Ammon Bundy is headed off to Ada County jail after he thoroughly ticked off an Idaho judge. Bundy was convicted in March for an April 2020 trespassing charge at the Idaho Capitol Building. He was given community service, one year of probation, and a $3,315 fine.
But Bundy had to Bundy. He submitted to the court that he had fulfilled his 40 hours of public service—by working on his own campaign for Idaho governor.
According to KTVB, Judge Annie McDevitt said, "The whole point of public service is to give back to the community in ways that do not serve yourself.”
Ada County Prosecutor Whitney Welsh called the Capitol protest "our own little mini January 6" and showed a video of Bundy threatening two law enforcement officers, telling them he will find out where they live, saying, “I’ll come after you, each one of you personally.”
Bundy didn't just blow off his community service - which happens with defendants sometimes - but instead blatantly defied the instruction, "making a mockery of the sentence you received," McDevitt said.
Unless you've been living under a rock this week, you know a giant cargo ship is lodged lengthwise across the Suez Canal, blocking ships from navigating through one of the most important shipping routes in the world.
The cargo ship Ever Given has been stuck since Wednesday and everything from car parts, electronics, and livestock are stuck behind the 220,000-ton ship. Roughly 30 oil tanker ships are caught in the blockage and that has already caused oil shipping rates to nearly double this week. And if that doesn't make you pucker, this probably will: Walter Schalka, the CEO of Brazilian-based Suzano SA, one of the world's largest wood pulp producers, says the blockade will create a snowball effect on delivering wood pulp, an industry that was already strained. Why does that matter to you? Because wood pulp is how toilet paper is made. I'm not saying you need to go out and hoard, but beware that we may again face a toilet paper shortage.
It may take weeks to dig out the Ever Given, which ran aground and is currently being dug out with one lonely looking bulldozer. The U.S. Navy is sending a team of specialists to help assess the situation. Companies are now between a proverbial rock and a hard place, trying to decide whether to stick it out, or take the alternate route all the way around the tip of Africa.
The situation and the single bulldozer remedy have sparked a plethora of hilarious and frightening memes and tweets. Before you head out for toilet paper, let's take a look at some of the more funny and thought-provoking responses.
First up, a spit-take worthy update to a class Austin Powers GIF.
Aurora Intel also helped clear up rampant confusion. The ship has the word "evergreen" painted on the side, but the ship is named Ever Given.
Now, on to some of the more funny responses online.
And a few thought-provoking tweets about how something like one ship being stuck can disrupt global supply chains overnight.
Did you see any hilarious or thought-provoking memes to share? Drop them in the comments—right after you run out for toilet paper.
Just when you think you're done laughing at the totally humiliating ending of Rudy Giuliani's career as Donald Trump's personal attorney, it keeps getting more embarrassing for Giuliani and the Trump campaign.
Like most of Trump's unqualified appointees in government, apparently the Trump campaign didn't closely screen who they were putting in front of worldwide cameras in the parking of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping lot. Which I still can't even believe I'm typing, but that was a real thing that happened.
To recap, on Saturday Donald Trump announced via Twitter that his lawyers would be having a press conference at the upscale Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. That tweet was quickly replaced with one saying the location was the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company in Philadelphia, located in an industrial area next to the Fantasy Island adult store and a crematorium.
As if that weren't bad enough, Politico reports New Jersey political reporters instantly recognized one of Rudy Giuliani's key "witnesses" as Daryl Brooks, a New Jersey man who went to prison in 1988 after a sex offender conviction. He was convicted of exposing himself to two girls, ages 7 and 11 years old.
Brooks ran for Congress in 2004 as the Green Party candidate in New Jersey's 12th District, along with a slew of other campaign runs since as a libertarian and Poor People's Campaign candidate.
At the Four Seasons Total Humiliation event, Brooks claimed to have moved to Philadelphia two years ago, but Politico was not able to verify that. Brooks has run for office several times in New Jersey and elected officials there were surprised to see him.
"I started watching it and all of a sudden I was like, 'there's New Jersey's perennial candidate claiming to live in Philadelphia and Giuliani claiming him to be a poll watcher and Philadelphia resident," Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora said in a phone interview.
New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman's office also recognized Brooks. Chief of Staff James Gee added context, noting that Brooks had worked his way into being a poll watcher for the Clinton campaign in 2016.
"Yeah, I know Daryl. It's so fitting that he would be there," Gee said. Gee said he believed Brooks was hired for Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. "People don't pay attention to who they hire. They're just trying to get bodies, particularly if it's a white organizer," said Gee, who's Black. "And this time apparently, I guess he was on the Republican side of the watchers."
The campaign has never fully explained why they chose this location, but the most obvious answer is someone from the campaign just straight-up screwed up and they all went with it to save face. Take a look at some of the Trump supporters who turned out at the landscaping company next to the adult store and across the street from the crematorium.
In May 2019, Democrat Jaime Harrison formally launched a U.S. Senate campaign in South Carolina to challenge incumbent Lindsey Graham, a man who is simultaneously one of the most powerful people in government and one of the most despised politicians in the country.
From the start, Harrison has faced an uphill battle in South Carolina. Challenging the head of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee in a state that falls in the deeply red column isn't for the faint of heart. No doubt Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thought his reelection was in the bag and they could focus on other battleground races. But Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell underestimated just how angry the actual silent majority truly is after four years of watching Lindsey Graham act like Donald Trump's lap dog, protecting Trump from criminal investigations and stealing three Supreme Court seats along the way.
In short, Graham and McConnell underestimated YOU and our collective rage.
In the past year, Jaime Harrison received a tsunami of small donations, flooding the Harrison campaign with record-breaking donations that have topped $86 million, forcing Graham to appear almost nightly on Fox News to beg Sean Hannity's audience for money. He even used the Senate Judiciary Committee pulpit during a hearing on Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination to complain about all the money, issuing a plea from inside the Senate building (a big no-no) to ask for donations to help him because he was delivering the Barrett nomination to the Senate, despite the public outcry. It was not only pathetic, but it might have run afoul of the law, which "prohibits soliciting or receiving campaign contributions on federal property."
In fact, Graham is so upset at the record donations that came into the South Carolina race that he has indicated he wants an investigation after the election.
In an interview with The Hill, Graham whined, "Where's all this money coming from ActBlue coming from? How easy would it be to just have a bunch of pre-paid credit cards?"
Yes, Lindsey Graham, I suppose it is entirely possible a shadowy, powerful Black Lives Matter foundation with secret billions in the bank loaded up pre-paid 'antifa' cards and made tens of thousands of $37 donations (the average Harrison donation), one at a time, to unseat you.
Why can't Lindsey Graham just accept that not only is he personally deeply unpopular, but so is the Republican agenda? It isn't like we didn't try to tell him. We called his offices. We showed up at town halls. We showed up in Washington, D.C. We even chased him in airports when we he refused to hear us anywhere else. But he will hear us at the ballot box on Nov. 3 and so will his corrupted colleagues. And even if Lindsey Graham survives this challenge, we will be back for the next. You can take that to the bank.
In the meantime, let's keep pissing off Lindsey Graham with our small donations. Our Daily Kos Elections team has compiled a list of 17 state legislative candidates from Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, and Michigan who need the most help as we head down the final stretch. Sure it feels good to donate to Lindsey's demise, but these races are every bit as critical or even more so than South Carolina's because these state legislatures control the boundaries of congressional districts, something Republicans have successfully used to slice and dice our blue districts, gerrymandering our states into Republican-controlled havens that give people like Lindsey Graham undue power over the majority.
Afterward, you can send Lindsey Graham a copy of your donation as evidence for his "investigation" at campaign@lindseygraham.com. Bless his heart.
"If we nominate Donald Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it." That's a tweet Lindsey Graham sent on May 3, 2016, as his party was barreling over a cliff, on the verge of making Donald Trump the Republican nominee for president.
Unfortunately for all of us, the nomination was sealed and the reality of the reality show president has been even worse than imagined, something reflected in Civiqs polling. By a margin of ten points, 48-38, people think the Trump presidency was worse than they expected. All things considered, even that gap doesn't seem wide enough.
And while a blue wave seems to be on the horizon in just a few weeks, perhaps no race has shocked more than Lindsey Graham's re-election bid in South Carolina, which is effectively tied at the moment. Graham still seems likely to win, but his opponent, Jaime Harrison, has made deep in-roads in the Palmetto State. A year ago nobody gave this race a chance and now, with only three weeks to go, not only is this race closer than anticipated, Harrison has been flooded with small-dollar donations. On Sunday his campaign announced an absolutely jaw-dropping total for this final quarter going into the election. Are you sitting down?
Before the vice presidential debate got underway in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Pete Buttigieg dropped by a Fox News pre-debate segment and absolutely leveled the place. This is precisely how you slice and dice a Fox News talking point.
WATCH:
Pete Buttigieg - Fox News might not let you back after you destroyed their set like that 😂
#Debates2020 https://t.co/pWyCvBwxjo
Team Biden dispatched Pete Buttigieg again this morning for a Fox News appearance and oops! He did it again. After the Presidential Debate Commission announced the next debate would be virtual because of the COVID-19 risk, Donald Trump appeared on Fox News to say he would not participate. That debate is slated to be a town hall-style debate where the candidates take questions from audience members.
Once again, Buttigieg proved himself to be an extremely effective surrogate for the Biden campaign, hitting Donald Trump's cowardice and noting most American families have had to adjust to virtual learning for their children, working from home, etc. and Donald Trump seems incapable of the kind of sacrifice the rest of us make every single day
After Steve Bannon’s arrest on Thursday, Donald Trump tried to put a Grand Canyon-sized gap between himself and the “We Build The Wall” border scheme. Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea were indicted on counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The federal indictment says the crew pilfered “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and a Bannon-controlled nonprofit received more than $1 million in funds.
The federal government is seeking to take possession of the fraudulently purchased items, like the flashy boat Kolfage purchased and used in recent “Trumptilla” boat parades. Incredibly enough, Bannon and Kolfage recorded a video promoting their scam fund and folks, you are not going to believe this—Bannon actually jokes they are filming in Saint-Tropez in southern France before adding: “We are on the million dollar yacht of Brian Kolfage. Brian Kolfage, he took all that money from Build The Wall.” Kolfage then lets out an awkward laugh. Watch them joke about the fraud below. You cannot make this up.
Folks, this really happened. https://t.co/EviEJCGvs7
After you collect yourself, watch the video below this because it just keeps getting better. First up, let’s revisit Trump’s statement trying to put daylight between himself and the We Build The Wall project. He repeatedly says he “didn’t like it” and thought it was “showboating and maybe looking for funds.” In a stumbling response, he repeatedly said he never approved of the project and Bannon aside, that he didn’t know anyone involved. As you’ll see below, most of the folks involved in the project said otherwise.
Let’s listen to former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has been described as a "racist traveling con man" because of his history of helping cities enact racist laws and then billing them to represent them in court cases they inevitably lose.
Kobach is legal counsel for We Build The Wall, because of course he is, and he recorded an “interview” with Jennifer Lawrence, who is also listed on the We Build The Wall website as the communications director for the organization. Listen to Kobach describe his conversation with Donald Trump and brag that Trump said: “I want the media to know this project has my blessing.”
It should be noted that just before Bannon’s arrest on Thursday morning by federal postal inspectors on a yacht off the coast of Connecticut, federal investigators were also serving a warrant on Lawrence and another associate, Dustin Stockton. The pair told CNN that “heavily armed federal agents” served the warrant and confiscated their cell phones.
No doubt, Kobach must be sweating. Going after lower-level employees is a sure sign they’re angling for bigger fish. And while Kobach bragged about Trump’s full-throated approval, he wasn’t alone. Lexi Churchill of ProPublica found other examples claiming Trump's full endorsement. Amanda Shea, wife of the recently indicted Timothy Shea, shared a photo of the crew with Donald Trump in August 2019, with a caption saying: “A summer of winning came to a high note in the Hamptons. I had the absolute pleasure and honor of spending time with President Trump who had a lot of questions about the wall We The People built through We Build The Wall. He was impressed, but more importantly, incredibly personable and easy to talk to. I forgot that I was speaking with one of the most powerful men in the world.”
And wherever a right-wing grift exists, you know Junior isn’t far behind. Of course he promoted the wall and congratulated Kolfage on "[t]his is private enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else. What you guys are doing is amazing.”
On Thursday morning, the news cycle exploded with yet another member of Donald Trump’s inner circle facing federal charges, bringing the total to six Trump confidantes who’ve faced charges since 2016. This time it is Steve Bannon, who joins Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, and Michael Flynn in the Trump Indictment Club. Bannon was the Trump campaign’s chief executive officer in 2016. He later followed Trump to the White House as chief strategist, a position he left in August 2017 to return to Breitbart News and attach himself to a series of grifts, including the one he is now facing charges for, which involved soliciting donations for a privately built border wall and then, according to prosecutors, fraudulently creating sham invoices and shell companies to enrich himself and other collaborators. It’s quite similar to what the NRA was doing, as well. Makes you wonder if any other campaigns might have similar setups? Curious, indeed.
But back to Trump responding to the Bannon news. During an appearance with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, Donald Trump took a few questions and tried to put a Grand Canyon-sized gap between himself and Steve Bannon, a man he apparently barely knows now. Let’s break down his responses here, because he gave a couple of rather incredulous responses.
First up, he details how very “sad” it is that Bannon is facing charges, and the he pivots to a curious statement that is rather telling. In the clip below, Trump says, “I think it is surprising. But, this is something that by reading social media, by reading whatever it is, by speaking to Mike and Mike and all of them, I didn’t like that project.” Now why would Trump mention “social media”? Because on July 12, 2020, Trump tweeted:
I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised mo… https://t.co/sBLrSPf3Sn
Let’s be clear here: By the time he sent that tweet, Trump was no doubt well aware that Bannon’s wall project was under investigation. Bannon himself reportedly learned of the investigation in October 2019 and he and the other defendants took steps to further conceal the fraud. There can be little doubt that Trump knew and many are speculating that is precisely why Attorney General Bill Barr moved in June to fire Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney leading the investigation.
And let’s take a moment to pause and reflect on Donald Trump saying he didn’t like the privately funded border wall project because it was “showboating” and my goodness, if there is one thing Donald Trump hates, it’s showboaters.
Thank you very much to our beautiful “boaters.” I will never let you down! https://t.co/Ot5Ffnjj9G
Speaking of boats, Bannon’s partner in this scam was Brian Kolfage, who created the GoFundMe account to privately build a border wall. Kolfage was a proud member of the Trump boating community, using a boat that he bought with the funds scammed from the border wall project.
Lastly, there was one question about how he feels about six of his former top advisers facing felony charges since he took office and you guessed it, he had nothing but Obama, Obama, Obama in response.
Reporter Geoff Bennett: Respectfully, sir, it isn’t just Steven Bannon, it’s Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen. What's it say about your judgment, that these are the kinds of people ...
Donald Trump: Well, I have no idea --
Reporter Geoff Bennet: And a culture of -- lawlessness.
Donald Trump: Yeah, yeah. There was great lawlessness in the Obama administration. They spied on our campaign illegally. If you look at all the things and all the scandals they had, they had tremendous lawlessness. I was not involved in the project. I had no idea who was. I can tell you, I didn't know—the three people talked about were people I did not know. I don't believe I even met them.
Here’s that clip.
I wish you could hear how hard I am cackling IRL right now. https://t.co/hf2Viz5UQK
For the record, none of President Obama’s former advisers ever faced any charges. Also, for the record, the folks involved in the private wall scam frequently bragged about contact with Donald Trump and his knowledge of their efforts. Just listen to Kris Kobach bragging about his involvement and Trump’s blessing of the project.
Trump endorsed the We Build The Wall scheme, and said, “I want the media to know this project has my blessing,” per… https://t.co/NssogJBktl
One Arizona baby man is getting all kinds of attention after video of his temper tantrum began widely circulating on Twitter Monday night.
The man and his sons entered a Tucson grocery store and apparently they all refused to wear masks. The video doesn’t get the entire confrontation, but it is safe to say they were being told to wear masks or leave and baby man went into a rage, directing his anger at store employees, calling them names I’m not going to repeat here, but would definitely get him sent to the principal’s office if he were a child and if (when) he’s identified, might very well cost him his job.
As baby man was throwing a fit, his son (or sons) were clearly increasingly embarrassed as they held him back and tried to persuade him to back off. They also probably knew this might end up on the internet because he was so out of control and another shopper was filming. He did not back down. He kept throwing insults and calling employees names until another shopper, a much larger man, decided he was going to make time for baby man that day.
As soon as our valiant defender walked up to baby man and began having words, the whole temperature changed. Baby man’s entourage turned to see who was approaching with words of his own and they all instantly knew it was about to go down and baby man was about to learn a hard lesson. They wanted no part of it, so in an instant, the man’s son began aggressively pushing him toward the exit and when baby man resisted and continued screaming insults, his son picked him up and carried him all the way out of the store.
And now people cannot stop laughing at the image of this “tough” guy being completely picked up and carried out of the store like an insult-slinging toddler in need of a time-out.
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Anti-masker in Tucson, AZ throws a tantrum and has to be carried out by his own son https://t.co/ggo4I968aL
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@Fifty Shades of Whey)
1597106436
As schools are beginning to reopen with no realistic plan to contain the spread of COVID-19, two Georgia teens went viral for sharing images of the crowded hallways of North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia. Many, if not most, of the students in the hallway were not wearing masks. Both teens were suspended for five days for allegedly breaking school policies around using phones during school hours and posting images of other students.
Hannah Watters is one of the suspended teens. In an interview with CNN legal correspondent Laura Coates, Watters said she had no regrets about posting the photo. In a tribute to the legendary congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis, she said it was “good and necessary trouble.”
In an interview with The New York Times,Watters said her mom gave her great advice: “My mom has always told me that she won’t get mad at us if we get in trouble as long as it’s ‘good trouble,’ before adding, ‘You’re bettering society and bettering the world, so those consequences don’t outweigh the end result.’”
Check out the full interview (below) with this young person, who is no doubt going to go onto great things. She already seems to have more sense than the school administrators, who not only reopened school without a viable plan to keep everyone in the building safe, but then had the gall to suspend Watters for exposing their own mistakes. As comedian Roy Wood, Jr. said on Twitter: “They tried to (suspend) this child to teach her a lesson but all they did was free her up for 3 days of media rounds. ADVANTAGE: Student.”
And for what it’s worth, superintendent of Paulding County School District Brian Otott said in a statement: “Wearing a mask is a personal choice, and there is no practical way to enforce a mandate to wear them.” Which is really something when you consider the very restrictive guidelines the school district has when it comes to clothing—particularly girls’ clothing. The student handbook warns that there are strict dress code checks every morning. Somehow PCSD has perfected the policing of spaghetti straps, girls’ shorts, and tank tops, but they just can’t find a way to enforce a mask rule during a deadly pandemic.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) took to the House floor on Wednesday morning to respond to the vulgar, sexist encounter she had with Rep. Ted Yoho (FL-03) and Rep. Roger Williams (TX-25) on Monday. Ocasio-Cortez was on her way to vote, walking up the steps of the U.S. Capitol when the pair of Republican congressmen angrily confronted her. According to AOC, Yoho was angrily wagging his finger in her face and as he walked away, a reporter from The Hill overheard him exclaim “Fucking bitch.”
The reporter’s account of the encounter sparked a firestorm and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and others demanded Yoho apologize for his remarks, which seemed to be in violation of the House Ethics rules. So the first order of business on Tuesday was Yoho issuing an apology on the House floor. Except it wasn’t an apology at all. He denied using the vulgar slur and then used the fact he has a wife and daughter to deflect from his poor behavior. While many media outlets nationwide ran with “Yoho apologizes” headlines, AOC rightly pointed out that he never apologized. He never said her name. He never took responsibility for his language. He apologized for “their misunderstanding”, claiming the reporter’s misunderstood his comment. And then he had the gall to say he would not apologize for “his passion” or for “loving his God.” Nobody asked him to apologize for his religion, they asked him to apologize for being a sexist, violent jerk. And while he didn’t raise his hand to strike her, a much larger man getting in your face, angrily yelling and wagging his finger in front of your face is very much a physical aggression.
With that, AOC stood on the floor to address the controversy in one of her most passionate speeches to-date. She said she intended to let the fury die down and she would move on, but then Yoho refused to take responsibility for his actions and it upset her he brought his own wife and daughter into the controversy, using them as a shield for his behavior. She noted that she is two years younger than Ted Yoho’s youngest daughter and that “she is someone’s daughter too.” She began to choke up a bit as she pondered how her own father, who is deceased, might react to seeing the hateful treatment she is frequently on the receiving of, from just using the subway, to working as a bartender and now in the United States House of Representatives. She said she could not let this go because “this is not new. It is something women face every single day. It is a cultural.
Enough of the recap, watch this deeply powerful speech. It will no doubt resonate with women worldwide.
To the female readers of this website, you know how this feels. There is not likely a woman alive who hasn’t been called a bitch or a fucking bitch, most likely starting before you even finished high school. (H/T The American Independent for the transcript)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): About two days ago, I was walking up the steps of the Capitol, when Rep. Yoho suddenly turned a corner — and he was accompanied by Rep. Roger Williams — and accosted me on the steps right here in front of our nation's Capitol. I was minding my own business, walking up the steps, and Rep. Yoho put his finger in my face. He called me disgusting. He called me crazy. He called me out of my mind. And he called me dangerous. And then he took a few more steps, and after I had recognized his comments as rude, he walked away and said, "I'm rude? You're calling me rude?"
I took a few steps ahead, and I walked inside and cast my vote because my constituents send me here each and every day to fight for them and to make sure that they are able to keep a roof over their head, that they're able to feed their families, and that they're able to carry their lives with dignity.
I walked back out and there were reporters in the front of the Capitol, and in front of reporters, Rep. Yoho called me — and I quote — "a fucking bitch."
These were the words that Rep. Yoho levied against a congresswoman, a congresswoman that not only represents New York's 14th Congressional District but every congresswoman and every woman in this country. Because all of us have had to deal with this in some form, some way, some shape, at some point in our lives. And I want to be clear that Rep. Yoho's comments were not deeply hurtful or piercing to me. Because I have worked a working-class job. I have waited tables in restaurants. I have ridden the subway. I have walked the streets in New York City. And this kind of language is not new. I have encountered words uttered by Mr. Yoho and men uttering the same words as Mr. Yoho while I was being harassed in restaurants. I have tossed men out of bars that have used language like Mr. Yoho's. And I have encountered this type of harassment riding the subway in New York City.
This is not new. And that is the problem.
Mr. Yoho was not alone. He was walking shoulder to shoulder with Rep. Roger Williams. And that's when we start to see that this issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting of violence and violent language against women, and an entire structure of power that supports that. Because not only have I been spoken to disrespectfully, particularly by members of the Republican Party and elected officials in the Republican Party — not just here but the president of the United States last year told me to go home, to another country, with the implication that I don't even belong in America.
The governor of Florida, Gov. DeSantis, before I even was sworn in, called me a "whatever that is."
Dehumanizing language is not new. And what we are seeing is that incidents like these are happening in a pattern. This is a pattern of an attitude towards women and dehumanization of others. So while I was not deeply hurt or offended by little comments that are made, when I was reflecting on this, I honestly thought that I was just going to pack it up and go home. It's just another day, right?
But then yesterday, Rep. Yoho decided to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and make excuses for his behavior. And that I could not let go. I could not allow my nieces, I could not allow the little girls that I go home to, I could not allow victims of verbal abuse and worse to see that, to see that excuse, and to see our Congress accept it as legitimate and accept it as an apology, and to accept silence as a form of acceptance. I could not allow that to stand.
Which is why I'm rising today to raise this point of personal privilege.
And I do not need Rep. Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly, he does not want to. Clearly, when given the opportunity, he will not. And I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women and using abusive language towards women. But what I do have issue with is using women, our wives and daughters, as shields and excuses for poor behavior. Mr. Yoho mentioned that he has a wife and two daughters. I am two years younger than Mr. Yoho's youngest daughter. I am someone's daughter too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr. Yoho treated his daughter. My mother got to see Mr. Yoho's disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television. And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men.
Now, what I am here to say is that this harm that Mr. Yoho levied — tried to levy — against me was not just an incident directed at me, but when you do that to any woman, what Mr. Yoho did was give permission to other men to do that to his daughters. In using that language in front of the press, he gave permission to use that language against his wife, his daughters, women in his community, and I am here to stand up to say that is not acceptable.
I do not care what your views are. It does not matter how much I disagree or how much it incenses me or how much I feel that people are dehumanizing others. I will not do that myself. I will not allow people to change and create hatred in our hearts. And so what I believe is that having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. And when a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize. Not to save face, not to win a vote. He apologizes genuinely to repair and acknowledge the harm done. So that we can all move on.
Lastly, what I want to express to Mr. Yoho is gratitude. I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women. You can have daughters and accost women without remorse. You can be married and accost women. You can take photos and project an image to the world of being a family man and accost women without remorse and with a sense of impunity. It happens every day in this country. It happened here on the steps of our nation's Capitol. It happens when individuals who hold the highest office in this land admit — admit — hurting women and using this language against all of us.
But once again I thank my colleagues for joining us today.
There is a battle right now for the absolute worst governor in America and, unsurprisingly to readers of this website, all the top contenders are from the Republican Party. Let’s review.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem
First up is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. She resisted stay-at-home orders in April, leading to a massive outbreak. In June, she released a video calling for "more freedom, not more government" while lashing out at the media. In July, she hosted Donald Trump himself for a no-mask appearance that was more of a campaign rally at Mount Rushmore. Noem had previously asked Trump to overturn the ban on fireworks around the monument. The ban went into effect after a pine beetle invasion devastated the area, leaving lots of dry timber to fuel fires, and because of concerns that fireworks debris was poisoning groundwater. Never mind it all, Noem and Trump wanted a big show of freedumb with no masks, even during one of the worst health crises in American history. For what it’s worth, there were rumors Trump liked her so much he was considering replacing Mike Pence with Noem, although people in Trump’s orbit later shut that down.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds
Next up is Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds: another governor who resisted shutting things down to flatten the curve and then oversaw a spike, mostly in agricultural sectors where immigrants working at meat processing plants bore the brunt of the outbreak. Today she is drawing the ire of teachers and school administrators after she abruptly changed the state’s policies and demanded students attend in-person this fall for at least half the regular school days. As noted in the Des Moines Register, this has sent parents and teachers into "chaos." The paper notes it is the “most concrete misstep in addressing the next school year. It throws into chaos families' expectations about school as they continue to confront rampant uncertainty about COVID-19 in many other aspects of their lives.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp
And now we head further south, where the top contenders all reside. Crossing over the Mason-Dixon line, we have Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia. He rode into office on a wave of voter suppression, suppression that he directly created and implemented in his previous role as secretary of state. Kemp proudly resisted shutdown orders until the data clearly showed that the virus was beginning to spiral out of control. We were fully into the month of April and full-blown efforts to “flatten the curve” when Kemp held a press conference saying he’d just learned asymptomatic people could spread the disease, something the rest of us were all aware of because we listened to the scientists from the start. Making this even worse, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are headquartered in Atlanta. All he had to do was consult with literally anyone at the CDC for this information.
And when Donald Trump saw his poll numbers beginning to slide and started barking about ordering everything to open back up, Kemp was right there to lead the charge. When Trump’s charge to reopen was criticized and his numbers slumped even more, he quickly threw Kemp under the bus, criticizing him for reopening too soon. Even today, as the science is clear as day that masks are critical in reducing the spread of the disease, Gov. Brian Kemp has the gall to sue Atlanta for requiring masks in the city. Bless his heart.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt flouts mask recommendations with his family
When that COVID wind came sweeping down the plains, Gov. Kevin Stitt largely refused to wear a mask. Sure he was telling folks in March they were "safer at home," but over on his Twitter account, he was proudly defying expert advice to stay home, avoid indoor spaces, and wear masks, sharing photos of his family out to dinner in a crowded restaurant. He has since deleted this tweet after announcing on July 15 that he is the first governor in the country to test positive for COVID.
And while the restaurant photo drew national attention, that same week he shared photos at a junior livestock show that took place indoors, with not a mask in sight.
And now onto Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, or as he is now called on Twitter: Ron DeathSantis or Rona DeSantis. In late May, DeSantis appeared with Vice President Mike Pence in Florida to spike the ball, raging against the media for what he called “knee-jerk headlines” after images from crowded Florida beaches went viral. He was basically claiming victory over an enemy that was, in reality, just getting started. When he raged at the media on May 20, Florida was averaging 527 new cases per day. Today the Sunshine State reported 10,347 new cases, the sixth consecutive day in a row the state has exceeded 10,000 new cases a day. On Sunday, Florida topped 5,000 deaths. For what it’s worth, in early May, experts estimated Florida would have 5,440 deaths by Aug. 4. DeSantis brushed it off, calling it “conjecture.” Turns out that estimate was low.
And that leads us to the Show Me State of Missouri, where Gov. Mike Parson has shown himself to be a total buffoon. You might be thinking, even worse than DeSantis? I’m here to to sadly affirm this to be true. As a lifelong Kansas Citian (from both sides of this Kansas-Missouri state line), it is hard to understate just how embarrassed and frankly how frightened I am to live in this state right now. Like Donald Trump, Mike Parson seems intent on inflicting maximum harm on the residents of the state’s urban centers. From sending the National Guard to Kansas City during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests (which served only to turn up the temperature of protesters, instantly creating tension and conflict where there had been very little), to vowing to pardon the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at peaceful protesters as they walked down the street in front of their tacky St. Louis mansion if charges end up being filed in the case, Parson keeps lowering the bar.
Then there was the embarrassing display at the White House, where he slathered praise on Donald Trump during a made-for-television July 7 meeting on reopening. His comments were widely mocked both nationally and back home in Missouri. Shortly after traveling to D.C., Parson returned home for a steak fry event—no masks, no social distancing, and with most of the programming taking place indoors. This happened in mid-July 2020, with all the information we have about how this disease spreads.
Teresa and I enjoyed a great evening with friends at the 17th annual @MoCattle’s Association Steak Fry. https://t.co/0pVyJpLixt
— Governor Mike Parson (@Governor Mike Parson)
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And don’t even get me started on his steak cooking. What he did is a disgrace to good steaks everywhere.
From the start of the COVID-19 crisis, Parson’s leadership has been abysmal. As the entire nation was heading into a shutdown and every public health expert on the planet was cautioning for social-distancing, staying in, and avoiding indoor spaces, Parson was sending the exact opposite message to his constituents. This was Mike Parson on March 15.
Teresa and I joined our family this morning to pray for our state and for our county on this National Day of Prayer. https://t.co/XUHIFBJV4g
— Governor Mike Parson (@Governor Mike Parson)
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No masks, indoor space, defying all public health experts: It is no wonder Missouri ranks dead last in state public health funding. And I do mean dead last, because Missourians die due to these budgetary decisions.
Finally, in an interview on Monday with conservative radio host Marc Cox, Parson insisted children go back to school full-time and that children who contract COVID will simply be sent home. “These kids have got to get back to school. They’re at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctor’s offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”
And that, my friends, was the icing on the freedumb cake for me and why I had to move Mike Parson to the top of the list. Where does Mike Parson think those kids are going? They are going home to mom and dad. They are going home to grandparents who live in the home. They are very, very likely to spread it to their teachers and support staff. Where are those adults supposed to go? What are the protocols when a teacher contracts COVID? Is there testing available in each school? How many substitute teachers are willing to take their place? Sen. Elizabeth Warren rightly took Parson to task for his comments on reopening schools, saying, “This is willfully endangering our kids—and entire communities—for political gain. Forcing schools to reopen without providing them with the resources they need to do so safely is reckless, dangerous, and the last thing we should do.”
So how does your governor stack up? Who did I miss? Sound off in the comments below. For those of you who don’t live in South Dakota, Iowa, Georgia, Oklahoma, Florida, or Missouri, what is it like having a governor who isn’t a mouth-breathing, science-denying, anti-life, authoritarian-praising, bad steak-cooking incompetent?
Retired four-star Marine General John Allen has seen enough. In a op-ed forForeign Policy, Allen tore into Donald Trump and his orders to attack American citizens in front of the White House. Allen said he fears we are “witnessing the beginning of the end of American democracy.”
In a three-part breakdown of how Trump has failed this moment and the nation, (Ret.) Gen. Allen specifically called out this administration singling out antifa—a leaderless movement that is, by definition, anti-fascist—as a terrorist group while ignoring the white supremacists who have been proven to be inciting violence at some of these protests. Allen said: “Far more damage to the United States has come from these terrorists—fascists, Klansmen, and neo-Nazis, all feeling newly empowered today—than those who have opposed them.”
Allen wasn’t the only former Marine general to come forward. General Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis, who served as Trump’s secretary of defense for a stint, has finally come forward with his own warning: ”We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.” In a statement to CNN, Mattis said: "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”
That, of course, drove Donald Trump to rage because he quickly tweeted saying he had fired Mattis, essentially saying he was a disgruntled employee. That sparked another former general, John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, to immediately correct the record:
“The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation,” Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, said in an interview. “The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused. The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then The got nasty. Jim Mattis is a honorable man.”
The aforementioned disagreement was Trump’s still-curious decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.
On Tuesday, retired U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, who served as the 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also took aim at Trump’s brutal policies against American citizens. In an op-ed in The Atlantic, Mullen said he “cannot remain silent” anymore.
It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president's visit outside St. John's Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump's leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.
In fact, a steady stream of retired senior military officials are using social media to speak out this week. That should alarm every single American. They are trying to tell us all that the president is unfit for duty.
America’s military, our sons and daughters, will place themselves at risk to protect their fellow citizens. Their j… https://t.co/eML23sQtg9
— GEN(R) Martin E. Dempsey (@GEN(R) Martin E. Dempsey)
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(Ret.) Gen. Tony Thomas, the former commander of the United States Special Operations Command, spoke out on Twitter after hearing Defense Secretary Mark Esper describe American cities as “battle space” during the protests.
After Donald Trump’s outrageous photo op in which he used federal police to attack peaceful protesters so that he could walk to a church to hold up a Bible, others noted how inappropriate it was for General Mark Milley, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to not only be tailing behind Donald Trump during this publicized stunt but to be wearing his battle fatigues, something extremely inappropriate for the setting. Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden noted as much on Twitter.
I was appalled to see him in his battle dress. Milley (he’s a general?!?) should not have walked over to the church… https://t.co/usQR9syfdX
— Gen Michael Hayden (@Gen Michael Hayden)
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America’s retired military commandeers are speaking out and sounding the alarm. The real question is: Where are Republicans? Why do they remain silent while our democracy is being burned to the ground on national television? It’s clear to all Donald Trump is unfit for duty, so why do they continue to enable him? It’s only possible with their consent. When this all ends, they must be held accountable too.
From the “We Tried To Tell You” files comes a cautionary tale from North Carolina. On April 21, North Carolina’s MAGA contingent took to the streets to demand businesses reopen and get back to business as usual despite the fact that COVID-19 cases are still surging, there are still no reliable antibody tests, no vaccine, and most importantly, the body count is still climbing. With the help of a shady network of right-wing organizations promoted by Fox News, these “reopen” events took off nationwide.
Now one of the “Reopen NC” organizers says she tested positive for the novel coronavirus. According to ABC 11, Aubrey Whitlock shared the news on the “Reopen NC” Facebook page, which can only be viewed by members. Whitlock said her 14-day quarantine period ended on Sunday and she was asymptomatic, but when contacted by ABC 11’s Jonah Kaplan about whether Whitlock had attended rallies the last two Tuesdays, Whitlock simply said, “No comment.” If she did attend, she risked the lives of hundreds of her fellow neighbors. Whitlock did confirm that she planned to attend a rally this week.
The News & Observer reports Whitlock was upset she was forced to quarantine after her positive diagnosis. Whitlock had some nerve to compare her predicament to those with other disabilities.
“I have been told not to participate in public or private accommodations as requested by the government, and therefore denied my 1st amendment right of freedom of religion,” Whitlock wrote. “If I were an essential employee, I would be denied access to my job by my employer and the government, though compensated, those with other communicable diseases are afforded the right to work. It has been insinuated by others that if I go out, I could be arrested for denying a quarantine order. However, the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination by employers, places of public accommodation, and state and local government entities. Where do we draw the line?”
Where do we draw the line? We draw the line at people like Asymptomatic Aubrey running around infecting an untold number of her neighbors because of her own selfishness. The worst part is, each of these infections and all these nonsense rallies only spread the disease wider and further delay openings.
The Supreme Court decision to hear the arguments online is both the right thing to do and infuriating after their decision last week to side with Wisconsin Republicans, who were refusing requests to delay the April election or extend the absentee mail-in vote deadline.
A whopping 1,287,827 people requested mail-in ballots in Wisconsin. Of those, only 1,003,422 were returned by Wednesday, April 8. As long as ballots were postmarked by April 7, they will still be counted. But 284,000 outstanding ballots is troubling and some voters reported they never received their ballots. Those voters, along with the rest of the electorate, either showed up to vote in person, risking contracting the coronavirus, or they skipped voting all together.
According to Wisconsin Public Radio, 2.1 million voted in Wisconsin’s 2016 presidential primary so that means nearly a million had to turn out last week to match the 2016 vote. It is incredibly frustrating the U.S. Supreme Court forced these people to come out in-person to exercise their constitutional right to vote during a pandemic and only days later decided to protect themselves by holding court online.
On Wednesday night, Democrats held their ninth debate on the way to picking a nominee to take on Donald Trump this fall. Based on social media reactions, it was crystal clear Elizabeth Warren won the night—and it started in the first two minutes when she went straight at Mike Bloomberg with a punch he never saw coming: “I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians, and no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump.”
You can watch that clip again below, but with that remark, Warren was out of the gate and she never relented.
Time after time, Warren took Bloomberg to task for his harmful, racist policies as New York City’s mayor, his defense of racist bank lending practices, and his use of nondisclosure agreements to protect himself and others at his company who have discriminated, sexually harassed, or worse. Warren struck so many blows against Bloomberg that toward the end of the debate, someone edited Bloomberg’s Wikipedia page to note the date of his death and the cause of death: Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Even as people are still talking about the strength of Warren’s debate performance, particularly against Bloomberg, she’s not sitting back. In fact, she went on another offensive in Las Vegas, this time taking direct aim at billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, who has been one of the biggest Republican Party donors in history. Adelson is reportedly donating $100 million to Donald Trump and Republicans this year alone. Along with the Robert and Rebekah Mercer and Charles Koch, Adelson and his billionaire counterparts essentially own the Republican Party at every level. They finance Republicans from your local city council all the way to the White House, and they do it because it benefits them financially. Republican policies, which are often written and directed by the aforementioned, directly benefit these billionaires. Look no further than the tax cut Republicans voted on in the middle of the night. The 2017 tax bill gave billions in tax cuts to the uber-wealthy, forcing cuts to services meant for those who need assistance the most. Although Republicans always feign surprise that the tax cuts didn’t pay for themselves, make no mistake about it: For them, the resulting cuts in services are a benefit, not a glitch. As Republican activist Grover Norquist once said of the federal government, “I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
So how did Warren go after Adelson this morning? By taking out a full-page ad in the The Las Vegas Review-Journal, the largest newspaper in Las Vegas, which Sheldon Adelson purchased in 2016. In the ad, Elizabeth Warren made the case for her wealth tax, noting Adelson would have to pay $2.3 billion in taxes in the first year alone. Warren’s ad further notes how this money would be reinvested to help everyday Americans by canceling student loan debt, investing in childcare to help working parents, and much more. Nevada reporter Jon Ralston, who was a panelist in Wednesday night’s debate, noted Warren’s “chutzpah” for taking aim at Adelson in his own hometown and in the pages of his own newspaper.
The day after the debate, Elizabeth Warren bought a full page ad in Sheldon Adelson’s newspaper saying Sheldon Adel… https://t.co/KfQKUJi3Z1
If you include the long, long campaign season, we are roughly five years into our Donald Trump hell. During that time, Trump has told thousands of lies. Layers upon layers of lies. And not only does he surround himself with people who do the same, but he demands it of them. Ask Sean Spicer, or ask Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who so struggled to answer for or repeat Donald Trump’s lies from the White House podium that she stopped having press conferences altogether.
Enter Hogan Gidley, principal deputy White House press secretary, a man with a penchant for delivering dizzying talking points in the White House driveway while standing under a $400 Burberry umbrella that matches his pocket handkerchief and his $2,000 raincoat. It’s a wonder these folks were able to convince a large swath of Americans that they represent blue-collar families, but I digress.
Gidley hit the television network, the only one the White House talks to, to explain Donald Trump’s most recent head-scratching pardons, and he offered an equally head-scratching explanation of why he chose these particular people to pardon.
— (@)
“The president is against aggressive sentencing.” Excuse me, what? The man spent two years leading “Lock her up” chants about his political rival. He literally campaigned on aggressively sentencing his political opponent for the crime of … something something.
It was only a week ago that Trump said he admired China for holding quick trials and executing drug dealers. His exact words: "Countries with a powerful death penalty, with a fair but quick trial, they have very little if any drug problem. That includes China."
Wouldn’t the death penalty after a “quick trial” be the most aggressive sentence of all?
That wasn’t the first time that Donald Trump has expressed support for executing drug dealers. He’s reportedly mentioned the idea to aides many times since taking office, citing the policies of Singapore and the Philippines.
Of course, what’s really at play here is yet another example of our two justice systems—one for powerful white men and their allies, and one for the rest of us. Defrauding people is just the cost of doing business to people like Trump. Prison and punishment are for the little people in $20 rain jackets, or political opponents they don’t like, not for Burberry men like themselves. Transactions like pardons and clemency are simply another form of currency for men like Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. Expect to see Bernard Kerik return the favor by continuing to heavily praise and promote Trump on Fox News, something he’s been inexplicably booked to do in recent months despite his conviction on corruption charges, for peddling his influence as NYC’s top police officer for his own personal gain.
At the end of the day, it’s more lies, more shame, more of a stain on this nation and the idea of law and order.
UPDATE: Guess who will be praising Donald Trump on Fox News tonight?
Inbox: Fox News Channel To Present Exclusive Interviews with Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Kerik Tonight
In 2019, Fox News continued its spiral to the bottom with increasingly racist content, particularly in the prime-time hours, when big audiences are tuning in for nightly immigrant-bashing, overt racism, unhinged late-night rants, conspiracy theories, and even attacks on a 16-year-old climate change activist for having the audacity to work to make the world a better place for her future.
All of that is troubling for a national cable news outlet, but perhaps even more troubling is the fact that 2019 was a record-breaking year for Fox News viewership. Business Wire reports that, according to Nielsen Media Research, peddling conspiracies and promoting racist content must be feeding a hungry audience, because Fox News saw its highest viewership in the 23-year history of the network in 2019, averaging 2.5 million viewers per night. Business Wire writes, “FNC also ranks as a top five network in primetime in all of television for 2019. Additionally, Hannity was the number one program in cable news for the third consecutive year with 3.3 million viewers.”
It gets worse. The notoriously racist shows featuring Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have a tight grip on conservative audiences, and they aren’t only talking to your older relatives. Said Business Wire, ”In cable news, FNC secured nine of the top 15 programs in total viewers and the 25-54 demo. Additionally, FNC’s The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity andThe Ingraham Angleclaimed four of the top five programs in the younger 18-49 demo.”
This is what we are up against! As Fox News continues lurching to the extreme right, there is a danger that other networks will follow its lead to cash in on the ratings and the profits, forever seeking that middle ground and “both sides” to the story, even though the progressive side of the story is rarely ever told. And that is why now, more than ever, we need Daily Kos to stand strong in the face of the blatant propaganda coming from the most-watched news outlet in the country. Its hosts, such as Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs, are regularly dining and palling around with Donald Trump and his circle of deplorables. As you can see from the graphic above, Lou Dobbs doesn’t bother even remotely to mask his pro-Trump propaganda, even as his reports mirror those that come from North Korea and China slobbering over their own Dear Leaders.
Sean Hannity has even taken the stage to address the crowds at Donald Trump’s political rallies. Can you imagine a prime-time host from another network having the audacity to display such blatant partisanship? Is there really a scenario in which Rachel Maddow, Chris Cuomo, or Anderson Cooper could be speakers at a political rally for a Democratic candidate? Their credibility would be shot, and they’d likely be looking for a new line of work. But not at Fox News. Let’s face it, the most-watched network in the country is little more than a Republican-operated super PAC.
On Wednesday, Gordon Sondland, the current US Ambassador to the EU, provided an absolutely bombshell opening statement in his testimony to the House impeachment panel. Among the explosive new information he provided was a statement that he’s spoken directly to Vice President Mike Pence about Donald Trump’s marching orders in Ukraine. From Sondland’s opening statement:
There was a September 1 meeting with President Zelensky in Warsaw. Unfortunately, President Trump’s attendance at the Warsaw meeting was cancelled due to Hurricane Dorian. Vice President Pence attended instead. I mentioned to Vice President Pence before the meetings with the Ukrainians that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations. I recall mentioning that before the Zelensky meeting.
During the actual meeting, President Zelensky raised the issue of security assistance directly with Vice President Pence. The Vice President said he would speak to President Trump about it.
In fact, when questioned by House counsel Daniel Goldman, Ambassador Sondland went further, making it clear Mike Pence knew exactly what the investigation was about, even if the Bidens weren’t specifically mentioned.
Goldman: “He didn’t say, Gordon, what are you talking about?"
Sondland: “He did not."
Goldman: “He didn’t say, what investigations?"
Sondland: “He did not."
According to Sondland, Pence was fully briefed on it all. For his part, the vice president’s office wasted little time issuing a statement calling Gordon Sondland a liar:
Pence COS:
“The Vice President never had a conversation with Gordon Sondland about investigating the Bidens, Buri… https://t.co/SA9GgphUUt
If it is true they were never alone, perhaps it is time to get the other people in the room under oath as well. And it is one thing for the Mike Pence’s office to release this statement, having the benefit on not being under oath themselves. It’s another to make this kind of statement under oath, with weight of the full consequences on the vice president’s staff.
At the end of the day, all these people deserve each other and what’s coming to them. As we hear Mike Pompeo is looking for an exit so he can run back to Kansas for a US Senate run, the rats are now fleeing at an unprecedented rate. And make no mistake about it, Donald Trump will burn every single one of them to preserve himself.
Republicans at today’s impeachment hearing, featuring the testimony of George Kent, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Bill Taylor, the senior U.S. envoy to Ukraine, have unveiled a plethora of odd defenses of Donald Trump. They range from “I'M YELLING SO YOU KNOW I’M SERIOUS” to slipping in unsupported conspiracy theories, and most importantly, calling the testimony of these two professional career diplomats nothing more than “hearsay.” Over and over again, we’ve heard them object to these two witnesses because they did not have direct conversations with Trump.
Rep. Peter Welch had quite enough of that nonsense, and as he took his turn at the microphone, he called their bluff, saying, “I say to my colleague, I would be glad to have the person who started it all come in and testify. President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there.”
It was an extraordinary moment that drew big laughter in the room.
While Rep. Welch’s first statement drew laughter, the rest of his statement seriously addressed Donald Trump’s gross abuse of power. His full comments are worth a listen (transcript below).
REP. PETER WELCH: The question is whether there was an abuse of that power. The president can fire an ambassador for any reason whatsoever. The president can change his policy as he did when he opened the door for Turkey to go in and invade, despite opposition from many of his senior advisers. A president could change his position on Ukraine. But is there a limit? There is. Because our Constitution says no one is above the law. And that limit is that one cannot, even as president, use the public trust of high office for personal gain. The law prohibits any one of us here on the dais from seeking foreign assistance in our campaigns. The question for us is whether the use of power by the president was for the benefit of advancing his political interest in the 2020 campaign. By the way, to my colleagues, if the president wants to attack Joe Biden and his son, he's free to do it. All fair and square in campaigns. He's not free to change our foreign policy unless he gets his way to a system in that campaign. That's the line he can't cross.
In January 2017, Richard Spencer gained fame as a result of a number of articles highlighting him as the new, “dapper” face of white nationalism. Then, there was the infamous incident at a Trump inauguration protest in which he was punched in the face during a live television interview.
In August 2017, Richard Spencer was one of the leaders of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville where Heather Heyer was killed, and many others seriously injured, after one of Spencer’s buddies drove into a crowd of anti-Nazi protesters. Spencer was apparently furious about the negative coverage of their violent Nazi rally and now his fellow alt-right pal (or former pal) Milo Yiannopoulos has leaked audio on YouTube, which Yiannopoulos says is Spencer in a racist rage, recorded after the rally. For what it’s worth, YouTube is one of the only social media platforms that hasn’t banned Yiannopoulous. He was permanently banned from Twitter after a racist attack on comedian Leslie Jones..
This is definitely NSFW as it contains explicit and racist language.
— (@)
When you hear that audio, recall Donald Trump, President of the United States, defending these people, calling them “very fine people.” Sickening.
On May 11, 2011, President Barack Obama appeared in a rare late night broadcast to announce the United States had conducted a military operation that killed Osama bin Laden. It was one of those moments in life where you remember the details of where you watched it. I recall my husband and I were in a hotel room in Ft. Collins, Colorado, glued to every word of President Obama’s 9-minute statement. There was a sense of national, collective relief. It was one of the defining moments of President Obama’s two terms.
Roughly eight and a half years later, Donald Trump stood behind a presidential podium to announce another successful military operation, this time killing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the United State’s most wanted terrorist. In stark contrast to Obama’s speech, in which he repeatedly thanked U.S. troops for their “professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage”, Donald Trump delivered his message in lengthy, rambling 46 minutes, in which he released sensitive details of the operation that has military officials cringing and he spent a good deal of time largely congratulating himself, using terms and descriptions that were un-Presidential, to say the least.
To show just how different the two announcements were, Jimmy Kimmel’s team mashed up a video comparing the two. What Donald Trump said is nothing short of startling, especially in comparison to such a measured, presidential-sounding announcement. LISTEN:
We mashed up @BarackObama’s Bin Laden speech with @RealDonaldTrump’s al-Baghdadi speech, and the results are amazing https://t.co/Z8yfxSYWLd
As military historian Max Boot noted in The Washington Post, “Trump’s news conference should have been his shining hour. Instead, it showed yet again why he is utterly unfit to be commander in chief.” One might even say he “choked like a dog.”
The incompetence is even more stark in contrast to President Obama. We must return to decency in 2020.
The net seems to be tightening around Rudolph W. Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal attorney. Federal agents have arrested yet another one of his associates. Like Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, David Correia was arrested at a major international airport, this time New York City’s Kennedy Airport. It is not yet known if he was arrested arriving at or attempting to depart from JFK.
Correia is one of four men, along with Parnas, Fruman, and Andrey Kukushkin, who have been indicted by U.S. attorneys in the Southern District of New York on charges of conspiring to circumvent federal laws against foreign influence. The foursome faces charges of falsifying records and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and two counts of conspiracy.
Reported CBS News,
"This investigation is about corrupt behavior — deliberate law breaking," said William Sweeney, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI's New York office.
Both men donated to Republican campaigns, and gave $325,000 to America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC in 2018. The indictment accuses them of setting up a phony company to conceal the source of the contributions.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested at Washington-Dulles International Airport only hours after lunching with Giuliani. The pair were scheduled to meet with congressional investigators the next day. Kukushkin was arrested in San Francisco.
While Parnas and Fruman were working with Giuliani on the shady Ukraine deal, the four Giuliani associates were also looking to get into the lucrative marijuana dispensary business. Talking Points Memo has a breakdown of their scheme:
And while Parnas and Fruman’s connections to Rudy’s search for Trump-friendly political dirt is well known, their alleged business partners Correia and Kukushkin are much less public figures.
The quartet was indicted for their alleged crimes connected to their attempt to establish a marijuana venture in the states. The indictment describes a scheme in which they donated to various political candidates using an unnamed foreign national’s money in order to gain influence and benefit their venture. The indictment alleges the foreign national’s donations were made through the four American citizens, another violation.
Scheming to funnel foreign money into Republican coffers, courting Russian oligarchs, and corrupting foreign governments for personal political gain—it’s the modern Republican Party in a nutshell. As long as Donald Trump remains in power, every Republican in the country owns this shame.
Wednesday, Oct 16, 2019 · 12:35:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time · Jen Hayden
PBS is reporting Carreia flew into JFK to turn himself into authorities.
The Dallas Morning Newsreports former Ft. Worth police officer Aaron Dean has been booked on a murder charge in Tarrant County, Texas.
Ft. Worth Interim Police Chief Ed Kraus held a press conference on Monday announcing officer Aaron Dean had resigned, a move that pre-empted his assured firing, and Kraus promised additional new information, “soon.” Dean shot 28-year-old Tatiana Jefferson, who was home playing video games with her nephew, inside her home in Ft. Worth after a neighbor called to ask police to check on the family because the front door was open. The family reportedly had the door open to cool the house down.
This was the seventh officer-involved shooting in Ft. Worth since June 1, the sixth fatal shooting. It’s part of the reason Jefferson’s family wants the Department of Justice to investigate the Ft. Worth Police Department. From The Dallas Morning News:
Jefferson’s relatives emphasized their hope that the federal government or another outside organization will investigate the shooting.
Adarius Carr, Jefferson’s brother, told reporters that his 12 years of service in the Navy had shown him that someone who fails to follow procedures needs to face consequences.
“I’ve been trained and taught that there are pre-planned responses to everything you do,” he said. “When you don’t do it the way you’ve been trained, the way you’ve been taught, you have to answer for that.”
In the event a Department of Justice investigation doesn’t happen under the current corrupt, racist administration, but perhaps a future Attorney General will be more inclined.
Years after he should’ve voluntarily shared his tax returns with the American people, like every single other president before him, Donald Trump has lost a key court battle in federal court. In a 75-page ruling, Judge Victor Marrero sided with Manhattan prosecutors who are seeking Donald Trump’s tax returns as part of the investigation into the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels by Michael Cohen, funds that were eventually reimbursed by Donald Trump and/or the Trump Organization. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is investigating whether executives at the Trump Organization may have falsified business records related to the hush money payment.
Trump’s attorneys tried to make a case that presidents are immune from criminal investigations, even at the state level. If that sounds ridiculous, it is! Trump’s attorneys are basically arguing the president is above the law and even above investigation. Judge Marrero called Trump’s legal argument “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.”
As if that legal argument weren’t enough, Trump’s attorneys basically forced Judge Marrero to rule Monday morning, saying that if he didn’t, they would interpret his inaction as they wished and move on it. From The New York Times:
“After 9 a.m.,” Mr. Trump’s lawyer wrote, “the president will not have enough time to seek relief from the Second Circuit before Mazars discloses his confidential information.”
Mr. Consovoy said that if no ruling came by 9 a.m. on Monday, the president would interpret the judge’s inaction as a denial of his request to block the subpoena, and he would appeal without waiting for a court decision.
It was a bold stance for Trump’s lawyers to take, and it seems Judge Marrero wasn’t impressed.
Judge Marrero ordered Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, to turn over tax returns dating back to 2011. Donald Trump isn’t the only person who should be sweating this decision; Donald Trump Jr. was also allegedly involved in the hush money payment.
The clock is ticking for Donald Trump. His accounting firm may have to start handing over the returns as early as today. From Bloomberg:
The president filed an emergency appeal with a federal appeals court. Unless he can win a delay by a 1 p.m. deadline previously agreed to by his lawyers, Vance may soon start receiving at least some of the material. But Trump may also have another avenue open to him if he pursues a separate lawsuit in state court, which is where the judge said the case should have been brought in the first place.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire was handed the whistleblower’s complaint in his first week on the job, having just taken over for Dan Coats, who resigned on July 29, 2019, only four days after the call between Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump asked Zelensky for a “favor.”
The whistleblower complaint is packed with damaging information, including the allegation that the White House removed the call records from traditional national security computers to a secret server, away from public records. You can read the full complaint below.
Now that the complaint has been declassified and turned over to Congress, as is required by law, acting DNI Maguire is free to answer questions from members of the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff. In his first line of questioning, Schiff was able to establish that Maguire’s first action was to take the complaint to the White House to see if it was covered by executive privilege, despite obvious, glaring conflicts of interest. Maguire also said he sought advice from the Office of Legal Counsel, which reports to the Department of Justice and Attorney General Bill Barr, who is also a subject of the complaint.
Watch this extraordinary moment. As DNI Maguire said, this is an unprecedented situation.
Later Schiff was able to get Maguire to admit that the whistleblower is not a “partisan hack,” as the White House has claimed, and he vowed to keep the whistleblower’s identity a secret, as required by federal law.
Stay tuned for more. In the meantime, here is the complete unclassified whistleblower complaint.
Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal attorney, appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Monday to try to spin away from the growing scandal enveloping the White House. Giuliani told Hannity someone from the State Department rang him up and asked him to meet with a senior aide to President-elect Zelensky of Ukraine. Giuliani neglected to mention, and Hannity neglected to follow-up, on reporting from the Wall Street Journal that Donald Trump asked President-elect Zelensky eight times to meet with Rudy Giuliani, a private citizen who has not been elected nor confirmed for any role representing the United States.
In the clip below, Giuliani basically paints himself as a patriot, saying the State Department called to ask for his help and he gave it. But, the State Department had a little teeny bit of a different take on the situation than Giuliani, one that should be causing Rudy Giuliani to start losing a whole lot of sleep.
When reached for comment, a State Department spokesperson said, "Mr. Giuliani is a private citizen and acts in a personal capacity as a lawyer for President Trump. He does not speak on behalf of the U.S. Government."
Folks, that is the sound of a bus the size of Ukraine driving right over Rudy Giuliani. You are on your own, Rudy. And when push comes to shove, just wait’ll you see the bus Donald Trump throws you under.
Rudy Giuliani just said the State Department asked him to "go on a mission" AND WHY IN THE HELL IS STATE DEPT ASKIN… https://t.co/kV7Z6rqUbY
For the record, the statement from a State Department spokesperson is quite different than Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s comments on Sunday talk shows. In this clip from CBS’s Face the Nation, Pompeo refused to get into the details of Giuliani’s involvement and tried to spin this back to being about Biden.
If Mike Pompeo was involved in setting up the meeting for Rudy Giuliani and the Ukrainian official, which took place away from cameras in the Spanish countryside, he’s likely going to have to answer to Congress as well.
Rudy Giuliani has been running from network to network in an attempt to muddy the waters after the emergence of reporting that Donald Trump used $400 million in financial aid to the Ukraine as leverage to coerce the country’s new president to open an investigation into the son of Trump rival Joe Biden, and even into the former vice president himself.
Much as he did on his appearance on CNN last week, Giuliani insisted something wasn’t true, only to immediately backtrack in the next sentence. In this case, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo asked him about reporting in The Wall Street Journalthat Donald Trump threatened to cut off aid to Ukraine if it didn’t begin an investigation into Joe Biden. That report said that Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to meet with Giuliani, a private citizen who acts as Trump’s personal attorney, eight different times in one phone call, and that he was dangling as incentive $250 million in financial and military aid to Ukraine.
So, did Donald Trump dangle the promise of foreign aid if a foreign country created a (bogus) investigation into Joe Biden and his son? No, of course not! Well, maybe? Rudy can’t really say.
BARTIROMO: Did the president threaten to cut off aid to Ukraine?
GIULIANI: No, no. That was a false story.
BARTIRO… https://t.co/rqPX9YVc8v
In fact, Giuliani traveled to Spain, where he met with a Zelensky aide, in the weeks following the phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Shortly after, not only was the $250 million in aid released to Ukraine, but a mysterious $140 million in additional funds, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, was added, bringing the the total to $400 million.
Rudy Giuliani is not an elected representative of the United States. He has not been confirmed to any role representing the United States. He is described as the “personal attorney” of Donald Trump, but in truth, he is the only member of Trump’s legal team (that I’m aware of) who works entirely for free. Furthermore, Giuliani seems to have acted as a co-conspirator in this case, and a case could be made that he and Trump no longer have attorney-client privilege because of the crime and fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege rule. In 1989, the Supreme Court made clear there are crime and fraud exceptions to the rule:
The attorney-client privilege is not without its costs. Since the privilege has the effect of withholding relevant information from the factfinder, it applies only where necessary to achieve its purpose. The attorney-client privilege must necessarily protect the confidences of wrongdoers, but the reason for that protection–the centrality of open client and attorney communication to the proper functioning of our adversary system of justice–ceases to operate at a certain point, namely, where the desired advice refers not to prior wrongdoing, but to future wrongdoing. It is the purpose of the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege to assure that the “seal of secrecy” between lawyer and client does not extend to communications made for the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime.
Congress must immediately call private citizen Rudy Giuliani to testify about this, as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had a hand in organizing Rudy’s Spanish meeting. Others who should be called to testify:
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, whom Trump fired in May, reportedly because she wasn’t doing enough to press the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens.
U.S. special representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker, who met with President Zelensky the day after the Trump-Zelensky phone call
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who added an extra $140 million to the Ukraine aid package for reasons that have not been explained. Mnuchin had no answer when Chuck Todd asked him on Sunday where the additional money came from. It wasn’t approved by Congress.
🚨 Mnuchin doesn't have a response when Chuck Todd asks him if he can explain "how all of the sudden when the [Ukrai… https://t.co/959tVipj7c
Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who resigned only four days after the phone call and left office only three days after the whistleblower complaint was filed.
Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon, who was forced to resign so that Trump could install a loyalist in the role, despite a federal statute mandating her elevation to acting director. Trump reportedly refused to even let her attend security briefings.
At the end of the day, it seems multiple potential crimes were committed here: extortion, bribery, conspiracy to engage in extortion, and conspiracy to violate election law. It’s time for Congress to immediately act and start getting people under oath. The fastest way to move this process forward is for YOU to pick up the phone and contact your representative TODAY and tell them to act.
Thursday ended with the absolutely bombshell news that Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani allegedly schemed to withhold military and financial aid to Ukraine—unless the newly elected prime minister found some kind of dirt on Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who has done work in Ukraine. You could and should read more about this scandal from my colleague, Mark Sumner, whohas a great summary of the situation and a complete timeline of the scandal.
For what it’s worth, we aren’t talking small funds here. We are talking $250 million in aid that the White House blocked this summer, which was, coincidentally, released on Thursday.
Almost immediately after the news skyrocketed to the top trending topic on social media, Rudy Giuliani appeared on CNN where he lost his mind and admitted he was a co-conspirator in a Ukraine deal. More incredibly, Giuliani then ran to Twitter to not just affirm his role; he also directly implicated Donald Trump.
So, what is the reaction on Twitter from pundits, elected officials, former U.S. attorneys and more? In short—treason, corruption, bribery, extortion. Let’s get to it.
Former U.S. Attorney and current University of Alabama law professor Joyce Alene:
If this turns out to be what the whistleblower complaint is about & it’s accurate, Trump must leave office immediat… https://t.co/ruUqhVyezb
Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York, had the excellent vision of Barry Berke as the one to question Giuliani in a future hearing. After all, Berke did a fantastic job wiping the smug off Corey Lewandowski's mug.
I want to see Barry Berke question Rudy Giuliani. Anyone else?
And that’s just a round-up of Thursday night’s reaction. Nothing yet from the 2020 candidates, but needless to say, this story is still developing and we’ll have more. In the meantime, which 2020 candidate do you think will be the first to call for Donald Trump’s resignation? Sound off in the comments.
Once upon a time I worked with a down-and-out college football team with a historically bad record. The university hired an assistant coach from a more successful program, and this newly minted head coach set about to turn the ship around. Each day he talked about how important it was to “do the work,” telling fans and his players to keep their heads down, put aside the distractions, do the work, and “keep sawing wood.” In a few short seasons, that coach and those players sawed so much wood that they won the Orange Bowl.
Over the past year Elizabeth Warren has overcome a somewhat sluggish start to her campaign, and man, has she been sawing wood. She’s kept her head down, putting in the work, doing her homework, building a large, qualified staff, releasing one progressive plan after another, making the connections, building the alliances, and meeting voters where they are, one by one. Literally personally meeting damn near every voter along the way in her now-famous selfie lines. And that work is paying off in a big way. Last night in New York City, she drew an estimated 20,000 to her largest campaign rally to date.
Warren used the event to highlight her anti-corruption plan, calling Donald Trump “corruption in the flesh,” before pivoting to labor rights. Warren cited the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in which 145 workers died in what was the largest industrial disaster in New York City’s history. The workers were mostly immigrant women working in sweatshop conditions. Warren cited the work of social activist Frances Perkins, who witnessed the fire and organized labor movements in the wake of the tragedy, eventually becoming President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of labor and one of the architects of the New Deal legislation. Warren focused on the similarity between the corruption of today and the factory owners in 1911 buying off their elected officials, who then turned a blind eye to the squalid, unsafe conditions for workers while the owners turned massive profits.
Speaking of Frances Perkins, Warren said, "What did one woman—one very persistent woman—backed up by millions of people across this country get done? Big structural change. Social Security. Unemployment insurance. Abolition of child labor. Minimum wage. The right to join a union. And even the very existence of the weekend! That’s big, structural change! One woman, and millions of people to back her up."
The speech touched on a variety of progressive themes, and, frankly, it was her best speech yet. You can see her full comments at the rally in the video below. But, as high-energy as that speech was, Warren took that momentum and did something extraordinary, sticking around for selfie photos with rally-goers for hours afterward. New York Times national politics reporter Astead Herndon put it in perspective.
Elizabeth Warren is still taking selfies. For context, I have left the rally, taken a train to Brooklyn, ordered ub… https://t.co/QtnfepbRhi
In fact, Warren stuck around for four hours. And if you think she reached the end of the line and simply walked off exhausted from the long day, you don’t know Elizabeth Warren. Her staff and remaining supporters capped off the last selfie with a rousing “Dream big, fight hard!” chant.
Nearly four hours after she finished her speech, Elizabeth Warren makes it to the end of the selfie line https://t.co/bSqrkum8iM
Asked where she finds her stamina, Warren said, “The energy of our grassroots supporters keeps me going.”
Folks, that’s what “sawing wood” looks like. Doing the work one big idea, one plan, and one voter at a time. Needless to say, Twitter and other social media networks were flooded with happy Warren supporters and their photos with the candidate.
— (@)
Tonight I got to meet @areya_there_god, @HelenBrosnan, and the inimitable @EmmaYourFriend. Oh yeah, and @ewarren 🤩🥰… https://t.co/HnO29gpgUw
— April Glick Pulito (@April Glick Pulito)
1568690009
If you do a location search of Washington Square Park right now on Insta — it’s selfies upon selfies with Elizabeth… https://t.co/p8SzSdnlEN
Warren was introduced by Prism fellow Maurice Mitchell, who has recently published numerous articles cross-posted here at Daily Kos. Mitchell was also a featured speaker at the Daily Kos caucus at this year’s Netroots Nation. Here’s Warren doing a pre-speech hug and dance with staff as her introductory music, Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” began playing to the large crowd. Mitchell comes offstage to a warm Warren embrace before she jogs out to center stage.
— (@)
As promised, here’s the video of her full speech. Enjoy!
The first topic of the night at the Democratic debate was one of the most important for voters: health care. After each candidate laid out their vision, it got a bit contentious as former Vice President Joe Biden went after the Medicare for All plans from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who each backed each other’s call for Medicare for All.
Biden saw an opportunity to create a larger divide between himself and his two strongest contenders on the #1 issue for voters. With Sanders and Warren in agreement, Biden launched into his expansion of the Affordable Care Act and then asked how the others expected to pay for their plans. Here’s the exact quote and video. Jump below to see how Warren and Sanders hit back.
Joe Biden: She’s for Bernie. Well, I’m for Barack. I think the Obamacare worked. I think we add to it, replace everything that’s been cut, add a public option, guarantee that everyone will be able to have affordable insurance, number one.
Number two, I think we should be in a position to take a look at what costs are. My plan for health care costs a lot of money. It costs $740 billion. It doesn’t cost $30 trillion. $3.4 trillion a year it turns out, is twice what the entire federal budget is, that’s before it exists now. Before interest on the debt. I want to hear, tonight how that’s happened. Thus far, my distinguished friend, the senator on my left (Warren) has not distinguished how she pays for it. And the senator (motioning to Sanders) has come forward and said how he’s going to pay for it, but it gets him about halfway there. There’s a lot of other things that need to be done.
Biden says Warren is for Bernie, but he is for Barack on healthcare. #DemDebate #Democraticdebate https://t.co/pMgUpA2MOR
— Sarah Reese Jones (@Sarah Reese Jones)
1568334027
Given a chance to follow-up, Warren pointed out that Americans are already paying for health care, heavily. Instead of paying that money into a for-profit private system where shareholders and their profits drive policy, a non-profit public system would be more beneficial. Warren repeated something she often says on the road when asked about “taking away people’s health care plans.”
Here’s what she said (video below):
Elizabeth Warren: So, let's be clear, I've actually never met anybody who likes their health insurance company. I've met people who like their doctors, I’ve met people who like their nurses, I've met people who like their pharmacists, I met people who like their physical therapists. What they want is access to health care.
And we just need to be clear about what Medicare for All is all about. Instead of paying premiums into insurance companies and then having insurance companies build their profits by saying no to coverage, we're going to do this by saying, everyone is covered by Medicare for All, every health care provider is covered. And the only question here in terms of difference is where to send the bill.
Sanders reiterated that the money Americans currently pay would be put into a public system that removes profit incentives and echoed Warren, saying, “Maybe you’ve run into people who love their premiums. I haven’t.” Here’s his full response (video below):
Moderator: Senator Sanders?
Bernie Sanders: Let us be clear, Joe, in the United States of America, we have spending twice as much per capita on health care as the Canadians or any other major country on earth.
Biden: This is America.
Sanders: Yeah, but Americans don't want to pay twice as much as other countries. And they guarantee health care to all people. Under my Medicare for All proposal, when you don't pay out of pocket and you don't pay premiums, maybe you've run into people who love their premiums. I haven't. What people want is cost effective health care, Medicare for All will save the average American substantial sums of money on his or her health care bill.
