Friday, June 7 to Sunday, June 9, 2019.
THE RUSSIAN INVESTIGATION
- Listen to Trump lawyer John Dowd arguably dangle a pardon in a voicemail for Michael Flynn
- LISTEN: Trump Lawyer John Dowd’s Voicemail to Michael Flynn’s Attorney Released
- Mike Flynn Assumed the FBI Agents Interviewing Him Would Be Trump Supporters | emptywheel
- Nader’s Phones Had Child Porn—and Communications With a Crown Prince, Feds Say
- Judge Rules George Nader Is a Danger to the Community, Orders Him Jailed Ahead of Child Pornography Trial
CONGRESS
- Justin Amash: As you can see from the attached tweet, I initially fell for Attorney General Barr’s March 24 letter of principal conclusions—but then I read Mueller’s report. THREAD
- Thread by @justinamash: “As you can see from the attached tweet, I initially fell for Attorney General Barr’s March 24 letter of principal conclusions—but then I rea […]”
- #ImpeachTrump Day of Action Announced Because “It Is Clear That Congress Won’t Act Unless We Demand It”
- Barr Is Lying About Mueller’s Evidence
- Case opened: Democrats begin public airing of Mueller report
- Cummings to move forward with contempt votes for Barr, Ross over census question
- Dems set to use McConnell’s legislative graveyard against him
- For Democrats, Trump impeachment question is a personal struggle transcending politics
- House Dems Ready to Investigate Giuliani’s Ukraine Shenanigans
- House Intelligence Committee Announces Open Hearing on the Counterintelligence Implications of the Mueller Report
- Impeach Trump and don’t worry (much) about President Mike Pence. We already have him.
- Mitch McConnell Faces Backlash for Selling ‘Cocaine Mitch’ Shirts for Senate Re-Election Campaign
- Nadler Pushes Impeachment To Centralize Investigations Into Trump
- Pelosi faces twin challenge on Trump impeachment — tamp down talk and give nation a tutorial on the process
COHEN, NEW YORK, AND THE OTHER LAWSUITS
- A wealthy Iraqi sheikh who urges a hard-line U.S. approach to Iran spent 26 nights at Trump’s D.C. hotel
- Angry White House Staffer: ICYMI: earlier this week, WaPo published a great expose on Trump hotels. This isn’t getting near the attention it should. This is exactly why you don’t elect a president with sprawling business interests who refuses to divest. People are trying to bribe Trump to go to war.
- Payday lenders switched their trade show to a Trump hotel and sent Trump at least a million bucks, then he gave them carte blanche to make billions preying on poor people
- A Tax Audit, A Coverup And A Neighbor In The Oval Office
- ‘Are You Kidding Me?’ Frustration Grows as Powerful House Democrat Refuses to Accept New York Offer of Trump Tax Returns
TRUMP THE RUSSIAN ASSET A.K.A INDIVIDUAL-1
- Team Trump: The Mueller Report Is Vindication—and Riddled With ‘Lies’
- The cheater in the Oval Office should be banished from the tribe
- Trump enjoys playing the role of the American president — but he will never stop being Trump
- Trump wants to start charging stores to accept food stamps
- Former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul: Donald Trump’s rhetoric “serves Putin’s interests”
- Did Trump Administration ‘Purge’ 200,000 VA Health Care Applications? At least 200,000 applications for veterans’ health care have been closed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
TRAITOR TOTS
- Meet the GOP operatives who aim to smear the 2020 Democrats — but keep bungling it
- George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying in Russiagate. Now he has a sexy new life in Hollywood.
FIGHTING BACK
- George Takei: As “Chernobyl” warned, every lie told incurs a debt to the truth. And sooner or later, that debt must be paid. Remember this whenever Trump spews his lies like radioactive poison into our body politic.
- Joe Walsh: It’s really easy to always be “winning” when you can simply declare anything a “victory” and you know your supporters will believe you.
- John Dean: Would someone get Trump a dog. He needs a friend so he won’t endlessly vent on Twitter. He’s uninterested in government and policy. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t exercise. He has no real friends. A dog might save humankind. Admittedly, it a lot to ask of a dog. But help is needed.
- Joe Walsh: “He fights!” my radio show listeners shout. “But he fights for what?” I ask. “It doesn’t matter. He fights,” they answer. “But he lies. All the time,” I interject. “We don’t care. He fights,” they respond. And so it goes. Everyday.
- Former White House Ethics Chief Proposes POTUS ‘Golf On Your Own Damn Dime Act’
- George Conway Says Trump’s Poor Mental Health Would Get Him Fired From All Other Jobs
EMERGENCIES, SHUTDOWN, & IMMIGRATION
- US judge halts Donald Trump’s border wall plans
- Trump says tariffs on Mexico ‘indefinitely suspended’
- Mexican officials hail tariff-averting pact with U.S. even as worries emerge
- Mexico Did Not Agree to Agricultural Deal Touted by President Trump, Officials Say
- Trump Either Lied or Got Played on the Mexico Deal
- Trump Hints at Details; Mexico Still Baffled by Farm Claim
- Rick Wilson: OMG. Reading its replies on the tweet about Mexico…and his followers actually believe it. My GOD. The gullibility is spectacular.
- 24 immigrants have died in ICE custody during the Trump administration
- Call immigrant detention centers what they really are: concentration camps
- HHS to house thousands of unaccompanied minor migrants on military bases and at Texas facility
- Trump announces migration deal with Mexico, averting threatened tariffs
- US immigration detention centres caught serving spoiled food as investigation reveals nooses in cells.
- ICE deported veterans while ‘unaware’ it was required to carefully screen them, report says
RACISM, RIGHT WING TERRORISM & WHITE NATIONALISM
- New York man accused of plotting Times Square attack, illegally purchasing weapons
- Chris Pine on ‘MAGA’ slogan: ‘What period of history are we talking about? Jim Crow?’
SCOTUS & COURTS
Voter Suppression
- 2020 Census could be worst undercount of black and Latinx people since 1990
- A dead man’s secret files again prove Republicans lied in court — this time about gerrymandering
- GOP paid millions to operative who pushed census question aimed to help “whites”
- How a dead man’s hard drives are exposing the GOP attack on democracy
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg warns of a polarizing Supreme Court
- Poll: 77 percent say Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade
#METOO & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
- When abortion was illegal: A 1966 Post series revealed how women got them anyway | Before Roe v. Wade, women died trying to end their pregnancies
- A Historic Breakthrough for Sex Workers’ Rights New York could become the first state to decriminalize prostitution.
- Opinion | I gave the University of Alabama $26.5 million. They gave it back when I spoke out about abortion.
- Univ. Of Alabama Returns $21.5 Million Gift; Donor Urged Boycott Over Abortion Law
- Shannon Watts: The University of Alabama is returning a $21 million gift and removing the donor’s name from its law school – just because he opposes the unconstitutional abortion bill signed by the Alabama governor, a voting trustee of the university.
- Democrats on the defensive as abortion foes ask if party tolerates their views
- Spike Lee calls for Hollywood to ‘shut it down’ in Georgia
- Doctor With Dubious Past Decided on Unnecessary Pelvic Exam Rule — Maddow Reports on Randall Williams, the Missouri Health Official Who Decided Women Seeking a Legal Abortion From the State’s Last Clinic Offering Services Must First Submit to a Vaginally Invasive, Medically Unnecessary Pelvic Exam
- In Alabama — where lawmakers banned abortion for rape victims — rapists’ parental rights are protected
- Reddit: Huckabee’s getting murdered again
- He always hated women. Then he decided to kill them.
COLD WAR 2.0
- Bill Browder: BREAKING: The international outrage in response to the violent arrest of Russian anti corruption journalist Ivan Golunov has caused the Russian authorities to cave. He’s been released to house arrrest. He should never have been arrested in the first place.
- Trump Allows High-Tech U.S. Bomb Parts to Be Built in Saudi Arabia
- Trump OKs advanced bomb parts to be built in Saudi: NYT
- ‘These boys were on a holiday’: Trump family members promote themselves, and businesses, on European trip
- Mystery crop fires scorch thousands of acres in Syria and Iraq — and ISIS claims responsibility
- Trump’s behavior in Europe was ‘unpresidented’ — and he isn’t getting any better
- Trump’s lonely signature at the top of a D-Day proclamation is making the rounds on social media after other world leaders signed at the bottom
- ‘It felt like a big tide’: how the death tax lie infected Australia’s election campaign
- Hundreds of thousands in Hong Kong protest law to allow extraditions to China
#NEVERAGAIN
- NRA money flowed to board members amid allegedly lavish spending by top officials and vendors
- Shannon Watts: There’s no data showing lockdown drills are effective. Schools should provide training for adult staff on how to respond to active shooter situations, but we must stop traumatizing our children with lockdown drills. We need to focus on solutions proven most effective: Improve schools’ physical security Address student health Empower teachers, police to intervene when students show signs they may be a danger to themselves or others Keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them
- Columbine High could be torn down. The district blames ‘morbid fascination’ with shooting.
THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE
- Trump Goes After ‘Enemy of the People’ Media in Extended Twitter Rant: “If President Obama made the deals that I have made… a National Holiday would be immediately declared,” the president whined
- A TV meteorologist objected to management’s ‘code red’ orders in on-air apology. He might be out of a job.
- Fox News hosts joke about Democrats using ‘political props’ in front of dozens of D-Day grave markers
- Hannity, Trump, and the Whole “Lock Her Up” Crew Are Absolutely Outraged at Pelosi’s Prosecution and Prison Comment
- Hannity: “Hillary should be in jail.” Also Hannity: Locking up Trump would be “beyond despicable.”
- Hannity’s No Longer A Fan Of ‘Lock Her Up’ Now That Pelosi’s The One Chanting It
WHITE HOUSE CHAOS
TRADE WAR, HEALTH CARE, & ECONOMY
- Here’s how tariffs will raise prices at some of America’s best-known companies
- The fate of Trump’s economy now hinges on the Federal Reserve, the agency the president called ‘crazy’
- Trump administration has given $200K in U.S. farm bailout bucks to a company owned by a Japanese firm with a corrupt past: records
- Where in the world shouldn’t you go?
- Young People Are Poorer Than Ever and Government Programs Are Failing Them. A new study finds that the social safety net leaves out the youngest workers.
- Trump’s Tariffs Have Already Wiped Out Tax Bill Savings for Average Americans
STUDENT ISSUES
- US schools accused of censoring climate crisis message in graduation speeches
- An Alabama High School Football Coach Helped Baptize Members of His Team
- Dodgeball is a tool of ‘oppression’ used to ‘dehumanize’ others, researchers argue
- Schools Should Serve Humans, Not “The Economy”
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
- A serial killer ‘tried to erase his victims.’ But three bodies hidden in barrels have now been identified.
- Convicted murderer now linked to more than 60 deaths may be most prolific serial killer in U.S. history
- Couple who mysteriously died in Fiji texted family that they’d been ‘throwing up for 8 hours’
PRIESTS & RELIGION
- The crusading bloggers exposing abuse in Protestant churches
- Vatican cardinal, other priests to return cash gifts from ousted West Virginia bishop Michael Bransfield
ENVIRONMENT & SCIENCE
- Trump pushes up to 20 years in prison for pipeline protesters
- “This Is What Fascists Do”: Trump Attempted to Suppress State Dept Analyst’s Testimony on Climate Crisis
- ‘The Nation’s T. rex’: How a Montana family’s hike led to an incredible discovery
- A new old home for the nation’s dinosaurs
- Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins mocks Trump’s knowledge of Mars
- Catcam videos reveal cats don’t sleep all day. (Just some of it.)
- NASA to allow private citizens to fly to the International Space Station
- Opinion | Ditch the GPS. It’s ruining your brain.
- Red States Are Criminalizing Speech to Wage War on Environmental Activists — Protesting Oil Pipeline Construction Now Carries Felony Charges in Multiple States.
- San Francisco plans to force mentally ill addicts into a system critics call ripe for abuses
- Stem cell clinics likely to flourish despite judge’s rebuke
- Surgeons opened her skull to remove a cancerous tumor. Instead, they found a tapeworm.
- Trump criticizes NASA promotion of returning to the moon. He directed it 18 months ago.
- Trump Officials Blocked Intelligence Staffer’s Climate Change Testimony
- Watchdog will get an outside review after flawed FEMA disaster response reports
- White House blocked intelligence aide’s written testimony saying human-caused climate change could be ‘possibly catastrophic’ | Officials sought to excise State Department’s comments on climate science, saying it clashed with the administration’s stance
- White House poised to relax mileage standards, rebuffing automakers and setting up probable fight with California
- White House Tried to Stop Climate Science Testimony, Documents Show
- Why is the USDA downplaying good news about this Obama-era school nutrition program?
ELECTIONS
- ‘In Everyone’s Best Interests’: New Hampshire 20th State to Call for Constitutional Amendment Limiting Political Spending
- New Election Security Bills Face a One-Man Roadblock: Mitch McConnell
- There Is Still Time for Beto O’Rourke to Return to Texas and Run for Senate
THINKING AHEAD
- Warren’s nonstop ideas reshape the Democratic presidential race — and give her new momentum
- Bernie Sanders joins striking McDonald’s workers in Cedar Rapids
- Joe Biden asked for a pen. Then he reversed a position he’d held for four decades.
- Joe Biden reverses position on federal funding of abortion after Democratic outcry
- Joe Biden’s lead slips in Democratic field, Iowa poll shows
PRIDE
- Americans’ views flipped on gay rights. How did minds change so quickly?
- Arrests made after gay women beaten for refusing to kiss on bus
- At Pride Fest in Des Moines, politics are in the spotlight
- For the first time ever, Wisconsin is flying the rainbow pride flag over its Capitol building
- Some U.S. embassies still hoisting rainbow flags, despite advisory from Washington
- Trump admin tells U.S. embassies they can’t fly pride flag on flagpoles — The administration is rejecting requests from U.S. embassies to fly the rainbow flag on flagpoles during June, LGBT Pride Month, say 3 U.S. diplomats.
- U.S. Embassies Defy Trump Admin Policy and Fly Rainbow Flag for Pride
- Would you pay to stream endless musicals? Some Broadway insiders are quietly betting on it.
- On ‘Pose,’ dancing isn’t just about self-expression. It’s a survival skill for trans women.
PROGRESS IS PROGRESS
- How Illinois became the first state legislature to legalize marijuana sales
- Illinois poised to be 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana use
- Public Support For Left-Wing Policymaking Has Reached a 60-Year High
- A Sikh airman petitioned the Air Force to let him wear a turban and beard. He just won.
IN OTHER NEWS…
- Sir Winston wins Belmont on a day, finally, bereft of controversy or the bizarre
- Thanks to the Raptors, Ontario is awash in free McDonald’s fries
RUMOR MILL
- 911corlebra777: Julian Assange looks incredibly healthy & jovial in the care of Her Majesty’s prison system.His psychological & physical health appears not to be in any danger. We can deduce therefore that JAss & his legal team are lying their ass off to the UK Judge
- Countercheckist: This is essential to restoring our democracy. Districts should be drawn with the overarching goal of making them as competitive as possible. Elections need to be about ideas and choosing who can best serve the ppl of their district. Ideological purity contests are toxic.
- Ming: Ming think the GOP “Trump wants you try and impeach him” is grade school reverse-psy. GOP petrified of public disclosure hence the recent letter to cmte about impugning members.
- Tea Pain: To successfully impeach and remove Trump from office requires two things. 1). Hold public hearings and submit evidence to the American people. 2) Convince the GOP that Trump is black.
- Countercheckist: America’s true power is found in our ability to inspire. For centuries, America has become home to immigrants from all over the world; each with the hope for a better life. They risked everything to come here for it. This is who we are, and who we must be going forward.
That’s it for the last couple days.
Thank you, and have a good one.
“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”
– Katy Tur
None of this is Normal 