Tag: CONFLICT

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Monies Raised By Trump’s PACs Are Being Spent On His Legal Fees

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Turns out, per bombshell segment on CNN‘s NewNight Show (01/30/24) that political action committees (PACs) supporting former President Donald Trump are using the $50 million they have raised, to offset Trump’s personal legal bills. As NewsNight host Abby Phillips hastily points out, as shady as this may appear to the general public, it is apparently totally legal.

One would understand why the public would struggle with the legality of this action by Trump’s PACs, given the myriad news stories out there, of people being criminally prosecuted for starting GoFundMe campaigns to ostensibly raise funds for medical bills, only to turn around and use those funds for personal items like new vehicles, rent, jewellery, etc. If that is illegal, then why should it be perfectly legal for a PAC, which ostensibly raises money for Trump’s campaign for the presidency in 2024, to turn around and use the raised funds to offset his personal legal bills?

Host Abby Phillip (0:15): “Sources tell CNN that $50 million, is how much the PACs supporting Trump, have raised and then donated to the cause of keeping Trump out of jail. Now, mind you, this is all legal, but a spokesman for one of those PACs insists tonight to the New York Times, that every dollar being raised by MAGA Inc is going directly to defeating Joe Biden in November. But at least some of those dollars and cents are as of this moment, being siphoned off for courtroom costs.”

Bottom line folks, reasonable people will agree that there is no difference between the financial fraud that GoFundMe scammers are rightly criminally prosecuted for, and what these Trump PACs are engaged in. Simply put, rather than just throwing up our hands in the air and accepting this cheating by Trump’s PACs as “totally legal”, maybe some legal eagle should embark on a novel federal lawsuit arguing that Trump’s PACs are defrauding their donors, and are in essence, no different than the criminal GoFundMe scammers. While this may not fix the issue during this 2024 election cycle, maybe, just maybe, it may spur members of Congress to come up with a legislative fix for these and other PAC loopholes, for future elections.

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Michael Moore Slams Michigan Officials For Zero Criminal Prosecutions Over Flint Water Scandal

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Film Producer and Activist Michael Moore appeared on MSNBC’s Politics Nation show (11/04/23) to discuss among other things, the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. Moore’s home state is Michigan, which is home to the largest Arab-American population in the United States. Later in the interview, the discussion moved on to another disaster that Moore got intricately involved in as an activist, and that is, the Flint water scandal, which caused lead poisoning of poor (primarily Black) families in Flint Michigan. Moore expressed frustration that to date, no Michigan state official has been criminally held responsible for the poisoning.

Here’s what Michael Moore told host Al Sharpton regarding the decision by the Michigan Attorney General to end the investigation into Flint without any criminal prosecution (8:38): “It’s so disgusting, appalling, and again, sad…Here we are, talking really about…an ethnic cleansing of a majority Black city, where the state of Michigan in order to save some money, took the city off the clean water supply from Lake Huron, and made the people of Flint, Michigan, majority Black, drink from the Flint River, a massively polluted river, for decades, and what it did was, it poisoned nearly 10,000 children. Any lead poisoning, if you’re…six years and younger, you will have permanent brain damage…And the Governor, and his people, once they knew what was going on, they tried to cover it up…and they got away with it…If this was a White town in Michigan…you never would have seen this. This is going on for seven years, and nobody convicted, nobody having to be responsible for what they knew what was going on, they knew what was going to happen…”

Moore then went on to subtly call out the current Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, for not criminally prosecuting the people responsible for the Flint water poisoning. To be clear, AG Nessel assumed office in 2019, long after the Flint water scandal broke (2014-2016). She was not the state’s AG as the crisis was playing out. Any reasonable person would conclude however, judging from Moore’s tone, that he is terribly disappointed with AG Nessel for the lack of criminal prosecutions.

Bottom line folks, unless and until we start holding public officials criminally responsible for atrocities such as Flint and many others that have happened before (MKULTRA, Cointelpro etc), atrocities that cause irreparable harm to unsuspecting citizens, we will continue to see them happen again in the future. It’s really that plain and simple.

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Jordan’s Queen Rania Slams The West Over “Glaring Double Standard” Regarding Israel-Palestine Conflict

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In an interview with CNN’s Christian Amanpour( 10/24/23), Jordan’s Queen Rania Al Abdullah took issue with the way the West (read United States) has handled the Israel-Palestine conflict, after the terrorist attacks by Hamas on 10/07/23. Queen Rania, who is of Palestinian descent, slammed the West over what she called a “glaring double standard” in the way they treat Israel vis a vis Palestine.

Queen Rania specifically said: “The people all around the Middle-East, including in Jordan, we are just shocked and disappointed by the world’s reaction to this catastrophe that is unfolding. In the last couple of weeks we have seen a glaring double standard in the world. When October 7th happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and…condemned the attacks that happened. But what we’re seeing the last couple of weeks, we are seeing silence in the world. Countries have stopped expressing concern, or acknowledging the casualties, but always with the preface of declaration of support for Israel. Are we being told that it is wrong to kill an entire family at gunpoint, but it’s okay to shell them to death? I mean there is a glaring double standard here, and it is just shocking to the Arab world. This is the first time in modern history that there is such human suffering, and the world is not even calling for a ceasefire, so the silence is deafening, and to many in our region, it makes the Western world complicit…Many in the Arab world are looking at the Western world as not just tolerating this, but as aiding and abetting it…and this is just horrendous, and deeply deeply disappointing to all of us.”

There is no other way to interpret Queen Rania’s remarks other than, she is calling for cessation of hostilities by both sides (Hamas and Israel) so that the world can focus on the humanitarian conditions of the desperate millions of people trapped in Gaza. It is a concern shared by many, including Yours Truly, who reflexively side with Israel. Simply put, every reasonable person wants the eradication of the terrorist group Hamas from the region. Let’s however do it in a way that does not also wipe away millions of innocent Palestinians.

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Paxtons Are A Symbol Of Texas GOP’s Corruption

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Texas Attorney-General and his wife State Senator Angela Paxton

A lot has been made about the corruption of the Trump administration and Republicans generally at the national level, and deservedly so. Very little however is said about the entrenched corruption among Republicans at the state level, especially in so-called “Red States” like Texas that have a GOP trifecta–control of the Judiciary, Legislature and Executive Branch.

Hopefully this bombshell piece by Texas Tribune will open the door to more coverage of the entrenched GOP Corruption in the Lone Star State and other “Red States”

The Texas Tribune piece above goes into great detail about how State Senator Angela Paxton’s new bill opens her up to charges of corruption. So in order to avoid redundancy, Yours Truly will do what he does best–cut to the chase and tell grassroots Democrats what is corrupt/swampy about Senator Paxton’s bill.

You will remember that in 2015, Texas Attorney-General was indicted and charged for violating a Texas securities law–essentially giving investment advice that he was not authorized to give. In Texas, as in many other states, one is required to register with the state board before giving investment advice. Giving investment advice without registering with the state board is a third degree felony in Texas (2-10 years jail). There are many reasons for the state board registration requirement, key among them curbing corruption/self dealing. If I am a major shareholder at a large Texas company, and I am advising someone/ a corporation to make a major investment in the same company, the folks at the Texas state board can easily sniff out the self dealing because they will have records of all my financial entanglements. Simply put, it is a very important anti-corruption measure to have investment advisers register with the Texas state board.

Angela Paxton the wife of Texas AG Ken Paxton ran for office in 2018 and was elected Texas State Senator for Senate District 8(SD 8). One of her first actions as a Texas legislator was introducing Senate Bill 860 (SB860) which among other things, seeks to make it legal for someone to give investment advice without registering with the Texas state board–the same thing her husband is currently in trouble for. It’s not hard to see why the naked self-dealing/corruption that is inherent in Sen Paxton’s SB860 has sparked outrage in Texas. Sadly however, this is just a sample of the kind of entrenched corruption that is commonplace in “Red States” like Texas that never get the mainstream media attention they deserve. Hopefully from here on out the Texas Tribune and other major Texas publications will expose instances of public corruption like the one exhibited by the Paxtons. Yours Truly will certainly make #TexasSwamp a major topic of debate especially as we approach the 2020 elections.

Bottom line if Democrats hope to turn Texas blue, they have to make the entrenched GOP Corruption a key campaign issue in 2020 and beyond. Maybe just maybe this may be the key to Democrats capturing the coveted US Senate seat currently held by John Cornyn in 2020.

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The Obscene Trump-Fox News Relationship

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Trump and Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo

When regular people encounter obscene images on the internet and elsewhere, the natural reaction is to recoil in dismay. Strangely however, America is witnessing daily an obscene relationship between President Trump and Fox News with seemingly no “recoiling in dismay” from politicians (especially Dems) or other sections of the mainstream media.

This lack of dismay/outrage at the obscene relationship between President Trump and Fox News leaves the wrong impression that this is okay/acceptable. Folks, this is not acceptable and Dems need to start screaming about it. There has to be a reasonable distance between the White House and a major U.S. news organization

Luckily Brian Stelter host of CNN’s Reliable Sources gets it and is beginning to call out this obscene relationship between Trump and Fox News. In a July 8 2018 segment, Stelter details how Fox News and Trump are engaged in conduct no other U.S. administration has ever engaged in with a major news organization–the stuff of state run tv stations in foreign dictatorships.

Stelter for example talks about how Maria Bartiromo literally handed Trump talking points in what was supposed to be an interview. Or how Trump promotes Sean Hannity’s show to his twitter followers and gets regular advice from him(Hannity) on political matters. Or how Lou Dobbs calls into Oval Office meetings to give his opinions(wow). Or how Kimberly Guilfoyle is now dating Trump’s son yet still appears as a host on Fox News discussing the Trump family. Or how Jeanine Pirro asked Trump for a job at DOJ. Or how Trump at the suggestion of Sean Hannity is now bringing in Bill Shine, former Fox News executive into the White House as Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications. Folks, examples of this obscene Trump-Fox News relationship are endless.

By the way Bill Shine’s wife Darla is known to post very racist things on Twitter. She has since deleted her Twitter account but Mediaite captured some of them. This blatant racism by Darla would be enough for any other U.S. administration to pull the plug on Shine’s appointment but not the Trump administration.

According to Stelter both Trump and Fox News benefit from this obscene relationship–Trump getting regular “soft” interviews which are essentially public relations campaigns and in turn he pitches the various Fox News shows, books etc to his massive twitter audience. It’s a great arrangement from a business standpoint, but goes against everything U.S. journalism has stood for–holding those in power accountable. Maria Bartiromo and her cohorts at Fox News appear to have twisted this age old journalism principle to “using those in power for ratings and profit.”

Yours Truly was on this Fox News beat way before it was vogue but admittedly, never thought it would ever get this bad.

Bottom line Dems need to start calling out this obscene Trump-Fox News affair. Simply put, this overt alliance and coordination between the president and a major news network is detrimental to a democratic society and needs to be vociferously called out.

***POST UPDATED on 10/15/23 to include the fact that CNN has since cancelled Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources show, so the referenced 07/08/2018 video segment is no longer available***

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