Monthly Archives: September 2019

Bernie Outdoes Warren With Stiffer “Wealth Tax” Plan

Axios reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders has released a wealth tax that’s even more aggressive than Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s “ultra-millionaire tax.” Axios first reported Sanders’ proposal. Why it matters: Sanders keeps trying to remind voters that he’s the original when it comes to progressive policy in the 2020 field, but he’s being eclipsed at every turn by the surging Warren. The …

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New York: Upstate Diocese First To Declare Bankruptcy As Child Victims Act Unleashes Flood Of New Lawsuits

Time Magazine reports: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester was the first in New York to seek bankruptcy protection under the weight of new sexual misconduct lawsuits, but lawyers and church leaders say it may not be the last. All eight of the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses face financial pressures as a result of the state’s new Child Victims Act, …

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LIVE VIDEO: Trump Addresses UN General Assembly

CNN reports: He mocked their marble. They laughed in his face. The United Nations and President Donald Trump are not, by most measures, easy friends. Nevertheless, Trump traveled for the third time this week to the UN General Assembly more intent than ever on promoting his America First agenda in the place that appreciates it least. It’s one presidential tradition …

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6.0 Quake Rattles Puerto Rico As Tropical Storm Hits

CBS News reports: A 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck near Puerto Rico late Monday, scaring and rousing many from their sleep in the U.S. territory. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit 49 miles off the island’s northwest coast at a shallow depth of 6 miles. Three aftershocks, with magnitudes of 4.7, 4.6 and another of 4.6, hit within less than …

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Two Trump 2020 Challengers To Debate Without Him

Reuters reports: Joe Walsh and Bill Weld, two of the three Republicans challenging President Donald Trump for their party’s 2020 presidential nomination, are set to meet in a debate on Tuesday, hoping to bring attention to their long-shot candidacies. Trump will not take part in the event in New York hosted by the website Business Insider, nor will the third …

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Deep Dive: How Anti-Vax Movement Took Hold In US

Fascinating deep dive from the New York Times: Though the situation may seem improbable to some, anti-vaccine sentiment has been building for decades, a byproduct of an internet humming with rumor and misinformation; the backlash against Big Pharma; an infatuation with celebrities that gives special credence to the anti-immunization statements from actors like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Alicia Silverstone, …

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Politico: Dem Holdouts Rush Toward Impeachment

Politico reports: Speaker Nancy Pelosi and party leaders are ramping up their offensive against President Donald Trump for pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe Biden — with a potential House vote on a resolution condemning Trump as the caucus edges toward impeachment. Pelosi spent all weekend and Monday working the phones, including reaching out to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry …

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REVENGE: EPA Threatens California’s Highway Funding

The Sacramento Bee reports: The Trump administration is ratcheting up its threats against California with a letter warning the state faces sanctions – including cuts in federal highway funding – over its “failure” to submit complete reports on its implementation of the Clean Air Act. In the letter to the California Air Resources Board, Andrew Wheeler [photo], administrator of the …

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Ingraham Compares Greta To “Children Of The Corn”

The Daily Beast reports: Hours after a Fox News guest described 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg as a “mentally ill Swedish child,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham took a shot at the teenager by comparing her to the children in a Stephen King horror film. Playing video of Thunberg calling out world leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, …

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Fox Apologizes After Guest Calls Greta “Mentally Ill”

Buzzfeed News reports: Fox News apologized to 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg on Monday after a conservative pundit called her a “mentally ill Swedish child”. Thunberg, who has Asperger’s syndrome, delivered a powerful speech at the United Nations earlier in the day about the impact of climate change on her generation. The speech was then the subject of a segment …

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Trump Ridicules Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg

USA Today reports: President Donald Trump posted a mocking tweet of a 16-year-old climate activist who drew headlines this week for her speech at the United Nations. Trump quoted a particularly emotional line from Greta Thunberg’s address to the Climate Action Summit in a late night tweet on Monday. In it, the Swedish teen said that “people are dying” and …

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Trump Withheld $391M In Aid Before Ukraine Call

The Washington Post reports: President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials. …

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UK Supreme Court: Suspending Parliament Is Unlawful

The BBC reports: Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful, the Supreme Court has ruled. Mr Johnson suspended – or prorogued – Parliament for five weeks earlier this month, but the court said it was wrong to stop MPs carrying out duties in the run-up to Brexit on 31 October. Supreme Court president Lady Hale said “the effect on …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

UPI reports: A surfer off the Massachusetts coast had an uncomfortably close encounter with a great white shark and moment was captured by a photographer on shore. Devon Zimmerman, 30, said he had only been surfing on Cape Cod off Nauset Beach in Orleans for a short time when he spotted the dorsal fin in the water only a few …

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House Dems Near Tipping Point On Impeachment

CNN reports: House Democrats are nearing a “tipping point” on impeachment in the wake of the Trump administration blocking a whistleblower complaint’s release to Congress, with moderate Democrats who have resisted calls for impeachment privately indicating they could be swayed. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who sharpened her rhetoric over the weekend, is still not committing to moving forward with …

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FIFA Names Megan Rapinoe Female Player Of The Year

Sports Illustrated reports: Know your audience. Megan Rapinoe has always had an uncanny ability to pick the right tone and the right words when she speaks in public, and she did it again on Monday in Milan as she received the FIFA award for the women’s world player of the year. On this occasion, Rapinoe realized that the audience she …

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Watchdog Group Files DOJ & FEC Complaints Alleging Trump And Giuliani “Illegally Solicited” Foreign Actions

Just in via press release: Today, Common Cause filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that President Donald Trump, his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and other political operatives illegally solicited a political contribution from a foreign national—by urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials to investigate Hunter Biden …

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Mike Pence Also Delivered Trump’s Threat To Ukraine

From the transcript of a September 2nd interview with Pence: Q: Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. I wanted to ask you about your meeting yesterday with the Ukrainian President and for an update on Ukrainian security aid money. Specifically, number one, did you discuss Joe Biden at all during that meeting yesterday with the Ukrainian President? And number …

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Fox’s Shep Smith: No Evidence Biden Did Any Wrong

“The real issue here is a phone call. The claim that the president pressured a foreign leader to investigate of political rival and the failure to pass the whistleblower complaint to Congress. There is no known evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong. “The whole thing involved corruption in the Ukraine. A corrupt prosecutor who much of the world was …

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CALIFORNIA: Warren +8 Over Bernie In New Poll

Capitol Weekly reports: The latest monthly tracking poll for California’s March 2020 Democratic primary election shows Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren increasing her share of the vote, for the first time pushing former Vice President Joe Biden down to third place among likely voters. This survey again shows there are a set of leading candidates, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and …

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