riversedge
riversedge's JournalMike Pence and his 'Indiana mafia' are reorganizing important safety net programs to push their re
Source: raw story
20 May 2019 at 09:58 ET
Vice President Mike Pence and some of his longtime allies have been reorganizing the Department of Health and Human Services to promote their deeply conservative religious agenda — much to the delight of anti-abortion and anti-LGBT groups.
Pence and his “Indiana mafia,” according to one HHS official, have been working behind the scenes to defund Planned Parenthood, which he was unable to accomplish in Congress or as governor, reported Politico.
“There is a clear pattern dating back many years,” said Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen. “He has worked relentlessly to cut off access to women’s health care.”
Pence was involved from the outset of the Trump administration in identifying like-minded nominees, “particularly in roles Trump didn’t really care about,” according to one Republican operative.
HHS secretary Alex Azar, surgeon general Jerome Adams and Medicaid/Medicare head Seema Verma each have ties to Pence and Indiana, and other senior officials at the department include Pence’s former legislative director as governor and his former domestic policy adviser at the White House.................................
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/mike-pence-and-his-indiana-mafia-are-reorganizing-important-safety-net-programs-to-push-their-religious-agenda/
Trump May Cancel His Trip To Ireland Due To Fact That Irish PM Refuses To Meet POTUS At His Golf C
I do not know how truthful this article is--as there are articles saying there is no dispute.
https://twitter.com/psychdr100/status/1130158581586644992
Trump May Cancel His Trip To Ireland Due To Fact That Irish PM Refuses To Meet POTUS At His Golf Course
Trump is grumpy because he didn't get his way.
http://dctribune.org/trump-may-cancel-his-trip-to-ireland-due-to-fact-that-irish-pm-refuses-to-meet-potus-at-his-golf-course/
Andrea Thompson
by Andrea Thompson 1 min ago
President Donald Trump is a petulant being. You add that to his ever-growing ego, and shit inevitably starts getting weird. Donald’s attitude and behavior have caused a lot of strife with a lot of important people over the course of his presidency. He tends to live by my middle school math teacher’s mantra, “It’s my way. There is no highway option.” His unwavering refusal to compromise or accept that a lot of people aren’t so fond of him has left many of our allies none too quick to jump at the chance to work with him.
Now it seems that Donald has screwed the pooch on an important meeting once again thanks to his conceit and inflexibility.
According to new reports, Donald’s trip to Ireland scheduled for next month may be canceled altogether because Trump refuses to agree on something as minuscule as the location of the meeting.
Of course, Donald wants to hold the gathering at Doonbeg, his own golf course and hotel complex located in Ireland — it’s home ground for Trump AND puts a few extra dollars in his own pocket. However, Irish Taoiseach (TEE-shock; Irish equiv. of Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar feels like meeting on Trump property would cause protocol issues as to whether it’s a public or private visit.
The Irish Times reported that “while the Taoiseach’s preference is to meet Mr. Trump in County Clare, Irish officials are reluctant to meet the US president in his golf course in Doonbeg. Instead, the Government has pressed for a meeting in another location, preferably Dromoland Castle, located 35 miles away.”
Then again, Trump’s reluctance to visit Ireland may have a lot to do with the fact that the Prime Minister said protesters were not only “allowed” but “welcome” during the visit. And we all know how Donald feels about people exercising free speech that doesn’t hail him............................
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/444202-ireland-prime-minister-says-protest-is-allowed-and-is-welcome-for
Fraser Anning, Australian lawmaker egged by teen after New Zealand mosque shootings, voted out of o
Source: usatoday
Kristin Lam, USA TODAY Published 4:48 p.m. ET May 19, 2019 | Updated 4:59 p.m. ET May 19, 2019
The Australian lawmaker who blamed Muslims after a white supremacist killed worshipers at two New Zealand mosques in March has been voted out of office.
Preliminary election results show right-wing Sen. Fraser Anning of Queensland has failed to gather enough votes to keep his seat in Australia’s Parliament, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Anning drew backlash for his comments after New Zealand’s deadliest shootings since 1990, then went viral when a teenage protester cracked an egg over his head during an interview.
"The real cause of the bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place," Anning said in a statement at the time. .....................................
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/05/19/fraser-anning-australian-lawmaker-egged-voted-out-office/3700319002/
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Trump is moving to cut public access to information on how, and to whom, banks loan money
Trump Wants to Make Red-lining Easier
The administration is moving to cut public access to information on how, and to whom, banks loan money.
https://progressive.org/op-eds/trump-wants-to-make-red-lining-easier-Kristipati-190510/
by Preeti Vissa Kristipati
May 10, 2019
Redlining – the practice of denying loans to home buyers and others based on their race or ethnic background – has been illegal for decades.
But, last year, the investigative news outlet Reveal published a massive investigation strongly suggesting that redlining continues today. Now, the Trump Administration is moving to cut public access to the information that helped Reveal produce its report.
Reveal’s reporters spent a full year analyzing 31 million records collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), a law passed in 1975 to give policymakers the information needed to identify and combat lending discrimination. Under HMDA, banks and other mortgage lenders must report information like the type of property, the loan amount, and the sex, race and ethnicity of borrowers.
Reveal found that African Americans and Latinos—and in some locations Asian Americans and Native Americans, too—were far more likely to be turned down for conventional mortgages than white borrowers. That pattern remained even after controlling for factors like household income and the amount of the loan in relation to that income.
Reporting requirements under HMDA were updated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform act and again by the Obama Administration to give regulators a clearer picture of what’s happening. The updated rules required lenders to report every loan’s interest rate and the relationship between an applicant’s income and total amount of debt the would-be borrower was taking on. They also required more detail on ethnicity—like whether an Asian American borrower, for example, was of Chinese or Cambodian heritage.
Now the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—formerly a tough consumer watchdog that’s fast becoming a bankers’ lapdog—has proposed new rules that would roll back the information requirements added by the Obama Administration. The bureau says it will close a web portal that has allowed easy public access to this information, giving vague promises to eventually develop a new tool for this purpose.
The proposed updates would exempt some lenders, such as smaller banks and credit unions, from having to report at all—even though some of them make more loans to low-income borrowers than do major banks. The administration claims these changes will provide “much needed relief” from supposed regulatory burdens.
While lenders no longer draw red lines on maps, the data reveals they still often decline loans to black people and Latinos or steer them into high-cost subprime loans.
But this makes no sense.....................................
Fox News' Chris Wallace: Bill Barr 'Clearly Is Protecting' Trump
Fox News’ Chris Wallace: Bill Barr ‘Clearly Is Protecting’ Trump
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-chris-wallace-bill-barr-clearly-is-protecting-trump?ref=wrap
‘I suspect that as President Trump, who probably has watched some of this interview himself, is saying: ‘Finally no Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr instead,’’ Wallace added.
05.17.19 12:54 PM ET
Fox News
Reacting to a Fox News interview with Attorney General William Barr that included Barr essentially threatening Democrats who criticize him and justifying the president calling the Mueller probe a “witch hunt,” Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said Friday that Trump now has a new fixer.
In the interview that was aired Friday, Barr told Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer that House Democrats who have accused him of contempt of Congress are discrediting him because they’re likely “concerned about the outcome of a review of what happened during the election.” Furthermore, the attorney general said he wants to see if FBI officials “put their thumb on the scale” during the Russia investigation, especially during the origins of it.
During Friday’s broadcast of America’s Newsroom, Wallace praised Hemmer’s interview of the attorney general, claiming he did a “hell of a job and squeezed the sponge dry getting everything that Bill Barr was prepared to say.”
The Fox News anchor went on to note that we had heard Trump complain openly for the past two years that he didn’t have an attorney general who would look out for him and protect his interests.
“He clearly has that now with Bill Barr,” Wallace asserted. “Not saying that Barr isn’t right in everything he says. But he clearly is protecting this president and advocating his point of view on a lot of these issues.”
............................................
@Jim_Jordan claims report exonerates him. It does not. It says the sexual abuse was an open secret
David Corn is right as the case does not mention Jim Jordan by name. @Jim_Jordan
#ResignGymJordan
David Corn Verified account @DavidCornDC
3h3 hours ago
David Corn Retweeted Don Cheadle
.@Jim_Jordan claims the report exonerates him. It does not. It says the sexual abuse was an open secret widely known to coaches and asst coaches at the time he was there. It notes the investigation did not ascertain specifically which coaches knew what when.
https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/1129556576522690560
After Ukraine-Biden Scandal Fizzles, Trump Demands Probe Into China Ties
Source: TPM
.........................
So what’s the next big thing for Trump and the right-wing media machine?
The answer seems to be a China-Biden scandal.
In a preview of a Sunday interview with Fox News’ Steve Hilton, Trump demanded an investigation into the former Vice President’s apparent ties to China. Allegations that Hunter Biden took advantage of his father’s position to sign a lucrative business deal with the Bank of China apparently stem from Peter Schweizer’s 2018 book “Secret Empires,” which Schwiezer has been pushing in op-eds this week.
“Don’t you think that should be investigated?” asked Hilton, in a bizarre bid to cajole the president into demanding more investigations of a political opponent. “That financial connection – the Chinese government putting billions of dollars into Biden’s family businesses?”
“100 percent,” Trump replied, adding: “It’s a disgrace.”.................................
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-demands-china-biden-investigation
Leave it to Fox to make up more trouble.
https://twitter.com/TPM/status/1129498527967719429
Trump lawyers adopt Jim Jordan's playbook to fight Dem oversight
Much longer article --and I think very good.
Trump lawyers adopt Jim Jordan’s playbook to fight Dem oversight
The president's lawyers are mimicking the Ohio Republican's arguments to try to thwart subpoena demands.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/16/trump-jim-jordan-house-subpoenas-1327150
By MELANIE ZANONA and ANDREW DESIDERIO
05/16/2019 05:09 AM EDT
Rep. Jim Jordan has frequently defended President Donald Trump on cable news and gone to the mat for him on Capitol Hill. Now, the Ohio Republican’s hard-line playbook is making its way into federal court.
Trump’s outside legal team is taking cues from Jordan, adopting many of his arguments and even asking a federal judge to obtain documents from Jordan in order to build their legal case against Democrats’ myriad investigations targeting the president.
It’s an extraordinary move that underscores the alignment between Trump’s attorneys, who are advancing a restrictive view of Congress’ oversight authority, and Republicans, who are broadly resisting Democrats’ attempts to investigate alleged crimes committed by the president.
At a federal court hearing on Tuesday, at which a judge heard arguments over whether Trump could block a congressional subpoena for his financial records, the president’s top outside counsel, William Consovoy, asked the judge for extra time so that he could consult with Jordan about providing documents that could buttress the president’s case. Trump filed a federal lawsuit last month in his personal capacity seeking to scrap the panel’s subpoena to accounting firm Mazars USA for eight years worth of Trump’s financial documents.
And in an initial court filing seeking to invalidate the subpoena, Consovoy invoked Jordan’s name five times and quoted several passages from his letters to House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) accusing Democrats of trying to “embarrass President Trump” with “partisan attacks.”
Jordan stressed in an interview that he’s not coordinating with the White House or Trump’s outside attorneys in the congressional oversight battle. But the synergy between the two sides is difficult to miss...................................................
Rep. Jim Jordan stressed in an interview that he’s not coordinating with the White House or President Donald Trump's outside attorneys in the ongoing congressional oversight battle. | John Minchillo/AP Photo
Republican Michigan senator Kim LasSata says abortions should be 'painful' for women
No doubt Trump supporters would agree
Republican Michigan senator says abortions should be ‘painful’ for women
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-michigan-abortion-painful-lasata-20190516-7emydu4oxjavfimbmjlbagg2ce-story.html
May 16, 2019 | 3:59 PM
Amid a nationwide debate on abortion, a Michigan state lawmaker said the procedure should be “painful” for women.
Republican Sen. Kim LaSata was on Michigan Radio defending a proposed ban on an abortion procedure known as dilation-and-evacuation, typically used in the second trimester.
“Of course it should be hard, and the procedure should be painful, and you should allow God to take over, and you should deliver that baby, and you should handle the situation,” LaSata, 56, said.
LaSata revealed that she had an abortion after doctors told her that her fetus would not survive birth. The fetus was delivered stillborn after the procedure, which she called “God looking out for me.” All women, she said, should have to carry a fetus to term regardless of viability.
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Comey, Sally Yates and Obama told Trump not to hire Flynn-now Trump says he was NOT warned.....
I do not know if there are tapes of trump being warned but 3 people warmed him.
https://twitter.com/EdKrassen/status/1129399958837387264
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1129394914427453442
https://twitter.com/funder/status/1129397518100566017
Vicky @ Resister ? @Victoria101080
39m39 minutes ago
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
Obama told you, Sally Yates told you, and you still didn't get rid of him for 18 days,you knew about #Flynn and now there are tapes 😂😂😂😂😂
0 replies 1 retweet 7 likes
New conversation
Eugene Gu, MD
?Verified account @eugenegu
3h3 hours ago
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
Trump has the dumbest instincts and chooses the absolute worst people like Mike Flynn who was literally a criminal under FBI investigation. But even beyond that he refused to listen to Sally Yates who told him that Flynn was compromised. Trump still kept him on his campaign.
81 replies 279 retweets 2,005 likes
Eugene Gu, MD
?Verified account @eugenegu
3h3 hours ago
Trump is a crook who hires other crooks and has the audacity to complain about the FBI not warning him about Mike Flynn when it’s Trump’s job to make sure his campaign staff are properly vetted.
36 replies 184 retweets 1,277 likes
Eugene Gu, MD
?Verified account @eugenegu
3h3 hours ago
And now he’s acting all unhinged because there must be some new revelations about Flynn and Trump that has him extremely scared.
42 replies 128 retweets 1,046 likes
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