Author: Stop the Donald Trump

The US Department of Justice is Literally Prosecuting a Woman for Laughing at Jeff Sessions

It is hard to believe this is happening, but it’s real: The US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing at now–Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year.

According to Ryan Reilly at HuffPost, Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz was arrested in January after she laughed at a claim from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) that Sessions’s history of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.”

Sessions, in fact, has a long history of opposing the equal treatment of all Americans under the law. He has repeatedly criticized the historic Voting Rights Act. He voted against hate crime legislation that protected LGBTQ people, arguing, “Today, I’m not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination. I just don’t see it.” And his nomination for a position as a federal judge was rejected in the 1980s after he was accused of making racist remarks, including a supposed joke that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was okay until I found out they smoked pot.”

Given this history, Fairooz laughed at Shelby’s claim.

But federal prosecutors have pushed forward with the case against Fairooz. As Reilly reported, prosecutors argue that “the laugh amounted to willful ‘disorderly and disruptive conduct’ intended to ‘impede, disrupt, and disturb the orderly conduct’ of congressional proceedings.” In court, they have tried to emphasize that the laugh was extraordinarily disruptive, with a US Capitol Police officer claiming that Fairooz laughed “very loudly” and people in the hearings turned around when they heard it.

Fairooz’s defense, meanwhile, has argued that her laughter was a reflex and not meant to disrupt the hearings. Fairooz was also in the back of the room, and her laughter had no noticeable impact, based on video of the hearings, on Shelby’s introductory speech for Sessions.

The trial will continue at the Superior Court in DC this week. If convicted, Fairooz faces a fine up to $500 and up to six months’ imprisonment for the laugh-related charge. She is also charged with another misdemeanor for “allegedly parading, demonstrating or picketing within a Capitol, evidently for her actions after she was being escorted from the room,” Reilly reported.

Fairooz has a history of disruptive protests. During protests over the Iraq War, she put fake blood on her hands and confronted then–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

This time, however, Fairooz claims she was not trying to be disruptive — but merely laughing.

These details are all salient for the legal case, but it’s important not to lose sight of the big picture here: The federal government is literally prosecuting someone for laughing. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Justice Department — which Sessions now leads as attorney general — is doing the prosecuting when the laughter was directed at its leader. At the very least, it’s not a good look for the top law enforcement agency in the country.

(h/t Vox)

Trump Throws a Fit After ‘Fake News Station’ CNN Refuses to Air His 100-Day Campaign Ad

President Donald Trump’s campaign apparatus on Tuesday lashed out at CNN for allegedly refusing to air a commercial touting accomplishments made in the president’s first 100 days.

The 30-second ad, which began airing on Monday, praises Trump for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and for proposing the “biggest tax cut plan in history.” It also blasts the media, flashing the words “FAKE NEWS” over the faces of anchors, reporters and broadcasters.

A memo from the Trump-Pence campaign announced on Tuesday that CNN had refused to air the commercial.

“FAKE NEWS STATION REFUSES TO RUN AD HIGHLIGHTING THE PRESIDENT’S FIRST 100 DAYS,” the document’s headline shouted.

“It’s absolutely shameful to see the media blocking the positive message that President Trump is trying to share with the country,” an anonymous quote in the memo complained. “It’s clear that CNN is trying to silence our voice and censor our free speech because it doesn’t fit their narrative.”

There was no immediate confirmation from CNN to back up Trump’s claim, but a CNN fact check of the ad noted that “the bulk of Trump’s accomplishments have been made through executive action or memorandum, something Republicans decried former President Barack Obama for doing during his second term.”

“Americans also are far from convinced that Trump’s first 100 days have been a success,” CNN said. “A CNN/ORC poll found that the President reached the milestone with the lowest approval rating of any newly-elected president at this stage amid sharp partisan divides and a failure to capitalize on post-election strengths.”

Update: According to Politico’s Hadas Gold, CNN is refusing to air the spot until the Trump campaign removes the words “fake news” from the faces of network anchors.

“CNN requested that the advertiser remove the false graphic that the mainstream media is ‘fake news’,” a statement from the network said. “The mainstream media is not fake news, and therefore the ad is false and per policy will be accepted only if that graphic is deleted.”

(h/t Raw Story)

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Trump: The US Government Needs a Good ‘Shutdown’ If Senate Rules Don’t Change

President Donald Trump on Tuesday appeared to call for a government shutdown later this year in response to a bipartisan spending deal that looks set to pass Congress this week.

In tweets, the president contended that the agreement — which funds the government through Sept. 30 — shows that Republicans must get more senators elected or change the Senate’s rules so they can push spending through with only a majority vote, rather than 60. He then wrote that the country “needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September” to fix a “mess.”

The tweets came after Congress reached a compromise to keep the government open that they appear set to pass with Trump’s signature this week. The deal did not include funding for a wall on the Southern border, which Trump initially called for, and includes less money for border security and defense than Trump sought, according to NBC News.

Republicans need Democratic votes to pass the spending bill even though they control both chambers of Congress.

Trump later Tuesday cast the “hotly-contested” budget as a win for the White House, highlighting a military funding increase without a corresponding rise in non-defense spending and a boost in funding for border security.

Just last week, Trump blamed Democrats for what he called a desire to shut down the government, a charge that Democratic leaders denied. He called the possibility of national parks getting closed “terrible.”

Since he took office in January, Trump has faced hurdles in pushing his broad agenda, most notably replacing the Affordable Care Act, as he hits the realities of the government’s legislative branch. In a Fox News interview Friday, he called congressional rules “archaic.”

Earlier this year, Senate Republicans voted to end the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees, allowing them to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch with only a majority voter. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that most senators do not want to kill the 60-vote threshold needed to stop filibusters on most legislation.

“There is an overwhelming majority on a bipartisan basis that is not interested in changing the way the Senate operates on the legislative calendar,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to Trump’s tweets at a news conference, saying that “bipartisanship is best summed up by the Rolling Stones: You can’t always get what you want.” Trump played the band’s song to close many campaign rallies.

At a news conference Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Congress has a “long ways to go” before September but added that he shares Trump’s “frustration” with the appropriations process. However, he highlighted what he considered good provisions for Republicans in the bill, including defense and border security spending increases.

“I feel good about the wins we got with the administration in this bill,” Ryan said.

It is unclear if Trump truly wants a shutdown, as he has often taken extreme positions on issues before backing off.

(h/t CNBC)

Reality

What is truly ironic is Trump falsely blamed the Democrats just four days prior of wanting to shut down the government over the budget.

Government-Funded Website Promotes Ivanka Trump’s New Book

Weeks after the State Department used its website and social media platforms to promote President Donald Trump’s private club in Florida, taxpayer-funded Voice of America is promoting Ivanka Trump’s new book on its website and Twitter account.

The link in the tweet is to an Associated Press article reposted on the Voice of America’s website. The piece characterizes Ivanka’s new book, entitled “Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success,” as embodying the new White House employee’s transition from “sassy to serious.”

The book “offers earnest advice for women on advancing in the workplace, balancing family and professional life and seeking personal fulfilment [sic],” the piece notes. “She is donating the proceeds to charity and has opted not to do any publicity to avoid any suggestion that she is improperly using her White House platform.”

But the article and VOA’s promotion of it serve as publicity in and of itself. The article also doesn’t say which charity Ivanka plans to donate her book proceeds to, or how people will be able to verify she actually did so.

As we learned during the campaign, thanks largely to the reporting of the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold, Ivanka’s father’s boasts about his charitable giving were grossly exaggerated. After he was elected president, Trump — who, like Ivanka, still owns his business — vowed to donate all profits from foreign governments.

But Trump has provided no evidence that he’s actually following through. The House Oversight Committee recently requested documents from the Trump Organization to prove his vow wasn’t just a bait-and-switch.

The degree to which Ivanka is actually following through on her plan to separate from the business she still owns while she serves in the White House is also a matter of trust (or lack thereof). She turned over day-to-day management of her company to her top executive and transferred its assets to a trust overseen by relatives of her husband, sparking concerns that all she has to do is pick up the phone to exert influence.

The New York Times reported that Ivanka “will receive regular financial reports on her company,” just as her father receives reports regarding the Trump Organization.

Shortly after the election, Ivanka’s brand marketed a $10,000 bracelet she wore during a 60 Minutes appearance.

Norm Eisen, former Obama administration ethics czar, tweeted that the VOA’s promoting of Ivanka’s book constitutes a violation of federal law.

This isn’t the first time Ivanka’s business interests have created controversy since the inauguration. On February 9, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway offered a shameless plug for Ivanka Trump’s brand during a Fox & Friends interview. Conway’s endorsement prompted the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to send the White House a letter asking for an investigation and recommending that Conway be disciplined, but the White House decided to let it slide.

After the State Department promoted Mar-a-Lago, Eisen told ThinkProgress that the White House’s refusal to discipline Conway would likely embolden future violations of 2635.702, a federal statute that prohibits federal employees from using public offices for private gain.

VOA’s promotion of Ivanka’s book comes as concerns mount that the government-funded media outlet is on its way to becoming an international Trump propaganda outlet — a possibility that became starkly apparent when the VOA provided stenography of Press Secretary’s Sean Spicer’s evidence-free claims that Trump’s inauguration was the best attended of all time (it wasn’t) on the first full day of Trump’s presidency.

As the New Republic reported last month, “A month after Trump was elected, Republicans in Congress changed the VOA’s governing structure, replacing its independent and bipartisan board of governors with a CEO appointed directly by the president. And in January, the Trump administration dispatched two young staffers to monitor the VOA’s operations and assist with the transition: Matthew Ciepielowski, who hails from the Koch-founded group Americans for Prosperity, and Matthew Schuck, who worked as a staff writer for the Daily Surge, a right-wing news site that traffics in ‘alternative facts.’”

“Taken together, the moves indicate that Trump is poised to turn the government news service — which reaches a global audience of 236 million every week through its radio and TV broadcasts — into a mouthpiece for his personal brand,” the New Republic added.

(h/t Think Progress)

 

Trump Doubles Down on Civil War and Andrew Jackson Comments: ‘Saw It Coming’

After his musings about the Civil War and Andrew Jackson generated sharp reaction, President Trump appeared to double down on the comments in a tweet.

In an interview that aired on SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S. channel and was published by the Washington Examiner, Trump said that he didn’t understand why the Civil War was fought and that it wouldn’t have happened, “had Andrew Jackson been a little later.”

“He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War,” Trump said of Jackson. “He said, ‘There’s no reason for this.’ ”

Jackson died in 1845 and the Civil War didn’t begin until 1861, prompting some to question Trump’s knowledge of American history.

In the tweet, Trump appeared to defend his comments, suggesting he did know that Jackson died 16 years before the war began but that the former president “saw it coming.”

(h/t Los Angeles Times)

Reality

That’s not what he said.

“Had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart,” Trump said in the interview with the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito. “He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, ‘There’s no reason for this.'”

And that still misses his other gaffe, of asking why the Civil War was fought in the first place:

“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?
People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”

 

Trump Kicks Reporter Out of Oval Office After Wiretapping Questions

President Trump cut off an Oval Office interview with CBS anchor John Dickerson and gestured for him to leave the room when Dickerson repeatedly asked about the president’s unfounded wiretapping claims.

Trump signaled that he still believes, as he tweeted on March 4, that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.”

Obama aides, intelligence community officials and some prominent Republican lawmakers have all disputed the claim. And the president has provided no evidence to back it up.

But when Trump brought it up during an interview taping on Saturday, and Dickerson followed up, Trump said, “I think our side’s been proven very strongly and everybody’s talking about it and frankly, it should be discussed.”

Trump added, “We should find out what the hell is going on.”

When Dickerson pressed him, Trump said: “You can take it any way — you can take it any way you want.”

Dickerson: “I’m asking you because you don’t want it to be fake news. I want to hear it from President Trump.”

Trump: “You don’t have to ask me. You don’t have to ask me.”

Dickerson: “Why not?”

Trump: “Because I have my own opinions, you can have your own opinions.”

Dickerson: “But I want to know your opinions. You’re the president of the United States.”

Trump: “That’s enough. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

The president walked away from Dickerson and sat down at his Oval Office desk.

The abrupt end to the tough interview was in marked contrast to some of the smoother interviews Trump has had recently. Media critics have pointed out his preference for friendlier outlets, like conservative-themed shows on Fox News.

Afterward, CBS anchor Gayle King remarked on the awkwardness of the abrupt ending: “Well, he was done with that conversation.”

King asked Dickerson if he was escorted out of the Oval Office.

“I think it was pretty clear that I was to escort myself out, or I would be escorted out — I would be moved along,” he said. “It was time for our conversation to be over.”

Later in the day on Saturday, however, Dickerson still traveled with the president as planned to a 100th-day rally in Pennsylvania.

The network’s morning show, “CBS This Morning,” was broadcast from the White House on Monday.

Several administration officials were interviewed live on the program, including Vice President Mike Pence, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump.

(h/t CNN)

Media

CBS

Spicer Says Trump Didn’t Say What Trump Literally Said

In his press conference on Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer directly contradicted President Donald Trump’s comments earlier in the day, denying the literal meaning of the president’s words.

The matter concerned a bizarre televised interview Trump gave earlier on Monday to CBS’ John Dickerson from the Oval Office.

“The president said, ‘I don’t stand by anything.’ How is the American public supposed to digest that, supposed to trust what the president says when he himself says, of his own comments, I don’t by anything,” a pool reporter asked Spicer.

“I think the point is, he clearly stands by that,” Spicer said. “That’s something that’s made very clear if you look at the entire back and forth exchange.”

In fact, the exchange is a few minutes of confused verbal sparring in which Trump word-for-word says “I don’t stand by anything.” It began when Dickerson asked about Trump’s relationship with President Obama, which Trump took as an opportunity to bring up — albeit in the form of veiled insinuations — his unproven allegation that Obama wiretapped him.

“Do you stand by that claim about him?” Dickerson asked.

“I don’t stand by anything,” Trump replied. “I just — you can take it the way you want. I think our side’s been proven very strongly. And everybody’s talking about it,” Trump continued.

He refused to clarify what he meant by “you can take it the way you want,” and repeated it several times before abruptly ending the interview.

https://youtu.be/SHcf6szI09M

But later in the day, when the matter came up in the press conference, Spicer insisted that the exchange went very differently.

“You don’t have to ask me,” he responded to one of Dickerson’s attempts to clarify his muddy assertions. “Because I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions.”

Trump made the explosive allegation on Twitter on March 4th, claiming that Obama wiretapped him, and since then the White House has scrambled to come up with a justification for the tweets. In the months since, they’ve cited media reports, classified intelligence, and even alleged that it was carried out by foreign spy agencies — a false claim for which they had to apologize to Great Britain.

Yet while Trump continues to insist that their case has been validated, the White House has produced no credible evidence to back up the president’s unproven allegations.

The FBI, NSA, and DOJ have all said they know of no evidence backing up the claim.

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Trump Unwinding Michelle Obama’s School Lunch Program Rules

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue took steps Monday to roll back healthy school lunch standards promoted by former first lady Michelle Obama in one of his first regulatory acts.

In an interim final rule, aimed at giving schools more flexibility, Perdue and his department are postponing further sodium reductions for at least three years and allowing schools to serve non-whole grain rich products occasionally as well as 1 percent flavored milk.

The rule allows states to exempt schools in the 2017-2018 school year from having to replace all their grains with whole-grain rich products if they are having a hard time meeting the standard.

USDA said it will take “all necessary regulatory actions to implement a long-term solution.”

“This announcement is the result of years of feedback from students, schools, and food service experts about the challenges they are facing in meeting the final regulations for school meals,” Perdue said in a statement.

“If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition – thus undermining the intent of the program.”

Sodium levels in school lunches now must average less than 1,230 milligrams in elementary schools; 1,360 mg in middle schools; and 1,420 mg in high school.

Before Perdue’s rule, schools were expected to reduce sodium even further to average less than 935 milligrams in elementary schools, 1035 milligrams in middle school lunches and 1,080 in high school lunches by the week by July 1, 2017.

Further reductions were set to take effect by July 1, 2022.

Perdue made the announcement Monday with Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who has long been working to ease the standards.

“We worked really hard the last two years to provide flexibility, but after unanimously passing a bipartisan bill out of Committee, our effort stalled,” he said in a statement.

“The policies that Secretary Perdue has declared here today will provide the flexibility to ensure that schools are able to serve nutritious meals that children will actually eat. Because that is really what these programs are about: serving meals to hungry children so that they can learn and grow.”

The School Nutrition Association, which represents nutrition directors at schools across the country, was quick to praise Perdue. The group has been lobbying Congress for more flexibility in what the have called “overly prescriptive regulations.”

SNA claims less kids are buying lunch because they no longer like the food and schools are being forced to spend more money on lunches that largely end up in trash.

The former standards required all grains, including croutons and the breading on chicken patties, to be whole grain rich.

“School Nutrition Association is appreciative of Secretary Perdue’s support of school meal programs in providing flexibility to prepare and serve healthy meals that are appealing to students,” the group’s CEO Patricia Montague said in a statement.

“School nutrition professionals are committed to the students they serve and will continue working with USDA and the Secretary to strengthen and protect school meal programs.”

Health groups, meanwhile, claim the standards are working and that 99 percent of schools are in compliance.

“Improving children’s health should be a top priority for the USDA, and serving more nutritious foods in schools is a clear-cut way to accomplish this goal,” the American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown said in a statement Friday ahead of USDA’s action.

(h/t The Hill)

Trump: I Would Be Honored to Meet Kim Jong-Un

US President Donald Trump has said he would be “honored” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in the right circumstances.

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would – absolutely. I would be honoured to do it,” he told news organisation Bloomberg on Monday.

The previous day he described Mr Kim as a “pretty smart cookie”.

The comments come amid escalating tensions over North Korea’s nuclear programme.

The White House issued a statement following Mr Trump’s remarks, saying North Korea would need to meet many conditions before any meeting between the two leaders could take place.

Spokesman Sean Spicer said Washington wanted to see the North end its provocative behaviour immediately.

“Clearly conditions are not there right now,” he added.

In Sunday’s interview with CBS, President Trump noted Mr Kim had assumed power at a young age, despite dealing with “some very tough people”.

He said he had “no idea” whether Mr Kim was sane.

The North Korean leader had his uncle executed two years after he came to power, and is suspected of ordering the recent killing of his half-brother.

President Trump, asked what he made of the North Korean leader, told CBS: “People are saying: ‘Is he sane?’ I have no idea… but he was a young man of 26 or 27… when his father died. He’s dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others.

“And at a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I’m sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he’s a pretty smart cookie.”

On Saturday North Korea conducted its second failed ballistic missile test in two weeks.

(h/t BBC News)

Trump: Why Couldn’t The Civil War Have Been Avoided?

President Donald Trump is questioning why the Civil War could not have been avoided and says President Andrew Jackson could have prevented it had he been in office “a little later” — comments that immediately drew fire Monday from Democrats who charged the president was ignoring slavery.

“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?” Trump said in a clip of the radio interview released by the SiriusXM show “Main Street Meets the Beltway.”

“People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” Trump added.

Trump’s populist appeal has drawn comparisons to Jackson, a juxtaposition the president embraces. The president visited Jackson’s estate, The Hermitage, in March and placed a wreath on the tomb of the seventh commander-in-chief.

“Had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart,” Trump said in the interview with the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito. “He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said, ‘There’s no reason for this.'”

Jackson died in 1845, 16 years before the war began.

The president was mocked earlier this year when he claimed that the 19th-century abolitionist hero Frederick Douglass had “done an amazing job.”

Trump also has praised President Abraham Lincoln, who served during the Civil War. He told House Republicans in March that Lincoln was a “great president.”

“Most people don’t even know he was a Republican. Right? Does anyone know? A lot of people don’t know that. We have to build that up a little more,” he said.

Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell that the comments underscore Trump’s often faulty or incomplete view of history.

“There is a clear lack of understanding of the history of this country and particularly of matters related to race and civil rights and the Civil War,” Steele said on MSNBC’s “Andrew Mitchell Reports.”

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