News Dump

Trump's AG and VP exposed for routing money into Trump hotels
https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari/watch/trump-s-ag-and-vp-exposed-for-routing-money-into-trump-hotels-68110917736

Adult-film star Stormy Daniels said Tuesday that she is prepared to testify before Congress under oath following reports that House Democrats plan to probe President Trump’s role in alleged hush money payments. “I have no fear of being under oath because I have have been and will be honest. Bring it!” tweeted Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/459828-stormy-daniels-i-have-no-fear-of-being-under-oath
https://twitter.com/StormyDaniels/status/1168876595253260288

Alaska’s Sea Ice Completely Melted for First Time in Recorded History: ‘That means there was no sea ice whatsoever within 150 miles of its shores, according to the National Weather Services | The country of Iceland has held a funeral for its first glacier lost to the climate crisis. The once massive Okjökull glacier, now completely gone, has been commemorated with a plaque that reads: “A letter to the future. Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”
https://truthout.org/articles/alaskas-sea-ice-completely-melted-for-first-time-in-recorded-history/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/19/iceland-holds-funeral-for-first-glacier-lost-to-climate-change
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/19/iceland-holds-funeral-for-first-glacier-lost-to-climate-change

U.S. created 501,000 fewer jobs since 2018 than previously reported
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-created-500000-fewer-jobs-since-2018-than-previously-reported-new-figures-show-2019-08-21

After months of protests, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam withdraws controversial extradition bill
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/09/04/asia/hong-kong-carrie-lam-extradition-bill-intl-hnk/index.html

Trump said he granted a disaster declaration at the request of North Carolina’s Republican senator. It came from the state’s Democratic governor.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-said-he-granted-a-disaster-declaration-at-the-request-of-north-carolinas-republican-senator-it-came-from-the-states-democratic-governor/2019/09/04/69bd346c-cefb-11e9-b29b-a528dc82154a_story.html

Mississippi wedding venue rejects interracial couple citing religion
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/03/mississippi-wedding-venue-refuses-interracial-couple/2198769001/

Donald Trump Is Misogyny’s Poster Child — and Half of America Loves Him for It
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-is-misogynys-poster-child-and-half-of-america-loves-him-for-it

Local Effort To Boycott Businesses Owned By Trump Supporters Brings Strong Response From GOP
https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2019/09/03/boycott-trump-supporter-owned-businesses-pittsburgh/

OxyContin maker prepares 'free-fall' bankruptcy as settlement talks stall
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-opioids-exclusive/exclusive-oxycontin-maker-prepares-free-fall-bankruptcy-as-settlement-talks-stall-idUSKCN1VO2QN

Inside the shadowy think tank pushing to kick 3.1 million people off food stamps - The increasingly influential Foundation for Government Accountability is mixing sketchy research with legislative leverage — and it’s working
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/4/20835692/conservative-think-tank-foundation-for-government-accountability-food-stamps-snap-poverty-welfare

Michigan to become first state to ban flavored e-cigarettes
https://www.axios.com/michigan-flavored-e-cigarette-ban-885b5192-a2cb-4b0f-90d3-14fa99b8583d.html

Top Interior official who pushed to expand drilling in Alaska to join oil company there | Joe Balash, a Trump appointee, had served as assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management until Aug. 30
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/09/04/top-interior-official-who-pushed-expand-drilling-alaska-join-oil-company-there/

Rep. Bill Flores becomes the latest Texas Republican to head for the exits and announce he won't seek reelection next year:
https://flores.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=401230

That's 5 House Republicans from Texas calling it quits. Thirteen total retiring or seeking higher office in 2020.
https://twitter.com/CarrieNBCNews/status/1169242572633595905

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says extradition bill has been fully withdrawn | A full withdrawal of the bill is one of five demands that protesters have been fighting for.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/hong-kong-extradition-bill-carrie-lam-to-make-announcement-wednesday.html

Trump Says a Recession Isn’t Possible Because Everyone Is Rich | “I don’t think we’re having a recession,” Trump told reporters on Sunday in an attempt to quell fears over a potential market crash. “We’re doing tremendously well. Our consumers are rich. I gave a tremendous tax cut and they’re loaded up with money.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-recession-denial-panic-conspiracy-873239/

Getting Your Protein From Plants May Help You Live Longer: Japanese men and women who consumed the most plant proteins had a lower rate of cardiovascular death and stroke.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/well/eat/diet-lifespan-vegetables-vegetarian-vegan-foods-plants-meat-fish.html

SF Board of Supervisors declare National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist organization
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-Board-of-Supervisors-NRA-domestic-terrorists-14411936.php

Efforts like this are why Beto is atop our Party Builder Index (http://partybuilder.org ), which measures how dedicated presidential candidates are to helping state legislative candidates.  With 66 days until the VA elections we'd love to see all of them visit the commonwealth! https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1167787709332672512 …
https://partybuilder.org/

States control important policies — the same ones presidential candidates always talk about.
Healthcare access, civil rights, clean water, mass incarceration, and more are all decided in state capitols. If candidates are serious about these issues, not just their own chances, they should invest in the state legislatures where progress is most likely.
https://partybuilder.org/

“State legislatures are the most important part of American civic life that’s been forgotten, except by the worst elements of politics and vested special interests. We have decided to focus all of our energy on the least glamorous, often most frustrating part of politics.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/04/future-now-democrats-2020-state-legislatures/587314/

Farmers Union Vice President Says Farmers Have 'Pretty Much Lost All Our Markets Since Trump Took Over' | "We lost pretty much all of our markets since Trump took over," Kuylen said. "Older guys like us, we built up equities all our lives. Most farmers are land-rich and cash-poor, so we'll take out loss loans and stuff against our land and go backwards on the land that we paid for. But there's a lot of young farmers out there who don't have equity and I worry about them, because they're not going to be able to withstand this." Since 2017, revenue from Chinese agricultural exports dropped by more than half, from $19.5 billion to $9.2 billion in 2018, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures. The USDA also found that farm income has dropped 45 percent over the same period. According to the American Farm Bureau, farm bankruptcies have increased 13 percent since 2018. | While Kuylen did not vote for Trump, he knows farmers who did and predicts their business interests will conflict with their loyalty to the president. "If it's between supporting the president or losing your family farm — this is something we've had in our family for four generations and I know there's families with five or six generations on the same farm — if they're going to lose that, I think they're going to lose their loyalty very fast." The New York Times found widespread dissatisfaction among farmers in attendance at Farmfest in Minnesota in August, where attendees booed Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue after he told telling a joke about how two farmers in a basement are called "a whine cellar."
https://www.newsweek.com/china-trade-war-trump-farmers-tariffs-bailout-subsidies-1457474
https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari/watch/farmers-rips-trump-trade-we-ve-lost-everything-since-he-took-over-67894853840
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/us/politics/trump-farmers-china-trade.html

Trump Administration Rolls Back Rules Requiring More Energy-Efficient Bulbs
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/climate/trump-light-bulb-rollback.html

S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan has acknowledged having failed to act more vigorously to shield State Department staffers from retaliation by the Trump administration for their perceived political views. But Sullivan said that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lacked the authority to fire a top Trump political appointee accused of inflicting, or abetting, the alleged harassment. Speaking in a town hall meeting on Aug. 29 with staffers from the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Sullivan and David Hale, the undersecretary of state for political affairs and the third-ranking official in the department, acknowledged shortcomings in their response and pledged to make amends for staffers whose careers were upended in a long-running controversy that triggered an investigation by the department’s inspector general. They also pledged to exercise greater personal oversight over the bureau’s work. “I will be the first to admit the failure on my part to have done more to address the situation,” Sullivan told the gathering, according to an account of the meeting relayed to Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/03/state-department-failed-to-shield-its-diplomats-from-political-reprisals-officials-concede-mari-stull-kevin-moley-international-organizations-inspector-general-report-controversy-diplomacy/

Regulators Fine Google $170 Million for Violating Children’s Privacy on YouTube
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube-fine-ftc.html

Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) adamantly vowed on Tuesday that she would not resign her office, despite revelations last week that she once appeared in blackface in a college Baptist Student Union skit while she was a student at Auburn University. The national Republican leaders who demanded a Democratic governor resign for a very similar scandal have suddenly changed their minds on whether this is a forgivable offense. | In February, Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) was thought to have been captured in a photo from his 35-year-old medical school yearbook page showing a man in blackface and another man dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes. Northam apologized for the photo, though he later claimed he did not believe he was in either picture. He did admit to — and apologize for — wearing blackface to imitate Michael Jackson once.
https://thinkprogress.org/republican-leaders-silent-as-alabama-governor-insists-she-wont-resign-over-blackface-scandal-354372498a33/

‘Surprising’ poll: Texans strongly back voter ID law, increased ballot access: Majorities of Republicans, Democrats want election security — paper ballot backups, photo IDs — but also would let felons who serve their time vote and declare Election Day a holiday, a nonpartisan poll finds.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/09/04/surprising-poll-texans-strongly-back-voter-id-law-increased-ballot-access/

Flake donates to Democratic sheriff being challenged by Arpaio in Arizona
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/459887-flake-donates-to-democratic-sheriff-being-challenged-by-arpaio

So, Theresa May’s Brexit deal has got further tonight—with her out of office—than it ever did with her in office. Strange times
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/sep/04/brexit-crisis-boris-johnson-mps-bill-blocking-no-deal-eu-no-deal-parliament-politics-live

China has grabbed more land than East India company: Maldives former President
https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/world-news/china-has-grabbed-more-land-than-east-india-company-maldives-former-president/articleshow/70978188.cms

Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Britain's WWII leader Winston Churchill, will be expelled from the Conservative Party after voting against Boris Johnson on Brexit.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nicholas-soames-expelled-conservative-party-defy-boris-johnson-churchill-2019-9?

Use of glyphosate will be banned in Germany from the end of 2023, after a phased effort to reduce its application by farmers. Glyphosate — also the subject of legal claims over an alleged link with cancer — was developed by Monsanto under the brand name Roundup. (
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-set-to-ban-glyphosate-from-end-of-2023/a-50282891

British seagrass could help tackle climate change - The aquatic plant, which is found in beds around the UK coast, can store carbon 35 times faster than tropical rainforests.
https://news.sky.com/story/british-seagrass-could-help-tackle-climate-change-11801785

British White Supremacist Behind the “Punish a Muslim” Campaign Was Just Sentenced to 12 years in Prison: The former IT analyst also sent fake anthrax to the Queen and fan mail to Dylann Roof.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kxnn/british-white-supremacist-behind-the-punish-a-muslim-campaign-was-just-sentenced-to-12-years-in-prison

Jacob Wohl Wanted on Felony Arrest Warrant | Conservative operative Jacob Wohl is wanted on a felony arrest warrant in California, a development that could hamper his spree of bizarre, blundering political schemes. Wohl and former business partner Matthew Johnson were both charged with the unlawful sale of securities in a Riverside Superior Court criminal complaint filed on Aug. 19.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jacob-wohl-wanted-on-felony-arrest-warrant

Vice President’s Brother, an Indiana Congressman, Spent More Than $45,000 at Trump International Hotel
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/vice-presidents-brother-an-indiana-congressman-spent-more-than-45000-at-trump-international-hotel/

Document reveals the FBI is tracking border protest groups as extremist organizations
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-document-reveals-the-fbi-is-tracking-border-protest-groups-as-extremist-organizations-170050594.html

Former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig found not guilty of lying to prosecutors
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/former-obama-white-house-counsel-gregory-craig-found-not-guilty-of-lying-to-prosecutors.html

Trump on Wednesday displayed a map that he said reflected Hurricane Dorian's original path, but the image appeared to be manually altered with a marker to show the storm's trajectory continuing toward Alabama. | Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan then pulled up the chart and displayed it on the Resolute Desk. The map featured what appeared to be a marker-drawn addition to the end of the Dorian's previously expected path, extending it toward the Gulf of Mexico and the southern edge of Alabama. | Reporters and observers on social media quickly noted the alteration to the map, and observed that the National Hurricane Center's own projections did not feature a similar shift in the storm's path. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declined to comment on the record about the map. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the alteration. Dennis Mersereau, a Forbes contributor who writes about the weather, tweeted that it's illegal to falsify a forecast. | [Trump] has shared his own forecasts of the storm in recent days as it made its way up the Atlantic and toward the mainland U.S.
Trump tweeted Sunday that Alabama could be among the states affected by Dorian. But the National Weather Service in Birmingham tweeted a short time later that was not the case, and that the hurricane system would remain too far east.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/459943-trump-displays-map-with-dorians-original-path-extended-toward-alabama
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2019/DORIAN_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line
https://twitter.com/wxdam/status/1169309514669199361