Tag: assault

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Rep Veronica Escobar Slams Gov Abbott For Creating “Wild West” Environment That Enabled Uvalde Shooting

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Rep Veronica Escobar(D-TX) appeared on MSNBC Reports w/Andrea Mitchell (07/18/22) to discuss the recently released report by the Texas Senate on the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Rep Escobar made a very important point on the show, telling host Andrea Mitchell that the deadly “wild west” environment created by Texas elected officials, beginning with Governor Greg Abbott, is partly to blame for the horrific shooting in Uvalde.

This point is largely missed by the mainstream media when reporting about the mass shooting in Uvalde, but it cannot be restated enough.

Rep Escobar(video at 1:00):“I think the report is important, but I also think we need to zoom out a little bit because the leadership void goes far beyond law enforcement. And what the report did not touch on[are]2 things, (1) the Governor, who is the highest ranking elected official, the chief elected official of the state and (2) the state legislature that makes open carry the law of the land in Texas so that anyone can get access to a gun without any training and really a loosening of gun laws that was historic. It is so important that these reports and that this analysis look at what happened on the ground that day, but we also have to look at the context in Texas, the environment that has been created by Republicans, who want to create a wild west sort of environment  in a state, that has led us to be…one of the most deadliest states for mass shootings.”

Rep Escobar went on to specifically address Gov Abbott’s failures:“He’s been pretty silent. He’s very eager to point the finger at others, really on any situation including Uvalde and he, as the highest-ranking elected official in the state of Texas, I have yet to hear the Governor accept any responsibility, or bring forward any ideas for meaningful change. He is literally someone who has only used his position to make Texas less safe for its citizens and uses our resources for political stunts.”

She went on to add that the political stunt Gov Abbott is pulling at the southern border aka “Operation Lone Star” has siphoned much needed funds away from mental health services and public schools, both of which are still poorly funded in Texas compared to other states.

Bottom line folks, Texas is, and has been a solid red state for quite some time now. It is important however for people who don’t live in the Lone Star state, or keep up with its politics, to know that none of Governor Abbott’s Republican predecessors created the deadly gun violence environment in the state like Gov Abbott and his allies have. Rep Escobar is absolutely spot on, that any meaningful discussion of gun violence in the Lone Star state has to take into account the “wild west” environment created by Gov Abbott and his Texas Republican allies.

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Elie Mystal: The “Chief Architect” Of The Assault On Voting Rights Is Chief Justice John Roberts

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The Nation’s Justice Correspondent, Elie Mystal, dropped a major bombshell on MSNBC’s American Voices (01/16/22), when he slammed U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as the “chief architect” of the assault on voting rights. Unlike many mainstream media pundits who engage in incendiary rhetoric just for ratings, Elie Mystal backed up his bombshell assertion with very good examples that would make any reasonable person either agree with him, or at the very least, find his assertion quite plausible. The fact that Elie Mystal’s bombshell claims pass the plausibility test, should compel Chief Justice Roberts to address them, for the sake of the Supreme Court’s integrity.

Elie Mystal specifically said: “The chief architect of this assault on our voting rights is not Mitch McConnell, it’s not ot David Duke, it’s not whatever boogey man you think is hiding under the closet. The chief architect is Chief Justice John Roberts. It is he who has been an enemy of voting rights and racial equality from his very first job out of law school, which was to oppose the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act. It is John Roberts who authored Shelby County v Holder in 2013 which eviscerated section 5 of Voting Rights Act which is basically why we are here right now, it is John Roberts who authored Rucho in 2020 which swung wide the doors towards gerrymandering, and it is John Roberts who provided the crucial 5th vote in last year’s Brnovich decision which eviscerated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This is all being done by Federalist Society conservatives that have been put on the Supreme Court, and until we stop them, until we do something about the court–you want to pass your Freedom to Vote Act, I think that’s a great bill, we should pass it, I think we should have passed HR1, but always remember that John Roberts and his conservative cronies are waiting at the Supreme Court level to strike down whatever laws we put forward. As long as you let Republicans control the Supreme Court, you cannot have a fair and equal just society.”

It’s worth pointing out here too, that Elie Mystal is not only decrying Chief Justice Roberts’ questionable history on voting rights, but crucially, also making the point that minorities are doomed going forward, with him at the helm of the Supreme Court. This naturally raises the question as to whether Chief Justice Roberts is the right person to lead the high court.

Bottom line folks, these are questions that the mainstream media needs to take up with Chief Justice Roberts. At a time when voting rights are a red hot topic, and minorities are increasingly concerned about Republicans infringing upon their right to vote, the public deserves to know whether the Roberts Supreme Court will be a neutral arbiter in the fight for voting rights, as it should be.

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Lara Trump’s Shocking Hypocrisy Over Tara Reade

Lara Lea Trump

In case you missed it, Trump’s daughter in law Lara, who’s also part of his 2020 campaign, appeared on Fox News’ Judge Jeanine show where she made the highly hypocritical assertion that for Joe Biden to prove his innocence regarding the sexual assault allegations by Tara Reade, he must make all relevant documents available for the public’s perusal. Lara’s assertion is highly hypocritical because her father in law is the poster child for hiding documents from the public, including documents related to sexual assault allegations.

Lara Trump told Judge Jeanine, “I would think if you are being accused of something and you were totally innocent, you would go to any length possible Judge, to try and clear your name including allowing people to open up files like that and make sure you turned over every single leaf to prove your innocence and make sure that people understood that these charges were false and that you did nothing wrong but it’s kind of curious that Joe Biden isn’t allowing that to happen…….it’s not a good defense for him and you know what, going forward, he has a lot of questions to answer. There’s a long time between now and November 3rd election day….”

It is the height of hypocrisy for Lara Trump to make such a demand of Biden when her own father in law has been accused of sexual assault by almost 20 women and has yet to make any document available to the public proving his innocence. Trump for example has been accused of making financial settlements to victims of his sexual abuse. Given Lara Trump’s rationale, her father in law could easily disprove these claims by providing financial records showing that he has never made any such payments/settlements. Why hasn’t he?

Bottom line folks, Democrats have to proceed very carefully with this bogus Tara Reade story which at every turn appears more and more like a Trump campaign operation. The Biden campaign should make every effort to respond fully to Tara Reade’s allegations while at the same time demanding that the Trump campaign do the same regarding the almost 20 sexual assault victims that have accused Trump. Simply put, the Biden campaign should resist any attempt at playing nice with Team Trump. If Biden is forced to answer sexual assault allegations, then the Biden campaign must force the mainstream media to demand answers from Trump too.

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NBC Execs Sat On Weinstein Sexual Assault Story

In case you missed it there was a very important story on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show where Maddow took on her own network (NBC) for the way network executives blocked Ronan Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults.

According to Farrow, who was Maddow’s guest on the show, NBC President Noah Openheim issued direct orders several times that Farrow’s piece on Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults was not to be published. It was this stonewalling by NBC executives that led Farrow to leave NBC for New York Magazine which ended up breaking the Harvey Weinstein story earning him a Pulitzer prize.

Naturally, the fact that Farrow won a Pulitzer prize for a piece that NBC executives refused to publish has reignited the age old question of media manipulation by network executives. Specifically, the question is whether media houses run news items strictly based on their newsworthiness or do other factors like cronyism, politics, etc make network executives bury otherwise newsworthy stories? This is a debate that has been raging for a while now.

You’ll remember Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders got in hot water recently with some mainstream media types after he accused the Washington Post of not fairly covering his campaign because he routinely attacks its owner Jeff Bezos. Bernie Sanders essentially accused Washington Post of ignoring favorable coverage of him while highlighting news that cast him in negative light

Given this bombshell segment on Maddow that network executives do indeed bury certain stories, is it fair to say that Bernie Sanders was on to something with his criticism of the media? We now know for a fact that network executives do indeed bury certsin stories.

This story is especially important for those of us who have advocated and petitioned for quite some time now that the mainstream media take a serious look into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s military discharge. This too appears to be a very newsworthy story that for whatever reason, network executives appear to have labelled “Do Not Publish”.

Bottom line folks, there’s always been suspicion among members of the public that a select few people exert undue influence on our media consumption. In an open society like ours, the public is best served when media executives make decisions to publish stories strictly based on newsworthiness. There is absolutely no excuse as to why NBC executives sat on the Weinstein story unless of course Weinstein pressured them to do so–a valid line of inquiry. There is also abzolutely no reason why 30-plus years into his tenure as a U.S. Senator, Americans should still be speculating on the reasons as to why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was discharged from the military in 1967. The mainstream media could get this answer if they wanted to. The question is why don’t they? What media executive has told them not to look into it?

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Is Epstein-Like Behavior The Real Reason Trump Won’t Release His Tax Returns?

A YouTube video that was apparently uploaded way back in November 2016 is getting renewed attention in light of Jeffrey Epstein’s recent indictment for child sex trafficking. The video advances a provocative theory that Trump is hiding his tax returns because they contain details of numerous financial settlements he made to young female victims of sexual assault at his properties. Up until now the running narrative, at least the one espoused by the cable TV punditry class, is that Trump is hiding his tax returns because he doesn’t want details of his failed business ventures to become public. The troubling allegations in this video therefore represent a dramatic twist in the Trump tax return debate, one that begs for serious scrutiny especially in light of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

The list of troubling allegations against Trump in this video is long but here are a few of them;

That in 1989, Trump entered into a $1 million settlement with the family of then 12 year old Kelly Feuer over an alleged sexual assault that happened at Trump Tower, New York.

That in 1993, Trump entered into a $16 million settlement with the family of then 12 year old Maria Olivera over an allegation of sexual assault that happened at Mar-a-Lago.

There is also an allegation of sexual assault by Trump and Epstein in 1994 against then 13 year old Katie Johnson at Epstein’s mansion in New York.

Whether the allegations contained in this bombshell video are true or not is another matter altogether and Yours Truly certainly is not putting them out there as proven facts. The point Yours Truly is making, which all reasonable people would agree with, is that if prosecutors at the Southern District of New York (SDNY) are currently pursuing Jeffrey Epstein for child sex trafficking and there are allegations like the ones above that seem to suggest that Trump may have engaged in similar conduct, then SDNY necessarily has to investigate the allegations in this video.

Why should the public believe in the time-honored legal principle of “equal justice under law” proudly emblazoned on courts across the country including the U.S. Supreme Court, if SDNY chooses to Pursue Epstein on charges that threaten to imprison him for life while at the same time totally overlooking similar allegations in the same New York jurisdiction made against his old friend Trump? Don’t the allegations contained in this video compel the good folks at SDNY to pore through Trump’s tax returns and verify whether (a) such settlements did indeed take place and (b) whether they were for the alleged criminal acts?

Bottom line, Americans are losing confidence in the ability of the criminal justice system to pursue rich and powerful people for conduct that regular people would never get away with, in this case sexual assault/trafficking of minors. The news that SDNY has decided to pursue rich and powerful Epstein is a welcome breath of fresh air and represents a slight uptick in the people’s confidence in the justice system. One only hopes that prosecutors at SDNY will further solidify the people’s confidence in the justice system by also looking into the Epstein-like conduct alleged against Trump in this troubling YouTube video, and specifically, that they will pore through Trump’s elusive tax returns to see whether (a) the alleged financial settlements took place and (b) whether they were for the alleged criminal conduct. The interests of justice dictate that these troubling questions be resolved once and for all instead of being left to rumors/speculation on social media. The innocent victims of these horrific crimes deserve no less from SDNY.

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