News Dump

I do agree: Progressives to Pelosi as Trump Lawlessness Mounts: 'Stop Playing Craven Political Games' and Impeach
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/23/progressives-pelosi-trump-lawlessness-mounts-stop-playing-craven-political-games-and

Democratic Rep. John Larson: "If the Director [of National Intelligence] refuses to comply at Thursday's hearing, the Trump Administration has left Congress with no alternative but for the House to begin impeachment proceedings, which I will support."
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1176291471844155392
https://larson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/larson-comply-law-or-begin-impeachment-proceedings

“Eating meat could become illegal due to the ecological damage it does to the planet, a top British barrister has said.“
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/eating-meat-illegal-vegans-michael-mansfield-qc-labour-conference-a9115656.html

Greta Thunberg warns world leaders that 'we will not let you get away with this' | Addressing the UN climate summit in NYC, she said: "This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?"
https://news.sky.com/story/greta-thunberg-warns-world-leaders-that-change-is-coming-11817903

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," climate activist Greta Thunberg tells the UN. "We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you."
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1176159504288886785

GOP rival Bill Weld says Trump has committed ‘treason, pure and simple’ | Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, who is challenging President Trump for the Republican nomination next year, on Monday accused him of “treason” for pressing the leader of Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son. Weld’s comments came in response to reports that Trump repeatedly brought up investigating Biden, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination, and his younger son, Hunter, in a July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election,” Weld said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “It couldn’t be clearer, and that’s not just undermining democratic institutions. That is treason. It’s treason, pure and simple, and the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is death. That’s the only penalty.” “The penalty under the Constitution is removal from office, and that might look like a pretty good alternative to the president if he could work out a plea deal,” added Weld, who appeared in a joint interview with two other Republicans challenging Trump, former congressmen Mark Sanford (S.C.). and Joe Walsh (Ill.).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-rival-bill-weld-says-trump-has-committed-treason-pure-and-simple/2019/09/23/30b80606-de00-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html

Bill Weld Just Went on TV and Suggested Trump Committed a Crime Punishable by Death
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/bill-weld-just-went-on-tv-and-suggested-trump-committed-a-crime-punishable-by-death/

Demand that your representative call for an impeachment inquiry to assess whether the conclusions Mueller reached are impeachable offenses. This site provides you with a list of your elected repressenatives, their contact information, and a pre-written script to hit them with. | Hi, my name is [NAME] and I'm a constituent from [CITY, ZIP]. I'm calling to express my extreme concern that the federal government is on the eve of a constitutional crisis because the Trump administration continues to brazenly defy Congressional oversight. The House of Representatives must now begin the impeachment process due to President Trump's serious and troubling conduct. Thank you for your time and attention. IF LEAVING A VOICEMAIL: Please leave your full street address to ensure your call is tallied.
https://5calls.org/issue/house-impeachment-inquiry-trump/

Reminder: Trump Admits He Tried to Get Ukraine to Investigate Biden
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyzj93/trump-admits-he-tried-to-get-ukraine-to-investigate-biden

Reminder: Trump Blurts Out to Reporters That He Pressured Ukraine to Smear Biden
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/trump-demanded-ukraine-smear-biden.html

Lost in the Ukraine furor is that Rudy Giuliani last year got paid--while also working as Trump's lawyer--to intervene in Romania's anticorruption drive by attacking an upstanding prosecutor on behalf of a party whose leader is now in prison.......: A letter that Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Trump’s personal attorneys, sent to Romanian officials opposing a corruption crackdown in that country has drawn the attention of the State Department and renewed questions about his continued work for foreign clients while representing the Trump. In his letter last week to Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and Premier Viorica Dancila, Giuliani criticized anti-corruption efforts in that country, expressing concern about “continued damage to the rule of law in Romania, committed under the pretext of law enforcement.” Writing under the letterhead of his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, the former New York mayor criticized the “excesses” of Romania’s anti-corruption agency and warned that recent moves could affect foreign investment. Giuliani’s letter caused significant ripples in Romania and raised questions about his decision to work for foreign clients while serving as one of Trump’s chief attorneys dealing with the Russia investigation. It also put him in opposition with the State Department, which has supported efforts to prosecute corruption in Romania. The United States joined with 11 other countries in June in a statement warning Romania not to take measures that would weaken its “ability to fight crime or corruption.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/giuliani-letter-criticizing-romanias-anti-corruption-drive-draws-state-department-attention/2018/08/29/8d8f689c-abcf-11e8-8f4b-aee063e14538_story.html
https://www.mediafax.ro/social/exclusiv-rudolph-giuliani-avocatul-lui-donald-trump-scrisoare-catre-klaus-iohannis-protocoalele-promovate-de-kovesi-si-maior-submineaza-statul-de-drept-document-17482807
https://ro.usembassy.gov/potential-negative-impact-of-criminal-law-amendments/

4 in 10 House Republicans in office when Trump was inaugurated have now quit or lost their seats
https://theweek.com/speedreads/866990/4-10-house-republicans-office-when-trump-inaugurated-have-now-quit-lost-seats

Massive "I Love America" Facebook page, pushing pro-Trump propaganda, is run by Ukrainians
https://popular.info/p/massive-i-love-america-facebook-page

Andrew McCabe: Trump ‘Escaped’ Two-Year Investigation and Pressured Foreign Leader the ‘Very Next Day’
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/andrew-mccabe-trump-escaped-two-year-investigation-and-pressured-foreign-leader-the-very-next-day/

Tapper followed up: "So it is okay for Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump to do business all over the world, it's okay for Ivanka Trump to have copyrights approved all over the world while President Trump is president, but while Vice President Joe Biden was vice president, his son shouldn't have been able to do business dealings?" Mnuchin said he didn't want to "go into more of these details," and Tapper cut in: "Well, you're just setting a precedent that the president is violating."
https://www.theweek.com/speedreads/866969/cnns-jake-tapper-corners-mnuchin-why-trump-targeting-bidens-son-given-childrens-conflicts

The Supreme Court Considers Mandatory Government Funding of Religious Education
https://www.aclu.org/blog/religious-liberty/religion-and-public-schools/supreme-court-considers-mandatory-government

U.S. Marine Commandant General David H. Berger of the Marine Corps is angry with one of his units in South Florida after the unit planned to hold its annual military ball at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Newsweek has learned. The four-star general is upset with leaders of 4th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) in West Palm Beach, Florida, from an optics standpoint after the unit booked its annual gala at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate the 244th anniversary of the Marines' founding, said two Defense Department sources who spoke to Newsweek on Friday under condition of anonymity due to Pentagon media restrictions.
https://www.newsweek.com/marine-commandant-angry-florida-unit-booking-gala-donald-trumps-mar-lago-1460540
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7CgQOnVzjQ0J:https://westpalmbeachmarines.ticketleap.com/2019-marine-corp-ball/details&client=safari&hl=en&gl=uk&strip=1&vwsrc=0
Last week, a Republican Virginia state lawmaker ran a Facebook ad warning gun control advocacy groups she is “not afraid to shoot” them down. Now she’s blaming the language on a digital media company she said was hired to work on it. The initial ad run by state Sen. Amanda Chase, who represents Chesterfield County, read, “I’m not afraid to shoot down gun groups.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/virginia-senator-amanda-chase-anti-gun-control-ad_n_5d87ef65e4b0849d472b1517

VA says veteran suicide rate is 17 per day after change in calculation
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/va-says-veteran-suicide-rate-is-17-per-day-after-change-in-calculation-1.599857

At the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a Steady Drip of Toxic Trouble | This month, the Department of Energy announced that a tank at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state is leaking up to 300 gallons of radioactive waste a year. Then last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee corrected that figure: a total of six tanks are leaking. To people unfamiliar with Hanford, this might sound mildly apocalyptic. Nuclear sludge left over from Cold War plutonium production is drip-drip-dripping into American soil, infiltrating the groundwater, slowly making its way into our rivers. But to Washington residents and Hanford observers, the leak is just another in a long line of mild disasters at America’s most contaminated nuclear-waste site, a radioactive drop in the already-polluted Columbia River. | Hanford is the worst kind of mess: the kind that humanity is capable of making, but not capable of cleaning up. It was the home of the world’s first full-scale plutonium reactor and the epicenter of American nuclear production during the Cold War. Now the 586-square-mile campus is the subject of the largest environmental cleanup operation the United States government has ever undertaken. There are other sites in America with long nuclear histories—places like Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Yucca Mountain. But none have become sprawling disasters with quite as much panache as Hanford.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/at-the-hanford-nuclear-reservation-a-steady-drip-of-toxic-trouble
https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57570857/wash-state-governor-6-underground-nuclear-tanks-leaking/

Deportations and Crime: No Connection | In one of Donald J. Trump’s earliest moves as president, days after his inauguration, he revived the deportation program known as Secure Communities. Proponents argue that it helps prevent crime and also increases the police’s ability to solve crime through collaboration with federal immigration enforcement. But a new study from the University of California, Davis, has cast doubt on the ability of Secure Communities to do either. The program, involving cooperation between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local police departments, began under George W. Bush in 2008. President Obama expanded it drastically during his first term but in 2014 discontinued it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/upshot/deportations-crime-study.html
http://ftp.iza.org/dp12413.pdf

Russian Trolls Love Targeting U.S. Veterans | Building on congressional intelligence, a new report offers a broad view on the dirty tricks trolls use to hook American servicemembers. | It was but one of thousands of politically charged social media posts directed at military veterans by foreign actors, according to a new 191-page investigative report released Tuesday by Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). And rather than taper off after the 2016 election, these shady accounts and shareable memes have continued to proliferate. “Known Russian propaganda and similar politically divisive content that targets service members and veterans is being spread by admins from at least 30 foreign countries, with concentrations in Eastern Europe and Vietnam,” VVA chief investigator Kristopher Goldsmith, writes in the report’s executive summary. That report, which builds on inquiries begun by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, also details how an online account claiming to be a wing of ISIS called the “Cyber Caliphate” was, instead, a Russian cutout. Under the guise of Islamist terror, the Russian account sent a string of threatening messages to military wives: “We know everything about you, your husband and your children and we’re much closer than you can even imagine.” Mission accomplished: The messages prompted a cycle of alarmist national news coverage. “Online Threat to Army Wife: ISIS Is Coming For You,” the Fox News Insider headline blazed, incorrectly. Major veteran service organizations spend a great deal of time protecting their members from affinity scams; that was the genesis of VVA’s online-troll tracking project. Goldsmith began by tracking impostor groups on Facebook, including a highly popular fake VVA page that was run not out of Washington but Plovdiv, Bulgaria. “The page was spreading falsified news—changing dates on true stories and sensationalizing and exaggerating otherwise benign reporting—on issues that are closely associated with this specific population,” he writes. In the course of his research, he also discovered that until last month, a 131,000-member Vets for Trump page was run by admins based in Macedonia.
https://newrepublic.com/article/155105/russian-trolls-love-targeting-us-veterans
http://vva.org/trollreport/
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/232286-isis-hacker-targets-military-spouses
https://insider.foxnews.com/2015/02/19/online-threat-army-wife-isis-coming-you
https://www.military.com/spousebuzz/blog/2015/02/isis-threatened-didnt-win.html
https://insider.foxnews.com/2015/02/19/online-threat-army-wife-isis-coming-you
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/17/popular-facebook-page-vets-trump-seemed-be-place-former-military-months-macedonians-controlled-it/

'Deeply disturbing' footage surfaces of blindfolded Uyghurs at train station in Xinjiang
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-23/video-uyghurs-shaved-blindfolded-xinjiang-train-station-china/11537628

The FBI has arrested a U.S. soldier who allegedly discussed plans to bomb a major American news network, planned to travel to Ukraine to fight with violent far-right group Azov Battalion and allegedly distributed information online on how to build bombs. He also allegedly suggested targeting Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke. According to charging documents in the case, Jarrett William Smith, who transferred to Fort Riley, Kansas, in July, joined the U.S. military only after first expressing his desire to fight in Ukraine. On Aug. 19, 2019, Smith allegedly spoke with an FBI informant in an online chat group and discussed a plan for an attack inside the U.S., his search for more "radicals" like himself, and the possibility of killing members of the group Antifa.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-arrests-army-soldier-allegedly-discussed-plans-bomb/story?id=65802902

A newly published paper proves that the 2016 Democratic nomination process was not rigged in favour of Hillary Clinton. It finds that the Democratic Party rules and state election laws hurt Clinton and benefited Sanders. | This article makes three central points. First, it contends that the overwhelming weight of evidence makes clear the 2016 Democratic nomination process was not rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. Second, this article argues that the Democratic Party rules and state election laws actually hurt Clinton and benefited Sanders. Third, the article concludes that the controversy over the Democratic nomination race reflects a broader, bipartisan decline in public confidence in the integrity of American elections.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3443916

Buttigieg knocks Trump's quick exit from UN climate event: 'This is what the end of American global leadership looks like'
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/462618-buttigieg-knocks-trumps-quick-exit-from-un-climate-event-this-is-what-the

Republican National Committee paid over $160,000 to law firm defending Corey Lewandowski a month before his House testimony
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/rnc-paid-160000-to-firm-helping-corey-lewandowski-before-testimony.html

Pence Gave Ukraine the Message Too
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/pence-gave-ukraine-the-message-too
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-president-duda-poland-joint-press-conference-warsaw-poland/

Beekeeper groups sue EPA over pesticide decision
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/23/politics/beekeepers-pesticide-epa/index.html

Federal prosecutors in California are conducting a criminal probe into e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, escalating law-enforcement scrutiny of the startup. The investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office of the Northern District of California is in its early stages, the people said. The focus of the probe couldn’t be learned. Blamed for a rise in vaping among teenagers, the fast-growing company has come under increasing scrutiny by state and federal officials. The Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and several state attorneys general are investigating its marketing practices. The Trump administration said earlier this month that it planned to ban most flavored e-cigarettes.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-prosecutors-conducting-criminal-probe-of-juul-11569268759
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-considering-ban-on-nontobacco-flavored-vaping-products-11568220504

Trump claims Nobel Peace Prize is rigged against him
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/23/trump-nobel-peace-prize-1508484

The memo mocks attempts to "invent" a "new presidential 'tax return privilege.'" Citing fact that every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter voluntarily disclosed them, the Assistant DAs write: "Again, there is no 'immunity from scrutiny' of this sort in the law."
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1176245834515714050

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," climate activist Greta Thunberg tells the UN. "We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you."
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1176159504288886785

Trump officials struggle to justify him pressing Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden while his own children do business around the world
https://www.businessinsider.com/mnuchin-grilled-double-standards-hunter-biden-work-abroad-jared-ivanka-2019-9/?

Three House committees on Monday threatened to subpoena Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to compel him to turn over documents related to contacts between Rudy Giuliani and Ukrainian officials. The move by the Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs committees marks an escalation in their battle with the Trump administration over reports Giuliani sought to pressure Ukraine's leaders to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/462646-democrats-threaten-to-subpoena-pompeo-over-information-related-to

An 88yo veteran in Puerto Rico is living under a blue tarp, 2yrs after Hurricane María, which destroyed his roof. The damage was $1,400. Fema gave him $574.14. @RepMarkTakano asked @FEMA to explain why $574.14 was a "suitable amount to finance a new roof”
https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1176250378238799873
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-maria-puerto-rican-korean-war-veteran-still-struggling-2-years-after-storm-2019-09-21/

A coal-free future is within our grasp. @BloombergDotOrg and our partners are helping to make it a reality by working with climate leaders from around the world.
https://www.mikebloomberg.com/news/mike-bloomberg-delivers-remarks-climate-action-summit-74th-un-general-assembly/

A key Pelosi ally who has been very resistant on impeachment and was mum this weekend endorses impeachment
https://twitter.com/rosadelauro/status/1176284655944970241

Beto O'Rourke: We don't need the transcripts. The president admitted to asking a foreign power to investigate a political opponent. Impeach him.
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1176239964356534273

Beto O'Rourke: You can still be fired, denied a home, barred from adopting a child in America because of who you love. On Bi Visibility Day, we must not only fight to pass The Equality Act, but to ensure equal treatment for every single person in our country.
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1176236947066499072

Netanyahu has 55 seats, Gantz 54. You can hardly call this hung parliament result winning an election. But for anyone still counting, Bibi did eke out a “win” yet again.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Rivlin-concludes-second-round-of-consultations-602586

Subpoenas are meaningless because Democrats refuse to order the arrest of these terrorist scumbags. The Sargeant at Arm's was created for a reason. There are cells in the basement of the Capitol Building for a reason. It's time to treat these clowns like they treat South American children. Republicans whining about persecution always sound better when some of them are locked up. Blankets are optional.

Aleigha Cavalier: Worth noting that a mandatory buyback program, like in Beto O'Rourke’s plan, polls consistently higher than Medicare for All does in this poll.
https://twitter.com/aleighacavalier/status/1176127337584369665
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFJpTnsXsAASAP_.png

Too little too late: Facebook removes pro-Trump ‘I Love America’ page that was run by Ukrainians
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/23/facebook-removes-pro-trump-i-love-america-page-that-was-run-by-ukrainians/

Sept. 23, 2019, 5:29 PM EDT
By Dan De Luce

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the law by failing to promptly resolve visa applications for thousands of Afghans and Iraqis who worked for American troops and diplomats, and ordered the government to fix the delays. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington, D.C., said the government offered no convincing explanation why it has failed to abide by 2013 legislation requiring authorities to deliver a decision on visa applications for Afghans and Iraqis within nine months. Instead, many applicants — who risked their lives working for U.S. troops or other government agencies — have had to wait for several years to get an answer on their visa requests, the court said in the ruling handed down on Friday.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-admin-broke-law-visa-delays-afghans-iraqis-who-worked-n1057846
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/only-2-iraqi-translators-who-worked-u-s-troops-got-n1035661
https://refugeerights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Afghan-Allies-v-Pompeo-Opinion-September-20-2019.pdf
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/pentagon-last-holdout-stephen-miller-tries-slash-number-refugees-allowed-n1056526

 West Palm Beach Marine unit cancels Mar-a-Lago ball after blowback
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20190923/west-palm-beach-marine-unit-cancels-mar-a-lago-ball-after-blowback