Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Light News Dump

Fourth defendant in Giuliani associates’ case arrested at New York airport | David Correia, the fourth defendant in a campaign finance case involving business associates of Giuliani, was arrested Wednesday morning at a New York City airport, officials said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fourth-defendant-in-giuliani-associates-case-arrested-at-new-york-airport/2019/10/16/2c3ea19e-f024-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html

Turkey ‘effectively holding 50 US nuclear bombs hostage’ at air base amid Syria invasion
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-syria-us-nuclear-weapons-bombs-trump-war-isis-kurds-a9158416.html

Judge grants mega-rich Sackler family reprieve from legal costs of opioid crisis
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/judge-grants-mega-rich-sackler-family-reprieve-from-legal-costs-of-opioid-crisis/

Trump illegally vetoes measure to end his court-nullified emergency declaration on border wall
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-congress-emergency/trump-vetoes-measure-to-end-his-emergency-declaration-on-border-wall-idUSKBN1WV06P

China Threatens To Retaliate if U.S. Passes Hong Kong Bill
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-16/china-threatens-retaliation-if-u-s-passes-hong-kong-bill

David Hogg Text VOTE To 954-954 On Twitter : "Thank you for Talking about The #PeacePlan @BetoORourke ✊ Thank you for doing more Than anyone else On The debate stage and endorsing Our comhttps://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1184283701770883072prehensive plan To cut gun violence by 50% Over 10 years " (twitter.com)

Harry Dunn: Trump 'ambushes' parents of British teenager by revealing woman involved in crash that killed their son is waiting in next room at White House - 'It was quite an extraordinary meeting. I quite forcefully said no, that’s not happening Mr President'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-meeting-parents-british-teenager-harry-dunn-anne-sacoolas-a9157926.html

US House approves Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, with Senate vote next
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/3033108/us-house-approves-hong-kong-human-rights-and-democracy-act-senate

On the day Giuliani refused to cooperate with congress, Lindsey Graham said that is an impeachable offense: Lindsey Graham has reiterated his view that not complying with congressional subpoenas is an impeachable offense. His statement comes after a series of President Donald Trump's advisers and administration officials said they would not cooperate with House impeachment hearing procedures.
https://www.newsweek.com/lindsey-graham-trump-impeachment-subpoenas-giuliani-1465561

Trump picks Colorado Springs author of Illuminati books for education board | George Mentz is also an online professor, Newsmax writer and Trump donor
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/16/george-mentz-trump-presidential-scholars/

ICE Moved 700 Women Out Of A Detention Center And Won’t Tell Lawyers Where They Are
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ice-moved-700-women-out-of-a-detention-center-and-wont-tell-lawyers-where-they-are_n_5d9cdd55e4b087efdba3fe71?ri18n=true

Trump's businesses gave different financial figures to lenders and tax authorities as recently as 2017
https://theweek.com/speedreads/872140/trumps-businesses-reportedly-gave-different-financial-figures-lenders-tax-authorities-recently-2017

Cuomo signs measure allowing New York to press charges despite presidential pardon
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/466069-cuomo-signs-measure-allowing-new-york-to-press-charges-despite

The Los Angeles Angels have agreed to terms with manager Joe Maddon.
https://twitter.com/Angels/status/1184492367560228871?s=19

Jury awards $450,000 in Sandy Hook defamation case
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jury-awards-450000-in-sandy-hook-defamation-case-2019-10-16

U.S.'s biggest Christian charity channeled $56.1 million to hate groups
https://www.newsweek.com/biggest-christian-charity-funding-hate-groups-1370055

Morey was getting 2 notifications per second following his tweet, researchers believe the response was orchestrated by Chinese State.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-one-tweet-turned-pro-china-trolls-against-the-nba-11571238943

129 Republicans rebuke Trump as House votes to condemn president's Syria troop withdrawal
https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-rebuke-trump-vote-overturn-1465762?

Trump has meltdown during Syria meeting and has no plan to deal with Isis
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-nancy-pelosi-syria-meeting-isis-turkey-impeachment-a9159171.html

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s refusal to answer repeated questions at last night’s debate about how she would fund Medicare for All underscores the challenge she faces finding a politically acceptable means to meet the idea’s huge price tag—a challenge that only intensified today with the release of an eye-popping new study. The Urban Institute, a center-left think tank highly respected among Democrats, is projecting that a plan similar to what Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders are pushing would require $34 trillion in additional federal spending over its first decade in operation. That’s more than the federal government’s total cost over the coming decade for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid combined, according to the most recent Congressional Budget Office projections. In recent history, only during the height of World War II has the federal government tried to increase taxes, as a share of the economy, as fast as would be required to offset the cost of a single-payer plan, federal figures show. There are “no analogous peacetime tax increases,” says Leonard Burman, a public-administration professor at Syracuse University and a former top tax official in both the Bill Clinton administration and at the CBO. Raising that much more tax revenue “is plausible in the sense that it is theoretically possible,” Burman told me. “But the revolution that would come along with it would get in the way.” At the debate, as throughout the campaign, Warren refused to provide any specifics about how she would fund a single-payer plan. Instead, whether questioned by moderators or challenged by other candidates, she recycled variants on the same talking points she has used in venues from campaign town halls to a recent appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Rather than explaining what revenue she would raise to fund the plan, Warren insisted that under single payer, middle-income families would save more money with the elimination of health-care premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, regardless of any taxes imposed. “Costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations, and for hard-working middle-class families, costs will go down,” she said at the debate. That calculation itself is disputed. And it begs the question: Even if families would eventually save under a single-payer system, a President Warren would still need to identify a politically plausible funding plan to pass such a program through Congress. By all indications, that looms as an extremely daunting project. | Taxes that can fill that big of a hole are not easy to identify. Even by Warren’s own estimates, which some liberal economists consider too optimistic, her proposed wealth tax on personal fortunes exceeding $50 million would raise just $2.75 trillion over the next decade. That’s less than what would be required to fund a single-payer plan for one year. In any case, Warren has already targeted that revenue for other proposals she’s issued, such as providing universal preschool and child care, and canceling most college debt while funding tuition-free public higher education. Repealing the tax cuts for businesses and individuals that President Donald Trump and the GOP Congress passed in late 2017 would similarly raise about $2 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade. | Whatever alternative Warren or Sanders select, a single-payer plan would require increasing federal revenue at a rate not seen in 70-odd years, both Burman and Holtz-Eakin told me. Measured as a share of the economy, total federal receipts tripled during World War II, rising from almost 7 percent to nearly 21 percent of the gross domestic product from 1940 to 1945, according to federal figures. Since then, federal revenue, compared with the broader economy, has generally oscillated within a fairly narrow range. The most it’s increased in a single decade is about 10 percent, during the 1950s, 1960s, 1990s, and in the past decade. (Revenue has increased despite the massive Trump tax cuts because the Great Recession vastly reduced federal revenues and created an unusually low starting point.) Though federal revenue today still starts at a low level by historic standards (16.6 percent), providing more potential flexibility to raise taxes, the cost of a single-payer plan would swamp any such advantage. By 2029, with the added cost of single payer factored in, federal revenue would increase to close to 30 percent of the total economy. That would mean federal revenue would increase as a share of the economy by about three-fourths over a decade, far more rapidly than in any other 10-year period since World War II. It would also mean that federal revenue would considerably exceed the share of the economy it consumed even during World War II, when it reached 20.5 percent in 1944, a level unmatched since.
https://www.urban.org/research/publication/incremental-comprehensive-health-reform-how-various-reform-options-compare-coverage-and-costs
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-05/55151-budget_update_0.pdf
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/historical-tables/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/10/elizabeth-warrens-risky-dodge-health-care-and-taxes/600073/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yiga2dDysQ
http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/saez-zucman-wealthtax-warren.pdf
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/whats-elizabeth-warrens-wealth-tax-worth/
https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-plan-for-universal-child-care-762535e6c20a
https://medium.com/@teamwarren/im-calling-for-something-truly-transformational-universal-free-public-college-and-cancellation-of-a246cd0f910f

Trump told Erdogan that Barr and Mnuchin would handle his pleas to avoid charges against Halkbank over sanctions evasion. Barr pushed them to settle for a fine. but the months-long effort ended with criminal charges Tuesday.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-16/trump-erdogan-call-led-to-lengthy-push-to-avoid-halkbank-trial

Trump then interjected and called Mattis the “world’s most overrated general” and remarked that he wasn’t “tough enough” and that Trump himself “captured” the Islamic State, according to the three officials. He boasted that his timeline for capturing the Islamic State was much faster than what Mattis predicted, saying “I captured them in one month.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-tries-to-distance-us-from-chaos-in-syria-says-kurdish-allies-are-no-angels/2019/10/16/7b6c5ac8-f037-11e9-b2da-606ba1ef30e3_story.html

“The world’s most overrated general. You know why? He wasn’t tough enough. I captured ISIS. Mattis said it would take 2 yrs. I captured them in 1 month.”
https://twitter.com/ElizLanders/status/1184577874612936704

It took the US/Europe/NATO/Arab alliance nearly 7 years to capture thousands of ISIS. It took Trump a phonecall to greenlight Turkey releasing them all.

Trump himself "captured" the ISIS even as in the same breath he said Turkey bombing Syrian prisons allowed the ISIS to return to Europe

I have made the truly agonising decision to leave the Labour Party after 55 years. I can no longer advocate voting Labour when it risks Corbyn becoming PM. I will continue to serve the people of Liverpool Riverside as I have had the honour to do since 1997.
https://twitter.com/LouiseEllman/status/1184575029276745730

ABC News: PELOSI on Trump: "I think now we have to pray for his health. Because this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president."
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1184578026547400707

YEP, regarding the serious antisemitism of Bernie Sanders and his campaign people and surrogates/delegates and voting base: INBOX: DMFI Statement on some of Senator Sanders's Surrogates and Endorsers
https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1184576658034122752

Romney on Pres Trump calling Pelosi a “third-rate politician”: “I think she has been a pretty effective politician over the years, and pretty skilled, capable person. So I respect her, I don’t always agree with her, but I respect her.”
https://twitter.com/frankthorp/status/1184586445941547017

Sen. Chris Murphy said that a bill sanctioning Turkey over the attacks in northern Syria should include an amendment requiring all presidential candidates, including Trump, to disclose their tax returns.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/senate-democrat-turkey-sanctions-bill-require-tax-returns_n_5da650e9e4b02253a2f9ff5d

Also worth pointing out that while Warren has obviously been saying the “I’m with Bernie” line on M4A, she’s also indicated wiggle room on the details. For example, saying M4A is a “framework” but lacking details in NH last month.
https://twitter.com/mj_lee/status/1184582769005023234

NEW: McKinley today: “Since I began my career in 1982, I have served my country and every President loyally. Under current circumstances, however, I could no longer look the other way as colleagues are denied the professional support and respect they deserve from us all.”
https://twitter.com/nwadhams/status/1184579892605796352

“I was disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents. I was convinced that this would also have a serious impact on foreign service morale and the integrity of our work overseas.”
https://twitter.com/nwadhams/status/1184579895013380098

Cites “failure of the State Department to offer support to Foreign Service employees caught up in the Impeachment Inquiry on Ukraine; and, second, by what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives.”
https://twitter.com/nwadhams/status/1184579896439382016

Schumer said Pres Trump doesn't have a plan to contain ISIS. Credits @EsperDoD for being honest and admitting to having no evidence that Syrians and Turks will keep ISIS fighters imprisoned. Calls it "appalling."
https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/1184582422580604930

Briefings for Congress on Syria are canceled to prevent Congress from learning about “the dangerous situation” caused by rump’s withdrawal of troops in the region.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/latest-trumps-syria-move-drawing-gop-criticism-66321768
https://apnews.com/9624410de15c4f35b9b68731c7898ba3

Amid impeachment probe, Gordon Sondland is overseeing a renovation of his residence that has cost $1 million in taxpayer money
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/amid-impeachment-probe-gordon-sondland-is-overseeing-a-renovation-of-his-residence-that-has-cost-1-million-in-taxpayer-money/2019/10/16/d0eece92-ef86-11e9-bb7e-d2026ee0c199_story.html

I am deeply concerned that the White House has canceled an all-Member classified briefing on the dangerous situation the President has caused in Syria, denying the Congress its right to be informed as it makes decisions about our national security.
https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1184546092525993986

Senate to try to override Trump emergency declaration veto Thursday
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/466201-senate-to-try-to-override-trump-emergency-declaration-veto-thursday

Beto O’Rourke on pushback against his mandatory buyback of assault-style weapons: "If we just throw up our hands and say this is going to be tough to do or some people aren't going to follow the law, then we ... become complicit in the deaths of our fellow Americans"
https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1184439112578883584?s=20

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