August 2, 2020

Pelosi says she has no confidence in White House coronavirus adviser Birx

Source: MSN News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday she does not have confidence in White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, linking her to disinformation about the virus spread by President Donald Trump.

"I think the president has been spreading disinformation about the virus and she is his appointee so, I don't have confidence there, no," Speaker Pelosi told ABC's "This Week" when asked if she has confidence in Birx.

Birx, asked about Pelosi's comment during an interview with CNN's "State of the Union," said she had great respect for Pelosi and attributed the criticism to a New York Times article on the White House pandemic response that described Birx as having embraced overly optimistic assessments on the virus.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pelosi-says-she-has-no-confidence-in-white-house-coronavirus-adviser-birx/ar-BB17tG8j?li=BBnb7Kz

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Edited to include New York Times article about Dr. Birx (via Daily Beast to circumvent paywall).

"Dr. Deborah Birx Told the White House in April That Coronavirus Was Going Away: NYT"

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dr-deborah-birx-told-the-white-house-in-april-that-coronavirus-was-going-away-nyt

July 27, 2020

Anti-fascists linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years

Source: The Guardian

Donald Trump has made warnings about the threat of antifa and “far-left fascism” a central part of his re-election campaign. But in reality leftwing attacks have left far fewer people dead than violence by rightwing extremists, new research indicates, and antifa activists have not been linked to a single murder in decades.

A new database of nearly 900 politically motivated attacks and plots in the United States since 1994 includes just one attack staged by an anti-fascist that led to fatalities. In that case, the single person killed was the perpetrator.

Over the same time period, American white supremacists and other rightwing extremists have carried out attacks that left at least 329 victims dead, according to the database.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/us-rightwing-extremists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa

July 16, 2020

SCOTUS Allows FL Ex-Felon Voter Restrictions Struck Down By Judge To Be Reinstated

Source: TPM

Florida’s restrictions on ex-felon voting will likely remain in place at least for August’s primary, after the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to remove a hold on a trial judge’s ruling that those restrictions are unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court’s action in the case, where the voting rights of hundreds of thousands ex-felons could be at stake in the swing state, is the latest example of the conservative majority siding with restrictive laws.

Though the Florida case is not technically linked to the pandemic, in several other recent disputes where voter access in the outbreak was in play, the Supreme Court has consistently sided with keeping in place the more restrictive voter regimes.

Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/supreme-court-florida-ex-felons-voter-restrictaions

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The case involves a law Florida Republicans passed in 2019, after the state’s voters in 2018 approved a constitutional amendment giving certain ex-felons the right to vote. The 2019 law requires that those ex-felons pay back all remaining court fees before they regain the franchise. The law’s challengers say that the mandate amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax.

July 9, 2020

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama

I feel very lucky that these two men were president during my adult lifetime. After all, the alternative has been Reagan, Bush, and now Trump. But I've come to realize that these two men created a lot of hardship for me. To be clear, I'm speaking strictly financially. And I recognize the hardship for me created by the republican presidents during my adult lifetime has been significantly worse. But that's a different discussion than the one I'm engaging in now.

Under Bill Clinton, I lived in the most peaceful and prosperous time in generations. President Clinton had to negotiate, sell, and trade with Republicans in Congress in order to achieve this. He sold and traded a higher retirement age for me.
Under Barack Obama, our country was pulled out of the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression. And I got universal healthcare, something that had never been provided in this country. I was required to buy it if I didn't otherwise have health insurance. I discovered it is prohibitively expensive if you have an income. Budget-busting expensive.

So, I'm just hoping Joe Biden is elected president and that he doesn't create any further financial hardship for me. And maybe he can even address the two significant financial hardships I endure that have been created by Democrats. Regardless, I feel very lucky that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were president during my adult lifetime. Because I know the alternative.

Oh, btw, Elizabeth Warren has plans to address these financial burdens.

July 1, 2020

You gotta try this recipe.

I'm a meat and potatoes guy...or meat and pasta...or meat and rice. I like meat. But I tried this no-meat recipe and it is out of this world. So I wanted to share it.

Spinach and Feta Pita Bake

Ingredients

Original recipe yields 6 servings

1 (6 ounce) tub sun-dried tomato pesto
6 (6 inch) whole wheat pita breads
2 roma (plum) tomatoes, chopped
1 bunch spinach, rinsed and chopped
4 fresh mushrooms, sliced
½ cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons olive oil
ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Step 2

Spread tomato pesto onto one side of each pita bread and place them pesto-side up on a baking sheet. Top pitas with tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, feta cheese, and Parmesan cheese; drizzle with olive oil and season with pepper.

Step 3

Bake in the preheated oven until pita breads are crisp, about 12 minutes. Cut pitas into quarters.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/93666/spinach-and-feta-pita-bake/

And it's easy peasy to assemble. Enjoy.

July 1, 2020

Fox News Host Ed Henry Fired After Sexual Misconduct Investigation

Source: HUFFPOST

Fox News has fired host Ed Henry after an investigation into a sexual misconduct allegation involving a former employee, the network announced in an internal memo Wednesday.

Last Thursday, network executives “received a complaint about Ed Henry from a former employee’s attorney involving willful sexual misconduct in the workplace years ago” and enlisted an outside law firm to investigate the employee’s allegation, according to the memo from CEO Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace.

“Ed was suspended the same day and removed from his on-air responsibilities pending investigation. Based on investigative findings, Ed has been terminated,” they wrote.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-news-anchor-ed-henry-fired-sexual-misconduct-investigation_n_5efc90dfc5b6ca9709179bdb

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HAHAHAHAHA

May 16, 2020

HAHAHAHAHA. This is too funny. And pitiful.

The most corrupt President in our history is seeking to use the vast power and influence of that office in order to indict the most beyond reproach and squeaky clean President in our history. Yup, in his effort to get re-elected, Trump is going after Obama and trying to have Obama's administration indicted.

Why is this funny? Because Trump is establishing new precedent; former presidents are now vulnerable to prosecution for their misdeeds while in office. We witnessed George W. Bush escape any prosecutorial action after his administration pursued illegal acts of torture and lied our country into a war with Iraq. But Trump's actions are now making clear that former Presidents can be held accountable. And Biden has stated "no pardon for Trump". Trump doesn't realize he has just opened a can of whoopass on himself.

HAHAHAHAHA.

March 18, 2020

"Bernie Sanders deactivates 2020 campaign Facebook ads"

"Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign currently has no active Facebook ads, the morning after another disappointing finish in a series of primary contests.

Why it matters: A pause in digital advertising spend on Facebook has been a good indicator that candidates are dropping out of the 2020 race before. Pete Buttigieg and Michael Bloomberg made their Facebook ads inactive hours before they suspended their campaigns.

The state of play: Sanders and his wife Jane are traveling back to Vermont today to “assess the path forward for our campaign," per a note from his campaign manager Faiz Shakir."

https://www.axios.com/bernie-sanders-suspends-facebook-ads-2020-election-8d888649-55fb-4358-a6e6-cac09584bac8.html

January 21, 2020

Hillary Clinton on Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'Nobody likes him'

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton levied scathing attacks on Sen. Bernie Sanders in a new Hulu documentary and in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Clinton, who competed for the 2016 Democratic nomination against Sanders and won, claimed that Sanders is unlikable and has been relatively unaccomplished during his congressional tenure.

“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done,” Clinton said in the documentary. “He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”

[...]

“I will say, however, that it’s not only him, it’s the culture around him. It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online 'Bernie Bros' and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women. And I really hope people are paying attention to that because it should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture — not only permitted, [he] seems to really be very much supporting it.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-sen-bernie-sanders-likes/story?id=68424746