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NYT’s Maggie Haberman Ensnared In Feud Over Trump Inaugural Funds

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Melania Trump with Stephanie Winston Wolkoff

In case you missed it, the Trump inaugural saga has taken a new, and very interesting twist lately, with now Twitter-active Stephanie Winston Wolkoff taking a direct shot at Maggie Haberman and Ken Vogel of the New York Times(NYT), as being part of the plot to throw her under the bus.

You’ll remember that after the bombshell revelation that a staggering $40 million of Trump’s inaugural funds had mysteriously disappeared, there was an effort by Trump’s allies to pin the blame on then First Lady Melania Trump’s Senior Advisor Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. Stephanie Wolkoff talked about this effort to throw her under the bus at an appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show on September 1, 2020.

In the interview, a visibly upset Stephanie Wolkoff told host Maddow, that then First Lady Melania Trump basically told her she had to be the fall person for the Trump inaugural scandal. Wolkoff specifically said, “Melania and the [Trump]White House had accused me of criminal activity, then publicly shamed and fired me, and made me their scapegoat. At that moment in time, that’s when I pressed record. She was no longer my friend, and she was willing to let them take me down, and she told me herself, that this is the way it has to be. She was advised by the attorneys at the White House that there was no other choice because there was a possible investigation into the presidential inauguration committee….At first I really did think maybe she would come to my aid? Maybe she would tell the truth? She turned her back, she did. She folded like a deck of cards., and I’m shocked she did it.”

This 05/23/2021 tweet however, shows that Stephanie Wolkoff is not only going after Trump and his allies in her effort to set the record straight regarding Trump’s inaugural, she’s also calling out NYT’s Maggie Haberman and Ken Vogel, as being part of the plot to destroy her. This, if proven, could turn out to be a huge scandal unto itself, given the fact that many liberals still blame the New York Times for Trump’s ascension to the White House. Specifically, many liberals believe NYT’s excessive coverage of the “email scandal”, weakened Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the final stretch of the 2016 campaign.

There’s no other way any reasonable person can interpret Stephanie Wolkoff’s tweet other than NYT’s Haberman and Vogel were doing Trump’s bidding when they wrote the referenced piece. This is especially so considering Wolkoff’s invocation of “SETUP. COVERUP. TAKEDOWN” in her tweet. For the record, accusations of “access journalism” against then White House reporter for the New York Times, Maggie Haberman, persisted throughout Trump’s presidency. Stephanie Wolkoff is not the first person drawing that inference.

Bottom line folks, Yours Truly is not accusing Maggie Haberman or Ken Vogel of any wrongdoing. By all accounts, these are serious journalists, who exhibit a high level of professionalism(my personal opinion). What Yours Truly is simply pointing out, is what any reasonable person presented with Stephanie Wolkoff’s recent tweet would conclude, and that is, Haberman and Vogel were in on the plot by Trump’s allies to throw her under the bus. It would be in everybody’s interest, especially Wolkoff who suffered greatly as a result of the Trump inaugural saga, if Haberman, Vogel or even the New York Times management, addressed this issue.

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A Handy List Of 43 GOP Senators Who Voted To Acquit Trump Of Inciting DC Insurrection

The U.S. Senate voted Saturday February 13th, to acquit former President Donald J. Trump of inciting the January 6th 2021 insurrection in Washington DC, which led to five deaths, including two Capitol police officers, and an interruption of a live joint session of Congress. The incident, which mostly played out on live TV, will forever remain one of the lowest points of American democracy because it shattered one of the globally revered cornerstones of American democracy–that regardless of who wins the election, one could always bet on a peaceful transfer of power.

While generally acknowledging that former President Trump did indeed incite the violent mob that descended upon the Capitol building as alleged in his House impeachment, 43 Republican Senators still voted to acquit him, hiding behind the jurisdictional argument that because Trump was no longer in office, the U.S. Senate had no jurisdiction over his trial. In other words, they acquitted Trump because they argued that because he had already left office, his entire Senate trial was unconstitutional–a very shaky legal argument.

It bears pointing out that Trump’s impeachment by the House for inciting DC insurrection happened on January 13 2021, while he was still in office. The House sent the impeachment papers a few days later to the U.S. Senate, then under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. There was enough time for the Senate, then under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to commence a Senate trial while Trump was still in office. Instead, McConnell made sure there would be no Senate trial until after Trump’s term expired on Jan 20, 2021. So it’s quite disingenuous and insulting for Senator McConnell and his fellow Republicans who voted to acquit Trump, to now turn around and hide behind a jurisdictional loophole that they manufactured. The fact of the matter remains that Senate Republicans knew full well that Trump’s incitement of the DC riots was an impeachable offense, so they created the jurisdictional loophole they could hide behind, as they carried out their goal from the beginning–acquit Trump at all costs.

After the Senate vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement which correctly summed up the decision by Republican Senators to acquit Trump:“Today an overwhelming bipartisan vote to convict Donald Trump speaks to the courage of the United States Senate.  I salute the Republican Senators who voted their conscience and for our Country.  Other Senate Republicans’ refusal to hold Trump accountable for igniting a violent insurrection to cling to power will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history.”

Because we totally agree with Speaker Pelosi that the decision by these 43 GOP Senators to acquit Trump of inciting DC insurrection “will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history“, we have to do our traditional name and shame for the sake of future generations. When our children and grandchildren read in History textbooks, that a group of U.S. Senators decided to acquit a U.S. President, even after he incited an insurrection which led to a mob storming the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead, it is only fair that they also see the names and faces of the shameful U.S. Senators behind such a horrendous decision. Here’s a handy list of the 43 shameful GOP Senators.

Bottom line folks, as horrible as Trump’s acquittal verdict was to people who love democracy worldwide, there may be a silver lining where Democrats are concerned. Yours Truly has repeatedly stated that the increasing radicalization of the Republican party could provide an opening for Democrats to go after corporations that traditionally sponsor the GOP. A healthy two-party system is good for American democracy, but given everything we’ve witnessed so far with the GOP under Trump, it is debatable whether the GOP is even a political party anymore. This was true even before DC insurrection, but now it is totally impossible to ignore the issue. The radicalization within the GOP under Trump has gotten so bad, that some establishment Republicans are already mulling branching away to form a reasonable “center-right” party. As we approach the 2022 elections, Democrats should seriously pressure corporations that traditionally donate to Republicans, by asking them to justify their continued funding of a party that has basically devolved into a Trump cult. Maybe, just maybe, guilt tripping major corporations into starving Trump’s GOP of major $$$, especially after DC insurrection, is the best way of slapping the Party of Lincoln back to normalcy.

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Kushner Nixed National Testing Strategy Because he Thought Covid-19 Would Only Ravage Dem States

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A troubling Vanity Fair report says that at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner cobbled together a team which actually managed to come up with a decent national testing strategy for covid-19. Shockingly however, instead of the plan being rapidly deployed nationwide to curb the spread of the deadly virus, Kushner and some White House political operatives decided it would be politically advantageous for Trump, if they shelved the testing plan because the virus at that time was only ravaging blue/Democratic states like New York.

As unbelievable as this sounds, Kushner and the White House operatives believed it would be politically advantageous for Trump if they let people die in blue/Democratic states because they could turn around and blame Democratic Governors for incompetence in the run up to the November elections. The author of the Vanity Fair piece, Katherine Eban, told CNN’s Erin Burnett;“There was a shared feeling which turned out to be spectacularly wrong, that the virus was receding, it was going to be under control, and at the time it was just the blue states where the virus was surging. So the idea was, why go through all the effort to surge up a national plan? It wasn’t going to have political resonance, and if there was a political response that was needed, the blue state Governors could just be blamed..”

You’ll remember a recent Washington Post piece which said Trump, who had previously downplayed the seriousness of covid-19, even calling it a hoax at one point, changed his attitude towards the deadly virus only after senior White House officials presented him with data and maps showing that the virus is beginning to ravage “our people”–Trump’s base of rural White voters in Republican states. This means Trump’s bungled covid-19 response, which has led to more than 150,000 deaths so far and counting, is not only the result of a callous political decision by his son-in -law Kushner, but also the administration’s deep seated racism towards communities of color who Trump considers not “our people”, and who data has consistently shown to disproportionately bear the brunt of covid-19, both in infection rates and deaths. A sad state of affairs indeed.

Bottom line folks, as it currently stands, the coronavirus pandemic is arguably one of the biggest crisis ever to befall the United States, especially if you consider the fact that it has claimed more than 150,000 lives in the U.S. in less than six months, led to levels of unemployment most of us have never witnessed in our lifetimes, dealt a severe blow to the U.S. economy leaving economic giants such as the airline industry teetering on the brink of collapse, changed the manner and format of our beloved professional sports leagues, just to mention but a few. Reasonable people will agree that given the seriousness of covid-19, the American public is totally justified in expecting that the Trump administration, without regard to partisan politics or race, will spare no resources, and do everything in it’s power to fight the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Sadly, the Vanity Fair piece saying Kushner shelved a covid-19 national testing strategy for political reasons, and the Washington Post piece saying Trump has not been serious about the pandemic because it’s not ravaging “our people”, prove beyond any reasonable doubt that partisan politics and racism are guiding Trump administration’s covid-19 response. All Americans of good conscience must loudly rebuke this immoral and callous disregard for people’s lives. We owe that to the families of the 150,000-plus people who have needlessly succumbed to covid-19.

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Ivana Trump Recruited Schoolgirls For Epstein?

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Jeffrey Epstein with Ivana Trump

Whitney Webb, an independent journalist best known for her work trying to expose Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex enterprise, recently made some very explosive allegations in a YouTube interview chief among them, that Trump’s ex wife Ivana trump (Ivanka’s mother) worked with Ghislaine Maxwell to recruit underage school girls in the New York area into Epstein’s child sex operation. This and other explosive allegations in the YouTube interview are based on a phone call Whitney Webb recently had with Maria Farmer, one of Epstein’s victims in the 1990s.

Webb specifically said regarding Ivana Trump(video at 4:40); “When she[Maria Farmer] told the FBI in 1996, she said the Clintons were part of it. She also said Donald Trump was part of it. One of the reasons she said that is because Ivana Trump, she said, was with Ghislaine Maxwell when she would go out to recruit girls for Epstein. It was her[Ghislaine] and Ivana Trump, Trump’s ex wife. They would go out together all the time and pick up these 12 year old girls in school uniforms and braces, exchange information with them and the next day they would be in Epstein’s office. She[Farmer] saw between 5 and 10 different girls every day go into Epstein’s office the whole two years she was there. Every day. This is in the 90s. So much of what we know from the other victims is after 2000. The FBI knew this then and they didn’t act and that’s why all those other victims exist. It’s just disgusting.”

Some of the bombshell allegations Whitney Webb makes in this interview are already fairly well circulated among the general public so Yours Truly will just mention them in passing while focusing more on the “new” and frankly more interesting bombshells (Ivana Trump being one of them). Whitney Webb for example says the Clintons were implicated and that the FBI covered up Epstein’s illicit conduct in the 1990s, claims that have been made repeatedly ever since the Epstein scandal broke.

Another interesting bombshell Whitney Webb dropped on the interview is that Victoria’s Secret’s Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail were the masterminds behind Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation(see video at 8:00). According to Webb, young school girls would be lured into Epstein’s operation under the guise that they were being groomed to be Victoria’s Secret Models. If true, the billionaire Wexners could face very serious criminal conspiracy charges.

As for Vicky Ward, the journalist much celebrated for her Epstein pieces most notably her 2003 Vanity Fair piece, Whitney Webb says not so fast(see video at 12:00). According to Webb, Maria Farmer gave Vicky Ward details about Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation but Ward left them out of her bombshell Vanity Fair piece. As if that was not enough, Ward who was apparently an acquaintance of Ghislaine Maxwell, told Ghislaine that Maria Farmer talked to the FBI about her—essentially ratted out her source. Vicky Ward endangered Maria Farmer’s life so much that she went into hiding. Farmer apparently referred to Vicky Ward as a “monster”, according to Whitney Webb.

Farmer also told Whitney Webb that she fears some of the children involved in Epstein’s Florida operation may have been killed because out of some 500 children only about 30 of them came forward and the rest cannot be found(video at 21:30). She added that some of these children were really young(pre-teen). Importantly, Farmer said that Epstein’s legal team which included Alan Dershowitz, knew all the names of the missing children .

Whitney Webb also talked about a January 2001 article on the Evening Standard (U.K) that has since been scrapped from the internet, which said Epstein’s money came from his business links to three people–Leslie Wexner, Donald Trump and Bill Gates. Webb argues that nobody pushed back on this article(by one Nigel Russert) because back then(2001), Epstein was not a controversial figure(see video at 35:30). Webb also slammed as a total lie New York Times’ recent reporting that Bill Gates first met Epstein in 2011.

Farmer also told Webb that Epstein and people in his circle were extreme White Supremacists and she regularly overheard them speaking about other races, especially Blacks, in the most disgusting way(see video at 37:25). She said Epstein and his pals refused to go anywhere they thought there would be too many people of African descent.

Webb concluded by tying the entire Epstein scandal into a global intelligence operation involving Israel which Yours Truly will deliberately ignore because we will never get to the bottom of it(managing expectations). There are however some bombshell allegations that we could easily get answers to for example, whether Ivana Trump really helped Ghislaine Maxwell recruit young girls for Epstein, the missing 500 children who Dershowitz allegedly knows about, whether Vicky Ward(now at CNN) really ratted out Maria Farmer to Ghislaine Maxwell, whether Bill Gates knew Epstein in 2001 as opposed to 2011, whether Trump financed Epstein(another excuse for his tax returns), the Wexners’ involvement with Epstein, why the mainstream media refuses to act on stories by Maria Farmer and others, just to mention but a few.

Bottom line folks, as Yours Truly has repeatedly stated regarding Epstein’s stories, sunlight is the best disinfectant. It appears the more efforts are made to cover up Epstein’s child sex trafficking operation, the more bombshell revelations come up, the latest clearly being Ivana Trump. It will be interesting to hear what Ivana Trump says regarding these troubling allegations, assuming the mainstream media will be courageous enough to ask her. What will CNN do with Vicky Ward given the troubling revelations about her? Hmm–as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”

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Sen Joni Ernst Busted Again Talking About Cuts To Medicare, Medicaid, SS

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Sen Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)

An audio recording of Sen Joni Ernst(R-Iowa) telling a group of GOP donors that there needs to be “changes”(read cuts) to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has surfaced. You’ll remember that Sen Ernst made similar remarks at a town hall in September 2019 where she said Congress needs to meet behind closed doors to address these programs–essentially gut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in secret.

In the latest audio, a person at the GOP event can be heard saying, “Even without the additional spending we’re already going bankrupt…the biggest driver of that being entitlements. It is interesting hearing your classmate [Sen]David Perdue. He’s been pretty frank about the changes that need to happen with Medicare and Medicaid. Are you on the same page with him on that?

Sen Ernst responded, “I think we [Republican Senators]all are because we all understand our non discretionary spending is growing like this. Everybody focuses on the discretionary spending because that’s what we have control over in Congress. The rest is on auto pilot and it’s out of control. So we have to figure out ways to honor the commitments that have been made and make changes for the future.”

For the record Sen David Perdue(R-GA) has been very vocal about his desire to reign in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending in an effort to address the ballooning federal deficit. Sen Joni Ernst has also flirted with this idea previously but unlike Sen Perdue, is afraid to say so in public. Why won’t Sen Joni Earnst, who is up for reelection in 2020, look Iowans in their eyes and tell them that she wants cuts to their Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits?

Bottom line folks, Americans elect politicians and send them to Washington with the understanding that the said politicians will in turn look out for their interests. All national polls indicate that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security remain very popular programs among Americans, including Iowans. Where, as here, Sen Joni Earnst appears hell bent on gutting such programs, she owes Iowans an explanation–publicly. Simply put, Sen Ernst should tell Iowans in public, what she says all the time at private GOP gatherings and that is, she wants cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs. Iowans deserve a Senator who will level with them.

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Is Trump’s GOP A Criminal Enterprise?

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Ever since Trump was elected U.S. President in November 2016, many Americans have wrestled with the question as to whether he is being unduly influenced by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. The question of Russia’s influence over Trump grew into a crescendo prompting the launching of a formal investigation (Mueller probe) to look into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in 2016.

Even though the official finding of the Mueller probe was that there was not enough evidence to prove that TeamTrump colluded with Russia, questions about Trump’s ties to Russia have persisted, partly because Mueller never completely shut that door. Remember, Mueller never concluded that TeamTrump never colluded with Russia. What he said was that he never collected enough evidence to prove it. One of the key witnesses he had relied on to prove his case, Paul Manafort, totally stonewalled his investigation.

Beyond Trump’s strange ties to Russia, a lot of Americans have also been confounded by the extreme measures congressional Republicans have taken and continue to take, all in an effort to shield President Trump from any congressional oversight. This has led a lot of people to validly speculate that congressional Republicans are privy to some wrongdoings (potentially criminal) by Trump, and have made a conscious decision to hide this from the public–which has given rise to this notion that Trump’s GOP is a criminal enterprise.

Yours Truly raised this very question way back in August 2018 in a blog post titled Proof That Congressional Republicans Have Become A Criminal Enterprise, a post which you probably summarily dismissed as “yet another conspiracy theory” pushed by “radical liberal @Emolclause.” The blog post was based on an August 27, 2018 piece by Jonathan Chait of the Intelligencer, which made the bombshell revelation that congressional Republicans had essentially sworn to shield from any oversight, a list of things they figured would be harmful to Trump’s presidency. Some of the items in GOP’s shield-at-all-costs list included surprise surprise, Trump’s tax returns, Trump’s family business, White house clearances, and shockingly, issues dealing with election security/Russians hacking our elections.

Any reasonable person reading this bombshell Intelligencer piece would have concluded as Yours Truly did, that congressional Republicans had not only become a criminal enterprise, but that they were certainly not working in the interests of the American people.

A lot has transpired since August 2018 and what many of you summarily dismissed as “wild conspiracy theories by radical @Emolclause” is now playing out right in front of our very eyes. It has become impossible to continue assuming that congressional Republicans are just naively defending Trump. Many are now starting to to state publicly that Trump’s GOP has indeed become a criminal enterprise.

There are many reasons as to why people have become more comfortable in publicly calling Trump’s GOP a criminal enterprise but the best reason by far is the shocking conduct we witnessed during the recent impeachment hearings, when Republican members of congress, in an effort to defend Trump, kept repeating a debunked conspiracy theory pushed by Russian intelligence officials, that it was Ukraine who interfered with our 2016 elections. This shocking behavior by congressional Republicans drew sharp rebuke from Trump’s former adviser on Russia, Dr Fiona Hill, who castigated them to their faces, telling them they were doing Putin’s work.

Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris(CA) is no longer biting her tongue either regarding this topic and recently called Republicans a “criminal enterprise” on CBS’ Steven Colbert show, an assertion she gladly repeated on her Twitter account.

For the record, neither the Intelligencer nor Yours Truly were the first to start labelling Trump’s GOP a criminal enterprise. Shining lights like Author Sarah Kendzior were already warning about this right after Trump won the election–an assertion many in the mainstream media dismissed. Just today the aforementioned Sarah Kendzior stopped by MSNBC’s AMJoy show where she dropped this bombshell totally in keeping with her previous warnings.

Bottom line folks, we cannot keep kicking the can down the road over the very serious queston as to whether sitting Republican members of congress are engaged in some kind of criminal conspiracy with a hostile foreign power(Russia). There’s enough smoke at this juncture for Democrats and indeed the mainstream media to start publicly asking the question Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently posed to President Trump and that is, why all Trump’s/GOP’s roads seem to lead to Russia, and more importantly, what is so rotten with their Russia dealings that they are terrified of the public finding out?

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Did Kevin McCarthy Have An Affair With Congresswoman Renee Ellmers?

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Former Congresswoman Renee Ellmers (R-NC) and Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

During the last few days the public has been inundated by unflattering mainstream media reports about Congresswoman Katie Hill (D-CA). This started when nude photos of her surfaced online showing her engaged in an affair with one of her female campaign staffers. Rep Hill initially defended her conduct, blaming the release of the photos on what she alleged was her spiteful ex-husband out to ruin her career. Her biggest problem however was not the fact that her nude photos had been published against her will, but rather that they proved she was engaged in an affair with her campaign staffer–a violation of congressional code of conduct. With Speaker Pelosi, a known disciplinarian at the helm, Rep Hill read the tea leaves and correctly opted for resignation.

With Rep Hill’s resignation however, new questions are emerging about an explosive story that first surfaced in 2015 regarding an alleged long term romantic affair between Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and then Rep Renee Ellmers (R-NC) both of whom were married with children at the time (Ellmers no longer serving). Rep Kevin McCarthy was considered by many of his House Republican colleagues as the natural replacement for then outgoing Speaker John Boehner.

Many of Rep McCarthy’s Republican supporters did not give much credence to the rumors about an extramarital affair and he was still considered the heavy favorite to succeed Speaker Boehner. However in a strange and shocking twist, right before the votes were cast for the Speakership, Rep McCarthy took himself out of contention (withdrew)–something his colleagues reasonably interpreted as an admission of guilt. In the end, Paul Ryan succeeded John Boehner as the 54th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Both Reps McCarthy and Ellmers vehemently denied the allegations, with Ellmers calling them “batsh*t crazy” and adding, “As someone who has been targeted by completely false accusations and innuendo, I have been moved by the outpouring of support and prayers from my colleagues, constituents and friends. Now I will be praying for those who find it acceptable to bear false witness.”

Yours Truly will not go out on a limb and accuse the two members of congress of having an extramarital affair based on the 2015 allegations. However, given the recent Katie Hill resignation, reasonable people will agree that someone needs to look into these allegations so as to establish conclusively that there was no affair between McCarthy and Ellmers. Nothing in the media reports suggest that there was any investigation into the allegations against these two members of congress. The media simply accepted their denials as fact.

In addition to that, reasonable people will also agree that Rep McCarthy’s abrupt decision not to pursue the Speakership gives these allegations some modicum of weight. Why would Rep McCarthy relinquish a position as cherished as the House Speakership simply because someone was spreading baseless rumors about him? Surely this knee-jerk reaction by Rep McCarthy flies in the face of Rep Ellmers’ characterization of the rumors as “batsh*t crazy”.

Bottom line folks, Rep Katie Hill was a young and very promising member of congress whose political career came to a crushing halt because she exercised poor judgement while serving. It is only fair that Reps McCarthy be held to the same standard, and if found to have similarly exercised poor judgement while serving, be shown the exit door. Congressional code of conduct is meaningless if the public views it as only applicable to one political party and not the other.

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Little Known FBI’s Race-Based Surveillance

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There have been numerous media reports about a very troubling practice by the FBI to designate Black activists as “Black Identity Extremists”, an often bogus designation which is then used to justify subjecting the said activists to all levels of surveillance–private, local, state, federal and even military surveillance in major cities like Houston, LA, Chicago, New York and others. The rationale, a bogus one, is that a “Black Identity Extremist” or BIE is more likely to attack law enforcement officers and thus needs to be placed under 24-hour surveillance.

The controversy surrounding this program, beyond its prima facie racism, centers around the ease with which a Black activist could end up in this designation. Several media reports have said that even mundane activities like organizing or attending a Black Lives Matter rally could in the eyes of the FBI qualify a Black activist as a BIE subjecting them to unjustified long-term government surveillance, the fruits of which could be used in their criminal prosecution. Needless to say, Black activists who support/sympathize with Black Lives Matter on social media (Twitter, Facebook) can also very easily be designated as BIEs. Simply put, this is a very serious problem that is yet to garner the mainstream media attention it deserves.

Yours Truly has ranted and raved about the lack of mainstream media attention surrounding this seemingly–let’s face it–racist surveillance by the FBI for quite a while now, wondering when House Democrats would take up this serious issue with the justice department.

Well, it turns out Rep Sheila Jackson-Lee (R-TX) did indeed raise this issue with then U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a House hearing on November 14, 2017. Rep Jackson-Lee asked Sessions; “My question is, as I hold up the poster dealing with the report under your jurisdiction–Black Identity Extremists. It is interesting to me that you are opposing [meant targeting] individuals who are opposing lethal force, similar to the attack on Reverend Dr Martin Luther King on Cointelpro, but there seems to be no report dealing with the tiki torch parade in Charlottesville chanting ‘Jews will not replace us’. Why is there an attack on Black activists versus any report dealing with the Alt Right and the White Nationalists?” AG Sessions responded that he was not aware of the report.

Cointelpro which Rep Jackson-Lee referenced in her questioning was a controversial and secret surveillance program the FBI deployed on Black civil rights activists in the 60s, most notably, on the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Historians agree that the primary reason the FBI ran Cointelpro on Black civil rights activists was to scare them into silence. This is precisely why when Black activists hear about “Black Identity Extremists” they are immediately reminded of stories they’ve read about Cointelpro and are justified in questioning whether the FBI has indeed reverted back to its 1960s tactic of stifling Black dissent.

Bottom line the “Black Identity Extremist” debate is one that begs for serious mainstream media attention. The mainstream media and indeed members of Congress must not remain silent as a section of the population is unjustly subjected to heightened levels of government surveillance all in an effort to stifle their first amendment compliant political speech. At moments like these, Martin Niemoller’s famous words come to mind; “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist, then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist, then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

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Prosecutors Subpoena Epstein’s Pilots

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CNN reports that prosecutors have subpoenaed the personal pilots of accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in a move clearly aimed at corroborating victims’ accounts and possibly charging other actors.

It has been known for decades that Epstein befriended a lot of very powerful people and it was just a matter of time before prosecutors started digging into who among them accompanied Epstein on his illicit missions. The flight logs maintained by Epstein’s personal pilots are of course the perfect place for prosecutors to be digging for such information.

According to CNN reporter Kara Scannell, the relationship between Epstein and billionaire Leslie Wexner (the CEO of L Brands–the parent company of Victoria’s Secret), has attracted the attention of prosecutors.

Appearing on the Saturday morning edition of CNN’s NewDay, Kara Scannell said, “There are new details emerging about the relationship between L Brand’s CEO Leslie Wexner and Epstein. The New York Times is reporting how Epstein leveraged his relationship with the billionaire behind Victoria’s Secret for money and access to young aspiring models. According to The Times, Wexner gave Epstein power of attorney over his finances allowing Epstein to sign Wexner’s tax returns, borrow money in his name, and buy and sell properties. The financial ties between the men were also intertwined. According to The Times, Epstein bought at least two properties from Wexner including the New York mansion. Epstein also allegedly leveraged that friendship to gain access to women. According to a Santa Monica police report obtained by CNN, one woman said she met with Epstein in a California hotel room believing she was interviewing for a job as a Victoria’s Secret catalogue model but once inside, the woman alleges Epstein groped her…”

There is absolutely no question that Epstein’s very close personal and business relationship with Wexner raises a lot of eyebrows and prosecutors are justifiably curious about it. Is Wexner so ensnared by Epstein’s illicit conduct that he felt compelled to bow to his demands? Has Epstein been blackmailing Wexner using potentially compromising behavior the two have engaged in together over the years? These are the kind of questions beginning to pop up regarding the relationship between Epstein and Wexner and undoubtedly, there will be similar stories about other rich people Epstein dealt with, the most anticipated one being his relationship with Trump. CNN pointed out that Wexner’s camp has denied any involvement with Epstein regarding the child sex trafficking allegations.

Bottom line, as troubling as the allegations involved in Epstein’s child sex trafficking case are, his case presents a major test for the U.S. criminal justice system. For decades the charge has been levelled against the U.S. criminal justice system–that it is a two tier system that holds poor suspects to a very harsh standard while extending a lot of leniency to rich and powerful suspects, often times for more egregious crimes. Epstein’s case is clearly one where very rich and powerful people have committed horrific crimes against the most vulnerable victims–children. Will the U.S. criminal justice system rise up to the occasion and “throw the books” at the rich suspects or will it be the usual “slap on the wrist” treatment the public has become accustomed to? Only time will tell or as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”

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Trump Admin Set To Cut Food Stamps For 3 Million Families

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UNITED STATES – MAY 7: Supporters listen as Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Va., holds a news conference with faith leaders to “urge lawmakers to reject proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the Farm Bill” on Monday, May 7, 2018. (Photo By Sarah Silbiger /CQ Roll Call)

A troubling Bloomberg piece (shared by Yahoo) says the Trump administration is set to do away with a provision that allowed most states to automatically enroll welfare recipients for food stamps, a move that will lead to more than 3 million poor households losing their food stamps. This is especially troubling given the fact that the Trump administration not only enjoys record Evangelical support but also recently gave extremely generous tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans, some of whom have recently confessed to some sections of the media that they don’t even know what to do with the extra money–the quintessential war on poverty. As expected, several 2020 presidential candidates have already jumped on this issue.

As it currently stands most states automatically enroll people who qualify for other federally funded welfare programs into food stamps, and rightfully so. In most states for example, people who qualify for federal housing are also automatically enrolled for food stamps. It is this “automatic enrollment” by states that is at issue, with the Trump administration moving to put an end to it. The argument by the Trump administration is that automatic enrollment is leading to a lot of people getting food stamps even though they don’t meet the federal qualification standards. This they argue, is wasteful and you guessed it–a strain on the national debt. Yeah, the same Trump administration which vigorously pushed for deficit-busting tax cuts for the rich is now worried about food stamps for the poor.

Bottom line folks, valid policy differences arise between fiscal conservatives and economic liberals all the time and a forceful argument can be made that the Trump administration is perfectly within its rights to move in and streamline the criteria for determining who qualifies for food stamps. The problem for the Trump administration however and the record number of Evangelical Christians who support it is that it is very hard to defend a policy that strips millions of poor families of food stamps because of worries about the national debt when just recently you supported a trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthiest Americans knowing full well it would put a huge dent on the national debt. This is the epitome of either cruelty, greed, or both.

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