News Dump

House Republicans Not Part Of The Three House Committees Investigating Ukraine Illegally Disrupt Closed Classified Impeachment Hearing "In Protest" Even Though Their Own House Republican Colleagues On All Three House Committees Are All Present At All The Hearings And Asking 5+ Hours Worth Of Questions During Each And Every Hearing. | About 30 House Republicans led by Matt Gaetz, attempted to force entry Wednesday into the closed-door hearing where Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense, is scheduled to testify in the impeachment inquiry into Trump and Ukraine. The group alleges that they are being shut out of the impeachment process, but there are Republicans on the three panels conducting the investigation — the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees — that are present and able to ask questions at every hearing. The Republicans walked into the hearing room with their electronics, which is prohibited in the space, known as a SCIF -- a sensitive compartmented information facility -- because it's a secure room used for discussing and handling classified information.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/politics/trump-impeachment.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/republicans-disrupt-closed-door-impeachment-deposition/2019/10/23/c201f924-f5ab-11e9-b2d2-1f37c9d82dbb_story.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/laura-cooper-pentagon-official-overseeing-ukraine-testifies-impeachment-inquiry-n1070586

Second source confirms for me that some Republicans brought cell phones into the classified space. Unclear how this will be handled but this sort of thing just doesn't happen.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1187019468926541825

It is very illegal to bring a phone into the SCIF, and they tweeted from their phones "I'm in the SCIF!" https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1187028992295161858

Intel Dem @RepMikeQuigley said it would be up to leadership to consider whether to file ethics complaints against R’s who “pushed their way in” to scif — says they took photos/filmed in the House’s secure classified spaces. “They have no respect for” the process.
https://twitter.com/Olivia_Beavers/status/1187026620751794180

Federal Lawsuit Alleges ICE Agent Raped, Impregnated a Honduran Immigrant Multiple Times While Threatening Her Family With Deportation
https://time.com/5708187/federal-lawsuit-ice-agent-rape-threat-immigrant/

Trump cancels sanctions on Turkey, a country that illegally invaded Syria and murdered hundreds of Kurds
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/23/trump-lifts-sanctions-against-turkey-000294

I also love how they say they don't want us fighting wars that aren't ours but are subsequently sending more troops to Saudi Arabia. Perplexing, really.

Local Lawmaker in Tennessee Says He's Not Prejudiced, but 'a White Male in this Country has Very Few Rights'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/10/22/local-lawmaker-says-hes-not-prejudiced-white-male-this-country-has-very-few-rights/

Hong Kong officially kills China extradition bill that sparked months of violent protests
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/hong-kong-extradition-bill-china-protests-carrie-lam-beijing-xi-jinping-a9167226.html

Beto O'Rourke is advocating for the disabled community. That's partly because of his sister Erin. |  In between the campaign events, town halls, television hits, and flights across America aimed at winning the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, there’s one person that Beto O’Rourke always makes time to catch up with: his 39-year-old sister, Erin, who was born with intellectual disabilities. The former Texas congressman, who once served as his younger sister’s legal guardian, hops on the phone with Erin at the end of many of her workdays at a residential facility for adults and children three hours from El Paso, N.M., where she lives and works. Erin watched the Democratic debate last Tuesday in which her big brother became the first 2020 contender to discuss people with disabilities on the big stage. | O’Rourke was the first candidate to specifically mention those with disabilites on the Democratic debate stage last week by recounting the story of meeting a woman named Gina who works four jobs and is raising a disabled child named Summer. The former Texas congressman has vowed that people with disabilities will serve in leadership positions in his campaign — and in a potential O’Rourke administration — to mirror the fact that one in four Americans live with a disability. | Sixty-one million adults live in the United States with a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and one in three disabled adults over the past year have experienced an unmet health-care need because of exorbitant costs associated with their condition. | Critics of the Trump administration say it has uniformly worked to roll back spending and programs for the disabled community. Rebecca Cokley, the director of the liberal Center For American Progress’s disability justice initiative, pointed to such things as the Education Department rescinding 72 guidance documents outlining the rights of students with disabilities to the administration’s allowing states to implement eligibility requirements for Medicaid recipients. Trump’s desire to dismantle the Affordable Care Act has sparked a particular urgency amongst disability-rights activists in Washington. | O’Rourke’s family didn’t realize it faced an 18 to 20-year wait list to receive state-supported disability services for Erin until she had graduated from high school in Texas. The former congressman says he began to understand the complex and costly maze of public programs for someone like Erin, who requires constant supervision, after his little sister moved in with him following her graduation. It was when Erin lived with him that O’Rourke learned that providing her with some sort of independence was invaluable. “Erin learned how to take the bus from my home to work which was a real break through and milestone —she established some level of independence and it changed her in a really positive way,” said O’Rourke. “To see her develop friendships and relationships with people at work, independent of her family for one of the first times in her life, was really powerful.” “Making sure she received the help and care she needed really made an impact on me — as does meeting so many of these families with physical and intellectual disabilities who are working so hard to make sure their family members should live life to their full potential,” O’Rourke added.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/there-is-no-greater-advocate-i-have-in-my-life-than-my-sister-says-beto-orourke/2019/10/23/2798b790-f4fe-11e9-8cf0-4cc99f74d127_story.html
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1184305812535234560?s=20
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0816-disability.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/10/21/devos-rescinds-72-guidance-documents-outlining-rights-for-disabled-students/?tid=lk_inline_manual_21

I've been following Beto's statements on people with disabilities throughout this campaign. His knowledge about the issue and passion for the cause is plainly evident. I didn't know any of the details of his relationship with his sister. That he was her guardian at one point is news to me. That speaks volumes about Beto. He's humble. He doesn't talk about himself. By listening to people he's come up with some extraordinary policies. I can't wait to see his broader proposal on people with disabilities. I can't believe we ignore an issue that affects one in four Americans. That's crazy.

Iraq says US troops leaving Syria can't redeploy there and have to leave in 4 weeks, a fresh embarrassment in Trump's botched withdrawal
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-troops-syria-can-stay-iraq-4-weeks-trump-embarrassed-2019-10

Iraq’s defense minister has said after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper that American forces withdrawing from Syria to Iraq will leave the country within four weeks.
https://www.apnews.com/61c246d0a387450e9f3ba1b2a58d64ec

Trump administration sought billions of dollars in cuts to programs aimed at fighting corruption in Ukraine and abroad |  Trump administration sought billions of dollars in cuts to programs aimed at fighting corruption in Ukraine and abroad, undercutting White House insistence that this was Trump's singular focus in Zelensky phonecall.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/10/23/trump-administration-sought-billions-dollars-cuts-programs-aimed-fighting-corruption-ukraine-abroad/

There goes Trump’s claim that this was not about Biden/2016 Election but it was actually about ‘fighting corruption.’

Tump’s appearance next week at a police chiefs conference will be his first visit as president to Chicago, a city he has ridiculed for years. The city’s top cop plans to skip the speech, even though he’s hosting the event. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson’s apparent snub of Trump’s speech Monday at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference is the latest chapter in a long and contentious relationship between the Republican president and the nation’s third-largest city, a Democratic stronghold. “The values of the people of Chicago are more important to him than anything that could be discussed at that speech,” Johnson’s spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, said shortly after the White House announced Trump’s planned address at the conference.
https://time.com/5708113/trump-chicago-police-chief-conference-eddie-johnson/

Trump v. Vance Oral Argument (Audio Only) A federal appeals court heard oral argument in Trump v. Vance, a case concerning a New York City subpoena for certain financial records including tax returns of President Trump.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?465172-1/circuit-hears-oral-argument-president-trumps-tax-returns-audio-only

Examining the Oil Industry’s Efforts to Suppress the Truth about Climate Change
https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/examining-the-oil-industry-s-efforts-to-suppress-the-truth-about-climate-change

William Taylor, ‘Model’ Diplomat, Is at Center of Impeachment Inquiry — William B. Taylor Jr., a former Army officer and State Department official who testified Tuesday, has served under both Democratic and Republican presidents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/us/politics/william-b-taylor-diplomat.html

Trump says he’s bring US troops home from 'endless wars,' but he order 14,000+ troops to the Middle East so far
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-not-ending-endless-wars-increasing-us-forces-middle-east-2019-10

Trump Openly Talking About Canning Mick Mulvaney
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/donald-trump-mick-mulvaney-firing

Trump admin gave over $10 million in aid to students at unaccredited for-profit colleges
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/467044-trump-admin-gave-over-10-million-in-aid-to-students-at-unaccredited

YEP: This Election Brought Out Canada’s Worst | Almost alone among the advanced democracies, the country has been bypassed by reactionary populism. | Justin Trudeau didn’t lose the Canadian federal election outright, but he had about as bad an outcome as possible short of that. His Liberal Party lost 27 seats in the House of Commons. More ominously, his share of the popular vote dropped 6.5 points, from 39.5 percent in the 2015 election to 33 percent in this year’s. Canada’s Conservatives, who came second in the seat count, won the largest share of the popular vote, 34.4 percent. Trudeau’s party suffered these losses despite a generally favorable economy in Ontario and Quebec, the heartland of the Liberal Party. This formerly bright, shining face of hope and change was weighted down by ethics scandals and an embarrassing sequence of personal missteps. Those missteps are famous around the world: Trudeau was captured on camera wearing blackface multiple times before his entry into politics. The scandals are not often remarked upon outside Canada, but they matter inside. Trudeau violated conflicts-of-interest rules to accept an expensive vacation and intervened in a criminal case to protect a business corporation with close ties to his party.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/election-brought-out-canadas-worst-tendencies/600511/

NordVPN confirms it was hacked
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/nordvpn-confirms-it-was-hacked/

Maryland AG sues Kushner apartment company, alleging thousands of violations while renting rodent-infested units
https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-frosh-kushner-20191023-ybijil3yzrdcfefmh3xiygv3wq-story.html

Hong Kongers have raised more than ¥13.8 million to help people in Japan recover from a powerful typhoon that tore through the country earlier this month. “Despite what’s happening in their own country right now, many Hong Kongers want to help Japanese people who are struggling”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/10/21/national/hong-kongers-raise-money-japanese-typhoon-victims/#.XbAbcFOxgwB

Shaq's very correct take on the China Situation
https://streamable.com/rhr0m

Kawhi stops, turns and hits the midrange over LeBron James
https://streamable.com/9bjqd

Clippers' bench tonight: 60 points, 23/40 FG (57.5% FG), 7/14 3PT (50.0%)

Kawhi blocks Dwight's dunk and Ballmer is losing his mind
https://streamable.com/i35hk

KCP tonight: 0 points - 5 fouls - 27 minutes LOL

Lebron 7/19 with 5 turnovers and -6 LOL

Gerrit Cole had his first loss since May 22

The Raptors presented superfan Nav Bhatia with a championship ring.
https://twitter.com/_Andrew_Lopez/status/1186815025270394880

House passes bill that would make animal cruelty a federal felony
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/467109-house-passes-bill-that-would-make-animal-cruelty-a-federal-felony

They waited until @TeamPelosi was at her brother’s funeral to pull this stunt. Real tough guys.

Just how dishonest was Gaetz's stunt?: Among the Republicans who joined the protest, 12 of them are members of the Oversight or Foreign Affairs committees... *meaning they have been allowed to sit in on all depositions held in the SCIF.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/addybaird/republicans-storm-scif-impeach-trump-pizza-phones

Rep. Bennie Thompson, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has sent a letter to the House Sergeant at Arms regarding the security breach at a House SCIF: "I am requesting you take action with respect to the Members involved in the breach."
https://homeland.house.gov/imo/media/doc/IrvingSCIF.pdf

NYC Bar Association: If AG Barr Doesn’t Recuse Himself From Ukraine Matter, He Should Resign or Be Removed
https://www.nycbar.org/media-listing/media/detail/attorney-general-barr-should-recuse-himself-from-department-of-justice-review-of-ukraine-matter

The Trump Administration Says It Has Violated Its Own Ethics Pledge - We found multiple Trump ethics pledge violations hidden in a little-noticed government report. They show inappropriate actions by government employees, lobbyists and former business clients.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-trump-administration-says-it-has-violated-its-own-ethics-pledge

A protégé of Republican Rep. Devin Nunes was among those passing negative information about Ukraine to Donald Trump earlier this year, fueling the president’s belief that Ukraine was brimming with corruption and interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Democrats. Kashyap Patel, a longtime Nunes staffer who joined the White House in February, was so involved in the issue that at one point Trump thought he was in charge of Ukraine policy for the National Security Council, according to congressional testimony by Fiona Hill, the former senior director for European and Russian Affairs whose portfolio included Ukr
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/23/nunes-protege-ukraine-trump-055837

Photo of GOP member Alex Mooney (WVA) recording inside restricted SCIF area. He was face timing someone and then was like "I'm in!" and turned it around to show them.  He's not going to be able to claim it was someone else carrying the phone when the video comes out, because it will have his face in it at least once.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/10/23/us/politics/23dc-impeachbriefing3/merlin_163177593_eed6d4bc-d650-4304-aa40-c3553721cc36-jumbo.jpg
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/politics/trump-impeachment-news.html

Byrne was yelling in Schiff’s face. Rep. Val Demings shouted back at both Byrne and Louie Gohmert, who were yelling about the process. "It was closest thing I've seen around here to mass civil unrest as a member of Congress," source tells me
https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1187040189937528833

All should be censured. Those who refused to turn over their devices, and especially those who videotaped inside the SCIF, should be expelled. This is simply traitorous.
https://twitter.com/NormOrnstein/status/1187083173689249792

Trump Backed GOP Plan to Illegally Enter Impeachment Inquiry
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-23/poll-finds-highest-support-for-inquiry-yet-impeachment-update

Senate Republicans Block Three Election Security Bills For Second Day
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/467130-senate-gop-blocks-three-election-security-bills-for-second-day

Pro-Trump super PAC concealed donation made by two Ukraine-linked associates of Rudy Giuliani, FEC complaint says
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/10/23/fec-complaint-says-pro-trump-super-pac-broke-campaign-finance-law/4046892002/

A judge has directed the State Department to begin producing within 30 days documents related to the Trump administration's dealings with Ukraine. The records are sought under a Freedom of Information Act request by American Oversight, an ethics watchdog that investigates the Trump administration.
http://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/judge-orders-state-dept-to-begin-producing-ukraine-records

Trump perpetually accuses the Obama administration of waging a "war" on American energy, then boasts that the US became the top energy producer in the world under Trump. The US took the #1 spot in Obama's first term, then kept increasing production.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1187100416632414209
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EHltdLQXUAAd1e0.jpg

The @nytimes has a bias against @HillaryClinton. Period.
https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1187100291306532864

We’ve corrected this article and deleted an earlier tweet that incorrectly described Hillary Clinton’s recent comments from a podcast interview.
https://twitter.com/nytpolitics/status/1187097278001111041

Trump complains that it took just "nine months" to build the Empire State Building but you can't do that anymore. Construction took 13 months. This is the 5th time he's made a false claim about the construction of the Empire State Building.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1187099990847565826

Trump's vague talk of some sort of coal resurgence is not borne out by any kind of data. (Fox News headline last month: "Coal industry continues sharp decline despite Trump's promised revival.") Here's the jobs chart.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1187098990753583104

Trump tells a sir story about how "almost all" of the people attending his event on a Waters of the US executive order were crying. He has previously said "half of them" were crying. There is video. None of them were crying.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1187098659592265728

FWIW, around 48 of the House’s 197 Republicans have access to the impeachment proceedings by virtue of being on the three committees leading the inquiry.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1187095890147921921

The @RaysBaseball manager was chosen by his fellow AL skippers as the 2019 Sporting News AL Manager of the Year.
https://twitter.com/sn_mlb/status/1187068759321784320

Pro-Trump super PAC concealed donation made by two Ukraine-linked associates of Rudy Giuliani, FEC complaint says
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/10/23/fec-complaint-says-pro-trump-super-pac-broke-campaign-finance-law/4046892002/

Contradicting Trump, Ukraine Knew of Aid Freeze Before It Became Public
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/politics/ukraine-aid-freeze-impeachment.html

White House Aides Feared That Trump Had Another Ukraine Back Channel | Senior national security officials grew concerned about Kash Patel, a colleague who had been involved in Republicans’ efforts to undermine the Russia investigation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/politics/kash-patel-ukraine.html

Clinton shot her down brutally. Gabbard can’t run independent now, all the fire is taken out if it, everybody will be talking about how Clinton called it, Gabbard’s numerous ‘odd’ standpoints, and her affinity with right wing/Russian media outlets.

Hillary and Bill Clinton plan to attend Elijah Cummings’ funeral in Baltimore on Friday morning - https://twitter.com/NBCPolitics/status/1187117209446944768

Richard Branson turned down $1B of Saudi funding over Jamal Khashoggi's murder
https://pagesix.com/2019/10/23/richard-branson-turned-down-1b-of-saudi-funding-over-jamal-khashoggis-murder/

After a 2013 factory collapse killed more than 1,100 people in Bangladesh, most of the biggest U.S. apparel retailers joined safety-monitoring groups that required them to stop selling clothing from factories that violated certain safety standards.  Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.20% didn’t join. According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, the site today offers a steady stream of clothing from dozens of Bangladeshi factories that most leading retailers have said are too dangerous to allow into their supply chains.  | The Journal found other apparel on Amazon made in Bangladeshi factories whose owners have refused to fix safety problems identified by two safety-monitoring groups, such as crumbling buildings, broken alarms, and missing sprinklers and fire barriers. U.S. retailers such as Walmart Inc., Target Corp. , Costco Wholesale Corp. and Gap Inc. have agreed to honor bans imposed by those two groups, to have their supply chains inspected and to disclose to the groups the factories that supply them. | The Journal found clothing including pants, sweaters, clerical robes, fishnet body stockings and other items, that originate from blacklisted factories and end up on Amazon. Amazon has become a major player in apparel, a force with which other retailers must compete in a market where customers often seek the lowest price. It may have overtaken Walmart last year as America’s No. 1 clothing seller. Amazon dominates the rapidly growing online-retail market. Here, as throughout Amazon’s business, the giant retailer runs its platform without many of the constraints that big U.S. companies apply to their products and stores, sometimes in ways that can put customers and workers in danger. That is particularly true for Amazon’s third-party marketplace, made up of millions of individual sellers. Many are anonymous and aren’t subject to some of the oversight Amazon applies to its own brands and to items it sells directly. The Journal in August revealed that thousands of products listed on Amazon are deemed unsafe by federal agencies, are deceptively labeled or are banned by regulators—items that many retailers’ policies bar. They included items such as unsafe children’s toys and recalled motorcycle helmets. Amazon took down some of those listings after the Journal’s reporting. Several members of Congress called on Amazon to better police its site. | The spokesman said Amazon doesn’t inspect factories making clothing that it buys from wholesalers or that comes from third-party sellers. Instead, it expects those wholesalers and sellers to adhere to the same safety standards. Amazon’s agreement with third-party sellers doesn’t explicitly say they must meet those standards.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-sells-clothes-from-factories-other-retailers-shun-as-dangerous-11571845003
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323971204578625543921503094
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bangladesh-fire-points-to-safety-shortfalls-despite-progress-in-garment-industry-11550855341
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-amazon-needs-others-to-keep-selling-11555002984
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-has-ceded-control-of-its-site-the-result-thousands-of-banned-unsafe-or-mislabeled-products-11566564990
https://www.wsj.com/articles/democratic-senators-want-answers-about-listings-for-unsafe-merchandise-on-amazon-com-11567101615

More than 80 percent of all economic espionage charges brought by federal prosecutors since 2012 implicated China, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, which last November launched the “China Initiative” to combat the threats posed by Chinese espionage and other forms of Chinese infiltration into U.S. society. | Since January 2018, more than 30 China-related espionage cases, including those involving Chinese intelligence officers, former U.S. intelligence officials, Chinese nationals, and naturalized U.S. citizens from China, have made the headlines. Meanwhile, the FBI has more than 1,000 active investigations into intellectual property (IP) theft, “almost all leading back to China,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told U.S. senators at a congressional hearing in July.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-authorities-close-in-on-chinese-espionage_3125374.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-us-justice-department-initiative-to-tackle-chinas-misconduct-goes-beyond-espionage_2706973.html

Major League Baseball investigating umpire Rob Drake's tweet calling for civil war if Trump is impeached
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2019/10/23/rob-drake-mlb-umpire-trump/4078389002/

Bernie voted against CHIP
https://i.redd.it/0wkf47zbpbu31.png

Major league umpire Rob Drake tweeted “I will be buying an AR-15 tomorrow, because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020”, according to a copy of the tweet obtained by ESPN. MLB says it is aware of it.Serious
https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1187132247217856512?s=09

The warming climate is making baby sea turtles almost all girls
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/the-warming-climate-is-turning-baby-sea-turtles-one-gender/2019/10/21/d571f3fe-e3a6-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html