREANNENYC [/FONT][FONT=&amp]POSTED ON JULY 2, 2017 AT 9:48AM ED[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp][URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881503147168071680"]

[/URL]

[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"]Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump[/URL]

#FraudNewsCNN #FNN
3:21 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[FONT=&amp]Donald Trump's attack on CNN just got physical.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]On Sunday morning, the president continued to exercise "MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL" behavior and tweeted a video of himself bodyslamming a man with the CNN logo for a head. "#FraudNewsCNN #FNN," read the caption.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]"It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters," CNN said in a statement of response. "Clearly, Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the President had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his."[/FONT]

[URL="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy"]Oliver Darcy
@oliverdarcy[/URL]

CNN: Trump "involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office" https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/881521502541144064 …
4:35 PM - 2 Jul 2017

• [URL="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=881521777071058944"]
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5h
[URL="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy"]Oliver Darcy
@oliverdarcy[/URL]

CNN's official response: https://twitter.com/cnnpr/status/881516287104516096 …

[URL="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy"]Oliver Darcy
@oliverdarcy[/URL]

Full statement from CNN pic.twitter.com/rpfMUex7gw
4:34 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[FONT=&amp]The footage comes from WrestleMania 23, which took place in 2007. The man whose head has been swapped for a CNN logo is WWE CEO himself Vince McMahon. According to CNN host Brian Stelter, the meme surfaced on Reddit four days earlier. (Watch the original video below.)[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]This latest tweet follows a headline-packed few days for Trump's social media profile, starting with his attack of Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski Thursday morning, which has continued since, and his ongoing campaign against CNN, which he deemed "#FraudNewsCNN" on Saturday evening.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]"The FAKE & FRAUDULENT NEWS MEDIA is working hard to convince Republicans and others I should not use social media but remember, I won the 2016 election with interviews, speeches and social media," he said Saturday. "I had to beat #FakeNews, and did. We will continue to WIN! My use of social media is not Presidential it's MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again!"[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]He added, "I am thinking about changing the name #FakeNews CNN to #FraudNewsCNN!"[/FONT]

[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump"]Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump[/URL]

I am thinking about changing the name #FakeNews CNN to #FraudNewsCNN!
12:08 AM - 2 Jul 2017

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[FONT=&amp]Needless to say, Trump was vilified on social media for the implications of the video, which shows the current President of the United States beating up the news media. Many cited Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders' recent claims about Trump following his personal attacks against Brzezinski: "The president in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence. If anything, quite the contrary, he was simply pushing back and defending himself."[/FONT]

[URL="https://twitter.com/Acosta"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/Acosta"]Jim Acosta
@Acosta[/URL]

Isn't pro wrestling fake?
3:44 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[URL="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr"]Donald Trump Jr.
@DonaldJTrumpJr[/URL]

Yes, just like your coverage. https://twitter.com/acosta/status/881508839006380033 …
3:59 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[URL="https://twitter.com/CillizzaCNN"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/CillizzaCNN"]Chris Cillizza
@CillizzaCNN[/URL]

This is the president of the United States https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/881503147168071680 …
3:31 PM - 2 Jul 2017 · Falls Church, VA

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[URL="https://twitter.com/NancyPelosi"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/NancyPelosi"]Nancy Pelosi
@NancyPelosi[/URL]

Violence & violent imagery to bully the press must be rejected. This #July4th, celebrate freedom of the press, guardians to our democracy
4:28 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[URL="https://twitter.com/Andy"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/Andy"]Andy Cohen
@Andy[/URL]

Sweetie u cray https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/881503147168071680 …
3:57 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[URL="https://twitter.com/johnlegend"]
Follow[/URL]
[URL="https://twitter.com/johnlegend"]John Legend
@johnlegend[/URL]

25th Amendment. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/881503147168071680 …
3:41 PM - 2 Jul 2017 · Los Angeles, CA

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[URL="https://twitter.com/danpfeiffer"]Dan Pfeiffer
@danpfeiffer[/URL]

Happy Fourth of July https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/881503147168071680 …
3:34 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[URL="https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy"]Bradd Jaffy
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"The president in no way, form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence." Sarah Huckabee Sanders, WH press briefing, 3 days ago https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/881503147168071680 …
3:33 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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The President of the United States has posted a video of himself metaphorically body slamming CNN.

What is happening. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881503147168071680 …
3:32 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[URL="https://twitter.com/ananavarro"]Ana Navarro
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America, stand against this. Trump is going to end up getting a media person killed w/this incitement to violence. Maybe then, he'll stop. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/881503147168071680 …
3:31 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[URL="https://twitter.com/KatieS"]Katie Jacobs Stanton
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Also, this maniac has nuclear codes https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/881503147168071680 …
3:30 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[URL="https://twitter.com/pbump"]Philip Bump
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WWE is modern-day presidential, I guess.
3:30 PM - 2 Jul 2017 · Manhattan, NY

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[URL="https://twitter.com/ChloeAngyal"]Chloe Angyal
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The President fake beating up his perceived enemies while a yelling hype man pretends to care is a perfect metaphor for anxious masculinity.
3:30 PM - 2 Jul 2017

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[FONT=&amp]On Saturday, Trump took his media bashing to the public space as well, speaking at a veterans' event in Washington D.C.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]"The fake media is trying to silence us," Trump said. "But we will not let them. Because the people know the truth. The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I'm president and they're not."[/FONT]


[/FONT]

[Peter Lemkin]

[FONT=&amp]This is the most dangerous time for our planet

[FONT=&amp]Stephen Hawking[/FONT]


[FONT=&amp]We can't go on ignoring inequality, because we have the means to destroy our world but not to escape it
[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&amp]


[FONT=&amp]Thursday 1 December 2016 18.28 GMTLast modified on Monday 26 June 2017 16.31 BST[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]A[/FONT]s a theoretical physicist based in Cambridge, I have lived my life in an extraordinarily privileged b[/FONT] [FONT=&amp]ubble. Cambridge is an unusual town, centred around one of the world's great universities. Within that town, the scientific community that I became part of in my 20s is even more rarefied.
And within that scientific community, the small group of international theoretical physicists with whom I have spent my working life might sometimes be tempted to regard themselves as the pinnacle. In addition to this, with the celebrity that has come with my books, and the isolation imposed by my illness, I feel as though my ivory tower is getting taller.
So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely aimed at me, as much as anyone. Whatever we might think about the decision by the British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by their leaders.
It was, everyone seems to agree, the moment when the forgotten spoke, finding their voices to reject the advice and guidance of experts and the elite everywhere.

[FONT=&amp]What matters now, far more than the victories by Brexit and Trump, is how the elites react[/FONT]

I am no exception to this rule. I warned before the Brexit vote that it would damage scientific research in Britain, that a vote to leave would be a step backward, and the electorate or at least a sufficiently significant proportion of it took no more notice of me than any of the other political leaders, trade unionists, artists, scientists, businessmen and celebrities who all gave the same unheeded advice to the rest of the country.
What matters now, far more than the choices made by these two electorates, is how the elites react. Should we, in turn, reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism that fail to take account of the facts, and attempt to circumvent or circumscribe the choices that they represent? I would argue that this would be a terrible mistake.



The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.
This in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world. The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.
We need to put this alongside the financial crash, which brought home to people that a very few individuals working in the financial sector can accrue huge rewards and that the rest of us underwrite that success and pick up the bill when their greed leads us astray. So taken together we are living in a world of widening, not diminishing, financial inequality, in which many people can see not just their standard of living, but their ability to earn a living at all, disappearing. It is no wonder then that they are searching for a new deal, which Trump and Brexit might have appeared to represent.
[URL="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-dangerous-time-planet-inequality#img-2"]
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In sub-Saharan Africa there are more people with a telephone than access to clean water.' Photograph: Andy Hall for the ObserverIt is also the case that another unintended consequence of the global spread of the internet and social media is that the stark nature of these inequalities is far more apparent than it has been in the past. For me, the ability to use technology to communicate has been a liberating and positive experience. Without it, I would not have been able to continue working these many years past.
But it also means that the lives of the richest people in the most prosperous parts of the world are agonisingly visible to anyone, however poor, who has access to a phone. And since there are now more people with a telephone than access to clean water in sub-Saharan Africa, this will shortly mean nearly everyone on our increasingly crowded planet will not be able to escape the inequality.
The consequences of this are plain to see: the rural poor flock to cities, to shanty towns, driven by hope. And then often, finding that the Instagram nirvana is not available there, they seek it overseas, joining the ever greater numbers of economic migrants in search of a better life. These migrants in turn place new demands on the infrastructures and economies of the countries in which they arrive, undermining tolerance and further fuelling political populism.



For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.
Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.
To do that, we need to break down, not build up, barriers within and between nations. If we are to stand a chance of doing that, the world's leaders need to acknowledge that they have failed and are failing the many. With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.
With not only jobs but entire industries disappearing, we must help people to retrain for a new world and support them financially while they do so. If communities and economies cannot cope with current levels of migration, we must do more to encourage global development, as that is the only way that the migratory millions will be persuaded to seek their future at home.
We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.


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Hawking says Trump's climate stance could damage Earth

[FONT=&amp]July 2, 2017

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Prof Hawking: "Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink"Stephen Hawking says that US President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement could lead to irreversible climate change.
Prof Hawking said the action could put Earth onto a path that turns it into a hothouse planet like Venus.
He also feared aggression was "inbuilt" in humans and that our best hope of survival was to live on other planets.
The Cambridge professor spoke exclusively to BBC News to coincide with his 75th birthday celebrations.
Arguably the world's most famous scientist, Prof Hawking has had motor neurone disease for most of his adult life. It has impaired his movement and ability to speak.
Yet through it all, he emerged as one of the greatest minds of our time. His theories on black holes and the origin of the Universe have transformed our understanding of the cosmos.
Prof Hawking has also inspired generations to study science. But through his media appearances what has been most impressive of all has been his humanity.
Great danger'

His main concern during his latest interview was the future of our species. A particular worry was President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement to reduce CO2 levels.
What is climate change?
What is in the Paris climate agreement?
"We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid," he told BBC News.
"Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it's one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children."
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also highlights the potential risk of hitting climate tipping points as temperatures increase though there are gaps in our knowledge of this topic.
In its Fifth Assessment Report, the IPCC authors wrote: "The precise levels of climate change sufficient to trigger tipping points (thresholds for abrupt and irreversible change) remain uncertain, but the risk associated with crossing multiple tipping points in the Earth system or in interlinked human and natural systems increases with rising temperature."
When asked whether he felt we would ever solve our environmental problems and resolve human conflicts, Prof Hawking was pessimistic, saying that he thought our days on Earth were numbered.
"I fear evolution has inbuilt greed and aggression to the human genome. There is no sign of conflict lessening, and the development of militarised technology and weapons of mass destruction could make that disastrous. The best hope for the survival of the human race might be independent colonies in space."






[/FONT]

[Peter Lemkin]

[FONT=&amp]Frightened by Donald Trump? You don't know the half of it


[FONT=&amp]George Monbiot[/FONT]


[FONT=&amp]Many of his staffers are from an opaque corporate misinformation network. We must understand this if we are to have any hope of fighting back against the[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&amp]
[FONT=&amp]Wednesday 30 November 2016 06.00 GMTLast modified on Tuesday 27 June 2017 13.45 BST[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]Y[/FONT]es, Donald Trump's politics are incoherent. But those who surround him know just what they want, and his lack of clarity enhances their power. To understand what is coming, we need to understand who they are. I know all too well, because I have spent the past 15 years fighting them.
Over this time, I have watched as tobacco, coal, oil, chemicals and biotech companies have poured billions of dollars into an international misinformation machine composed of thinktanks, bloggers and fake citizens' groups. Its purpose is to portray the interests of billionaires as the interests of the common people, to wage war against trade unions and beat down attempts to regulate business and tax the very rich. Now the people who helped run this machine are shaping the government.
[FONT=&amp]
Trump's climate denial is just one of the forces that point towards war[/FONT]



I first encountered the machine when writing about climate change. The fury and loathing directed at climate scientists and campaigners seemed incomprehensible until I realised they were fake: the hatred had been paid for. The bloggers and institutes whipping up this anger were funded by oil and coal companies.
Among those I clashed with was Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The CEI calls itself a thinktank, but looks to me like a corporate lobbying group. It is not transparent about its funding, but we now know it has received $2m from ExxonMobil, more than $4m from a group called the Donors Trust (which represents various corporations and billionaires), $800,000 from groups set up by the tycoons Charles and David Koch, and substantial sums from coal, tobacco and pharmaceutical companies.
For years, Ebell and the CEI have attacked efforts to limit climate change, through lobbying, lawsuits and campaigns. An advertisement released by the institute had the punchline "Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution. We call it life."
It has sought to eliminate funding for environmental education, lobbied against the Endangered Species Act, harried climate scientists and campaigned in favour of mountaintop removal by coal companies. In 2004, Ebell sent a memo to one of George W Bush's staffers calling for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to be sacked. Where is Ebell now? Oh leading Trump's transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Charles and David Koch who for years have funded extreme pro-corporate politics might not have been enthusiasts for Trump's candidacy, but their people were all over his campaign. Until June, Trump's campaign manager was Corey Lewandowski, who like other members of Trump's team came from a group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP).




This purports to be a grassroots campaign, but it was founded and funded by the Koch brothers. It set up the first Tea Party Facebook page and organised the first Tea Party events. With a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, AFP has campaigned ferociously on issues that coincide with the Koch brothers' commercial interests in oil, gas, minerals, timber and chemicals.
In Michigan, it helped force through the "right to work bill", in pursuit of what AFP's local director called "taking the unions out at the knees". It has campaigned nationwide against action on climate change. It has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into unseating the politicians who won't do its bidding and replacing them with those who will.
I could fill this newspaper with the names of Trump staffers who have emerged from such groups: people such as Doug Domenech, from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, funded among others by the Koch brothers, Exxon and the Donors Trust; Barry Bennett, whose Alliance for America's Future (now called One Nation) refused to disclose its donors when challenged; and Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, funded by Exxon and others. This is to say nothing of Trump's own crashing conflicts of interest. Trump promised to "drain the swamp" of the lobbyists and corporate stooges working in Washington. But it looks as if the only swamps he'll drain will be real ones, as his team launches its war on the natural world.
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How far is too far for Donald Trump?Understandably, there has been plenty of coverage of the racists and white supremacists empowered by Trump's victory. But, gruesome as they are, they're peripheral to the policies his team will develop. It's almost comforting, though, to focus on them, for at least we know who they are and what they stand for. By contrast, to penetrate the corporate misinformation machine is to enter a world of mirrors. Spend too long trying to understand it, and the hyporeality vortex will inflict serious damage on your state of mind.
Don't imagine that other parts of the world are immune. Corporate-funded thinktanks and fake grassroots groups are now everywhere.
The less transparent they are, the more airtime they receive. The organisation Transparify runs an annual survey of thinktanks. This year's survey reveals that in the UK only four thinktanks the Adam Smith Institute, Centre for Policy Studies, Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange "still consider it acceptable to take money from hidden hands behind closed doors". And these are the ones that are all over the media.
When the Institute of Economic Affairs, as it so often does, appears on the BBC to argue against regulating tobacco, shouldn't we be told that it has been funded by tobacco companies since 1963? There's a similar pattern in the US: the most vocal groups tend to be the most opaque.
As usual, the left and centre (myself included) are beating ourselves up about where we went wrong. There are plenty of answers, but one of them is that we have simply been outspent. Not by a little, but by orders of magnitude. A few billion dollars spent on persuasion buys you all the politics you want. Genuine campaigners, working in their free time, simply cannot match a professional network staffed by thousands of well-paid, unscrupulous people.
You cannot confront a power until you know what it is. Our first task in this struggle is to understand what we face. Only then can we work out what to do.



[/FONT]

[Peter Lemkin]

IS THE SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE ABOUT TO CRUMBLE?

Congress shall make laws respecting an establishment of religion, and supporting the free exercise thereof.
When people complain that President Donald Trump and his administration are threatening the First Amendment, they usually think about assaults on the freedom of the press. Just as troubling, however, is that conservatives on the highest levels of all branches of government are blurring the lines between the state and religion.
Vice President Mike Pence, arguably one of the biggest religious zealots ever on a presidential ticket, is a prime example. He makes no secret of his priorities and allegiances. When Pence addressed the World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians in Washington earlier this year, he proudly said that he is a Christian first, then a conservative and then a Republican. At the event, the vice president also claimed that "no people of faith today face greater hostility or hatred than the followers of Christ."
Pence is not alone in that belief. In a recent survey, white evangelical Christians were the only group that believes Christians are more discriminated against than are Muslims. Ironically, white evangelical Christians are also the only group polled that favors the right of business owners to refuse service to gay and lesbian people on religious grounds.
In other words, they were the only ones who felt that discrimination on religious grounds was acceptable while, at the same time, feeling that they were the main victim of such discrimination.
Fortunately, the Founding Fathers put in place measures to stop people like Pence from forcing their beliefs on others. In addition to making the prohibition of a state religion the very first thing mentioned in the Bill of Rights, they also added checks and balances to ensure that the Supreme Court would prevent any such laws from being enacted.
Ground Zero in the battle between the secularism the Founding Fathers instilled in the United States and the fundamentalism of the so-called religious right are gay marriage and anything associated with reproductive rights.
With the law no longer going their way, evangelical Christians are increasingly insisting on the right to discriminate against others on the basis of their "religious freedom." This includes state governments trying to make things difficult for same-sex couples and business owners refusing to serve gays or to cover birth control as part of their insurance plans.
In addition, there have been cases of religiously affiliated schools firing pregnant employees who were not married.
Several health care or educational institutions engaging in these and other practices receive government funding of some sort, which means that taxpayers are subsidizing their discrimination.
So far, the safeguards put in place are largely holding. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Arkansas authorities must list the names of both parents on the birth certificate of a same-sex couple's child.
However, the opinion to reverse an Arkansas court decision summarily (meaning that the facts of the case were so clear that no oral arguments were needed), was not unanimous and therefore revealed a problem the Founders might not have anticipated. What if the Supreme Court is also stacked with religious zealots?
Three justices joined in a dissent written by Neil Gorsuch, the court's newest member. The others were Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas, the most reliably conservative members of the court.
That's not yet enough to make this a Supreme Court dominated by Christian fundamentalists but we are not that far away. Chief Justice John Roberts already votes with the trio on many social issues, and rumors that one of the other justices will retire soon are getting louder every year.
With Trump's legislative agenda stalled, the biggest win he can give his staunchly conservative base is another justice in the mold of Gorsuch. If that happens, the last firewall standing between the country and a fundamentalist Christian agenda would have major cracks.
And the next cases are already on the docket. The court announced last week that it would hear the appeal of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for two men.