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What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White

What To Do When You're Stopped By Police - The ACLU & Elon James White

Know Anyone Who Thinks Racial Profiling Is Exaggerated? Watch This, And Tell Me When Your Jaw Drops.


This video clearly demonstrates how racist America is as a country and how far we have to go to become a country that is civilized and actually values equal justice. We must not rest until this goal is achieved. I do not want my great grandchildren to live in a country like we have today. I wish for them to live in a country where differences of race and culture are not ignored but valued as a part of what makes America great.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

No, Trump, Not on Our Watch - The New York Times

“Trump’s America is not America: not today’s or tomorrow’s, but yesterday’s.

Trump’s America is brutal, perverse, regressive, insular and afraid. There is no hope in it; there is no light in it. It is a vast expanse of darkness and desolation.

And that is a vision of America that most of the people in this country cannot and will not abide. That is a vision of America that has galvanized ordinary American citizens in opposition in a way that is almost without precedent. We are inching toward anarchy as both the people and the president refuse to back down.

Not only is Trump a literacy-lite, conspiracy-chasing, compulsively lying bigot, he is also a narcissistic workaholic who now wields the power of the presidency. You could not have conceived of a more dangerous combination of characteristics. He is the paragon of the clueless and an idol of the Ku Kluxers. Already, people feel deluged by a never-ending flood of national damage and despair. But Americans are not prone to suffering in silence. America’s period of mourning has ended; the time of anger and active opposition has dawned. The greatest two motivators of electoral activism in this country are a desire for change and durable fear: In Trump, those two are wed.”

(Via.)  No, Trump, Not on Our Watch - The New York Times:

It's the last open enrollment day for Obamacare, and the law has never been more popular.

Hundreds of activists and allies from the newly-formed anti-



"Hundreds of people protest against changes to the American healthcare system outside Trump Tower in New York. January 15, 2017. Erik McGregor / Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

It's the last open enrollment day for Obamacare, and the six-year-old health care reform law has never been more popular.



And it's never been more doomed, although Republicans are still arguing over how and when to replace it — and whether to just tweak the Affordable Care Act and rename it, or completely repeal it and start over again from scratch.



This time last year, there was a huge last-ditch effort from the Obama administration to get people signed up in time to be covered for 2016 without paying an extra tax. This year, the Trump administration is virtually silent, with only the occasional post on social media and a broad cutback in pre-paid advertising."





On Obamacare's Last Sign Up Day, Fate of Health Care Law Remains Uncertain - NBC News

Maddow: Destabilizing chaos a Trump hallmark | MSNBC




Maddow: Destabilizing chaos a Trump hallmark | MSNBC

Kellyanne Conway incorrect that worker remittances to Mexico are 'No. 1' income flow | PolitiFact

"Here's the fact: The No. 1 source of income into Mexico are Mexicans working here and sending the money back."
— Kellyanne Conway on Friday, January 27th, 2017 in an interview with "CBS This Morning"

Kellyanne Conway incorrect that worker remittances to Mexico are 'No. 1' income flow



Kellyanne Conway incorrect that worker remittances to Mexico are 'No. 1' income flow | PolitiFact

Joe: Using the word 'betrayed' is frightening | MSNBC




Joe: Using the word 'betrayed' is frightening | MSNBC

Donald Trump's travel ban explained - in 90 seconds

Obama, Out of Office 10 Days, Speaks Out Against Immigration Ban - The New York Times





"WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama spoke out on Monday against President Trump’s efforts to seal the United States borders against people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, siding with protesters around the country outraged at Mr. Trump’s crackdown on immigration.

“President Obama is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country,” said Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for the former president, in a statement issued after a weekend of protests against Mr. Trump’s executive order. “Citizens exercising their constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake.”

Mr. Obama, the statement added, “fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.”



Obama, Out of Office 10 Days, Speaks Out Against Immigration Ban - The New York Times

Trump's Defense of His Immigration Order Lacks Credibility, Immigration Experts Say - The Atlantic

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"‘If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the ‘bad’ would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad ‘dudes’ out there!,’ he tweeted.

Trump Fires Acting Attorney General for Defying Order on Muslims

Immigration experts caution, however, that the president’s argument lacks credibility. To start, the idea that ‘bad’ ‘dudes’ could have rushed into the United States in the span of a week is at odds with the length of time typically involved in processing refugee and immigration applications for entry into the country.

‘The notion that dangerous individuals could rush into the country in the timeframe of a week flies in the face of reality,’ said William Stock, an immigration lawyer based in Philadelphia and the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. ‘In many consulates, you can’t even get a visa appointment if you only have one week’s notice. People would not be able to get through interviews that quickly if there were a big rush of applicants trying to get into the country, let alone be approved for admission into the country.’"

(Via.).  Trump's Defense of His Immigration Order Lacks Credibility, Immigration Experts Say - The Atlantic:

Monday, January 30, 2017

Trump fires acting AG over travel ban dissent | MSNBC

Trump fires acting AG over travel ban dissent | MSNBC: ""

Nixon Redux - Trump Fires Acting Attorney General - The New York Times

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"WASHINGTON — President Trump fired his acting attorney general on Monday after she defiantly refused to defend his immigration executive order, accusing the Democratic holdover of trying to obstruct his agenda for political reasons.

Taking action in an escalating crisis for his 10-day-old administration, Mr. Trump declared that Sally Q. Yates had ‘betrayed’ the administration, the White House said in a statement.

The president appointed Dana J. Boente, United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to serve as acting attorney general until Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is confirmed."

(Via.).  Trump Fires Acting Attorney General - The New York Times:

Apple, Google, Facebook speak out against Trump's muslim ban - CNET



Apple, Google, Facebook speak out against Trump's muslim ban - CNET

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: ‘we do not support’ Trump immigration order - The Verge

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 "Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos weighed in this afternoon on President Trump’s executive order banning entry to the US for citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations. Amazon’s VP of Human Relations wrote a statement on the ban over the weekend, but this new message comes directly from Bezos himself.

Washington state, where Amazon is headquartered, is the first to directly take on Trump’s executive order. The state’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, announced on Monday that he would challenge the ban in federal court. Washington state Governor Jay Inslee also added his voice. ‘It is an insult and a danger to all of the people of the state of Washington, of all faiths,’ Inslee told reporters on Monday.

Bezos and Amazon are part of a chorus of voices from the tech industry speaking out against the executive order. Below is the full email from Bezos to Amazon employees."

(Via.)   Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: ‘we do not support’ Trump immigration order - The Verge:

Kellyanne Conway goes on bonkers rant, calls for Trump's media critics to be fired

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 "Kellyanne Conway continues to be a factory for a mind-boggling combination of ridiculous nonsense and terrifying nonsense. On Fox News Sunday, Donald Trump’s top non-Ivanka woman assailed the media for pointing out that last week she described blatant lies as ‘alternative facts’—gosh, why would that draw notice, especially when it’s such a perfect statement of how your boss plans to govern?—then launched into a rant about how media figures who criticized Trump should be fired:

Not one network person has been let go. Not one silly political analyst and pundit who talked smack all day long about Donald Trump has been let go. They are on panels every Sunday. They’re on cable news every day.  "

(Via.).  Kellyanne Conway goes on bonkers rant, calls for Trump's media critics to be fired:

Does Donald Trump understand his own executive orders? | MSNBC

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"Most of his multi-part message rambled, and included many of the signature elements that make up nearly all of Trump’s online missives: needlessly capitalized words, an overreliance on exclamation points, misused ellipses, etc. But there was one tweet that stood out as significant for substantive reason"

(Via).  Does Donald Trump understand his own executive orders? | MSNBC

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Democrats and Republicans can’t believe Trump put ‘Nazi’ Steve Bannon on National Security Council





"Saturday, Pres. Donald Trump announced that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the national director of intelligence will no longer be included in all meetings of the National Security Council (NSC)’s principals committee. However, the president’s order said, former Breitbart.com CEO Stephen K. Bannon will be attending every meeting alongside the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense and some of the highest ranking officers in the nation’s security and intelligence services.



“Chairman of Joint Chiefs and DNI treated as afterthoughts in Cabinet level principals meetings. And where is CIA?? Cut out of everything?” wrote former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on Sunday, according to the New York Daily News.



“This is stone cold crazy,” Rice continued. “After a week of crazy. Who needs military advice or intel to make policy on ISIL, Syria, Afghanistan, DPRK?”



“Trump loves and trusts the military so much he just kicked them out of the National Security Council and put a Nazi in their place,” she said.



Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded by complaining about Rice’s tone, which he said was “clearly inappropriate language from a former ambassador.”



The questioning wasn’t only from the opposite side of the aisle, however. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he’s concerned about the reorganization.



“I am worried about the National Security Council who are the members of it and who are the permanent members of it,” he told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. “The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure from any National Security Council in history.”



Former senior aide to Pres. Barack Obama David Axelrod said, “I never sat on NSC principals comm. I sat on sidelines as observer on some issues 2 gain an understanding of decisions. Bannon’s new ground.”

Democrats and Republicans can’t believe Trump put ‘Nazi’ Steve Bannon on National Security Council

Judge Blocks Part of Trump’s Immigration Ban After His Own Lawyers Can’t Justify It - The Daily Beast

"At 4:42 p.m. on Friday, President Donald Trump signed an insanely sweeping executive order citing 9/11 to justify a ban on all travel to the United States from citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries. Those didn’t include any of the countries the hijackers came from, or any of the countries where his own businesses have been the most active. It did include American green-card holders, and dual citizens of allies like Britain.

As planes landed Saturday morning, people already vetted by the United States—with families and lives here—found themselves caught in a nightmare, a world that had changed while they were in the air.



A Clemson professor visiting her family in Tehran posted that she was trapped there, scrambling to find someone here to watch her dog. A Syrian family of six with visas was placed on a plane back to Doha. A translator who’d worked with our military in Iraq was put in cuffs, before two New York Congressmen intervened on his behalf. Others were questioned about their opinion of President Trump and pressed to show their social media accounts to federal officials.

Incredibly, the government won’t (or perhaps can’t) say how many people have been detained, though an unnamed senior official at the Department of Homeland Security official told the Washington Post Saturday that 109 people had been denied entry upon arrival and 173 had not been allowed to board flights at foreign airports. That’s the same DHS that didn’t see the order until hours before Trump signed it, according to CNN, and was unable to offer a legal analysis until after it was in effect.

Saturday evening, Federal District Court Judge Ann Donnelly asked the government to explain itself. It could not. In a remarkable display, U.S. attorneys—rarely at a loss for an argument—were as flummoxed as many of the rest of us.

They briefly tried to argue that since the two named parties in the ACLU’s request for a temporary stay on parts of Trump’s order had already been released, the group lacked standing.

“What about the others in the class,” asked Donnelly, about the possibility they would suffer “irreparable damage” if they were sent home. “If they had come here two days ago, we wouldn’t be here, right?”



“This has unfolded with such speed,” Eastern District U.S. Attorney Susan Riley replied, on Trump’s behalf, “that we haven’t had an opportunity to address the issues, the important legal issues.”

Or, as some of the hundreds of Brooklynites protesting outside of the courthouse might have put it less formally, “beats the shit out of me.”

“These people were caught in transit,” American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lee Gelernt argued, adding that he’d been informed during the hearing, slightly after 8:00 p.m., that “we just got word that the government is threatening to put someone on a plane at 9:20.” He added a few minutes later, he’d just then been told that person is a Syrian, who would be sent back to that war-ravaged nation.

Donnelly pressed the government on how it could claim those already vetted and now suddenly rejected by the United States wouldn’t suffer “irreparable harm” if they “were sent back to some of the most dangerous places on earth.”

That’s not a trick question, but one part of the four-part balancing act a judge must use to decide on a request to halt such an order. Again, the government’s lawyers didn’t even attempt a real answer, just went on for a bit about how many different people with different circumstances would be affected in many different ways by the order.

Asked how many people had been detained, Riley said: “The government does not have sufficient information to answer.”

Donnelly had heard enough.



“That’s exactly why I’m going to grant” the ACLU’s request, she ruled at about 9 p.m.—with perhaps 20 minutes to spare for the unknown Syrian."



Judge Blocks Part of Trump’s Immigration Ban After His Own Lawyers Can’t Justify It - The Daily Beast

Silicon Valley’s Ambivalence Toward Trump Turns to Anger - The New York Times





"SAN FRANCISCO — On Friday morning, Silicon Valley was largely ambivalent about President Trump. The software programmers, marketing experts and chief executives might not have voted for him, but they were hopeful about finding common ground with the new administration.



By Saturday night, much of that optimism had yielded to anger and determination.



Mr. Trump’s executive order late on Friday temporarily blocked all refugees while also denying entry to citizens of Iran, Iraq and five other predominantly Muslim countries. The directives struck at the heart of Silicon Valley’s cherished values, its fabled history and, not least, its embrace-the-world approach to customers. Two worldviews collided: the mantra of globalization that underpins the advance of technology and the nationalistic agenda of the new administration.



In response, a significant part of the tech community went to the barricades.







Netflix’s chief executive, Reed Hastings, wrote on Facebook that Mr. Trump’s actions “are so un-American it pains us all” and that “it is time to link arms together to protect American values of freedom and opportunity.”







Brian Chesky, the chief executive of Airbnb, made the same point. “We must stand with those who are affected,” he wrote on Twitter.



A Google founder, Sergey Brin, who immigrated from the Soviet Union when he was 6, seemed to take that suggestion literally, attending an impromptu protest on Saturday evening at San Francisco International Airport. When some of the demonstrators realized that the 10th-richest man in America was with them, they asked for selfies. He good-naturedly obliged.



“I’m here because I'm a refugee,” Mr. Brin said, according to one protester.



The tech companies’ reaction was more forceful than that of other industries. Just about everyone in Silicon Valley came from somewhere else or is a son or daughter of someone who did or is married to someone who did.







That list starts with the most famous Silicon Valley citizen of all: Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder, whose biological father immigrated from Syria in 1954. Mr. Trump’s order proclaimed that “the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States” and would be suspended indefinitely.



Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said that his great-grandparents had come from Germany, Austria and Poland, and that the parents of his wife, Priscilla Chan, were refugees from China and Vietnam.



“Like many of you, I'm concerned about the impact of the recent executive orders signed by President Trump,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook on Friday."



Silicon Valley’s Ambivalence Toward Trump Turns to Anger - The New York Times

Pizza Angels Feed Protesters At JFK Airport - The Daily Beast

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"Protestors at JFK airport got an unexpected treat tonight: Pies and pies of pizza that seemed to apparate out of thin air."Somebody handed it to me," one woman handing out slices told The Daily Beast."The delivery guy wanted a photo," said another."It just appeared," said a third.Behind barricades and police in riot gear, protesters took it upon themselves to feed their comrades. At 10pm, there were more pizza boxes than signs littering the floor.But no one could pinpoint their origin. When one of these reporters called South Shore Pizza—the parlor from where many of the boxes seemed to originate—a man who answered the phone said bluntly: "We're closed."He added they hadn't just spontaneously delivered the pizzas, either. Someone had placed an order to be delivered to JFK."

Pizza Angels Feed Protesters At JFK Airport - The Daily Beast

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Send Trump To The Dump


Send Trump To The Dump

States propose bills to penalize protests | MSNBC



States propose bills to penalize protests | MSNBC

The Voter Fraud Fantasy - The New York Times





"What once seemed like another harebrained claim by a president with little regard for the truth must now be recognized as a real threat to American democracy. Mr. Trump is telegraphing his administration’s intent to provide cover for longstanding efforts by Republicans to suppress minority voters by purging voting rolls, imposing onerous identification requirements and curtailing early voting.



“This is another attempt to undermine our democracy,” said Representative Barbara Lee of California, one of the states where Mr. Trump falsely claimed results were tainted by large-scale fraud. “It’s about not honoring and recognizing demographic change.”



The apparent source of Mr. Trump’s original claim of mass voter fraud was Gregg Phillips, a Texas man with a penchant for making wild allegations about voting fraud. Days before Mr. Trump’s tweet, Mr. Phillips claimed on Twitter that he had “verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens.” State election officials across the political spectrum promptly rejected that assertion, noting that ballot box fraud in the United States is exceedingly rare."



The Voter Fraud Fantasy - The New York Times

The Daily Show - Welcome to President Trump's Reality

Colleague, transcripts offer closer look at old allegations of racism against Sen. Jeff Sessions - CNNPolitics.com

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"(CNN)As the US attorney in Mobile, Alabama, Jeff Sessions was talking over a case one day in the 1980s with two fellow prosecutors.

It had to do with a young black man who had been kidnapped and brutally murdered by two members of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klansmen, Henry Hayes and Tiger Knowles, slit the victim's throat and hung his body from a tree. They carried out the attack in retribution for a jury acquitting a black man in the slaying of a white police officer. As Sessions learned that some members of the Klan had smoked marijuana on the evening of the slaying, he said aloud that he thought the KKK was: 'OK until I found out they smoked pot.' Sessions insists he was joking. But the damage was done…..

Another federal prosecutor, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had called the ACLU and NAACP "un-American" and "communist-inspired." According to Hebert, Sessions said the two groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people."Hebert, a veteran civil rights prosecutor, told the committee he had "very mixed feelings" about testifying about the conversations that he said had taken place over a matter of years. He said he and Sessions would engage in "spirited debate" about civil rights and that he sometimes wondered if Sessions was baiting him with controversial statements. Sessions, he said, "has a tendency sometimes to just say something, and I believe these comments were along that vein."

"he New Republic writes


Sessions was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The year before his nomination to federal court, he had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers — including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr. — on a tenuous case of voter fraud. The three had been working in the “Black Belt” counties of Alabama, which, after years of voting white, had begun to swing toward black candidates as voter registration drives brought in more black voters. Sessions’s focus on these counties to the exclusion of others caused an uproar among civil rights leaders, especially after hours of interrogating black absentee voters produced only 14 allegedly tampered ballots out of more than 1.7 million cast in the state in the 1984 election. The activists, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted in four hours and became a cause célèbre. Civil rights groups charged that Sessions had been looking for voter fraud in the black community and overlooking the same violations among whites, at least partly to help reelect his friend Senator Denton.


On its own, the case might not have been enough to stain Sessions with the taint of racism, but there was more. Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as “un-American” when “they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions” in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to “pop off” on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes “loose with [his] tongue.” He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “piece of intrusive legislation,” a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings.
It got worse. Another damaging witness — a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama named Thomas Figures — testified that, during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he “used to think they [the Klan] were OK” until he found out some of them were “pot smokers.” Sessions claimed the comment was clearly said in jest. Figures didn’t see it that way. Sessions, he said, had called him “boy” and, after overhearing him chastise a secretary, warned him to “be careful what you say to white folks.” Figures echoed Hebert’s claims, saying he too had heard Sessions call various civil rights organizations, including the National Council of Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, “un-American.” Sessions denied the accusations but again admitted to frequently joking in an off-color sort of way. In his defense, he said he was not a racist, pointing out that his children went to integrated schools and that he had shared a hotel room with a black attorney several times." 

Colleague, transcripts offer closer look at old allegations of racism against Sen. Jeff Sessions - CNNPolitics.com

Republicans Tried Very Hard To Convince Americans Jeff Sessions Is Not Racist | The Huffington Post

How to Fight Trump’s Racist Immigration Policies "Contact your representatives, get involved locally, and learn about what’s at stake | The Nation

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 "Contact your representatives, get involved locally, and learn about what’s at stake."

(Via.)   How to Fight Trump’s Racist Immigration Policies | The Nation:

Friday, January 27, 2017

The Coldhearted Folly of Trump's Proposed Immigration Order - The Atlantic

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"When I first started talking to ISIS propagandists and supporters, I was much impressed by one of their favorite Koranic verses: “We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein.” The verse is a reminder of God’s omnipresence, and his Santa Claus-like awareness of our deepest selves, our sins, and our good deeds. In time, I came to associate that unsettling proximity (He is closer than you think) not only with God, but also with ISIS. They too were less distant than they seemed. What seemed at first like a movement of barbarians with alien origins and impulses looked increasingly like a human phenomenon, with human flaws and virtues (mostly flaws). The more I investigated the group’s supporters, the more I found people who at one point had shared my culture and community, even if they tried to throw it all away in the service of something wicked. In the end I discovered that one of the most important figures in the Islamic State, a mysterious ideologue named Yahya Abu Hassan, was not Syrian or Iraqi at all, but a 33-year-old American, a dope-smoking theological prodigy from my own hometown.

 Trump's Plan for Refugees

The executive order President Donald Trump is expected to sign on immigration and refugees promises, according to a draft that leaked Wednesday, to suspend for 30 days the issuance of visas to citizens of a short list of scary-sounding “countries of particular concern,” likely including Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan. Conspicuously absent from this list are the countries whose nationals have actually perpetrated the most ghastly attacks on Western targets, and on some non-Western ones. Nearly all the attackers in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in March 2016 carried European passports. The ringleader of the attack on diners at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Bangladesh in July of 2016 was a Canadian citizen, and the attackers all Bangladeshi. The San Bernardino shooters were an American man and his Pakistani wife, and the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen a native-born American of Afghan descent. The ISIS sympathizers to whom I spoke in researching my book, The Way of the Strangers, were European, British, Japanese, Egyptian, and American. These foreign members of the group differ from the Iraqis and Syrians in the intensity and form of their zeal. They often viewed Iraqis and Syrians as good people—but in need of theological correction and radicalization."

The Coldhearted Folly of Trump's Proposed Immigration Order - The Atlantic: ""

Carolyn Bryant, Woman at center of Emmett Till case tells author she fabricated testimony | US news | The Guardian

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Woman at center of Emmett Till case tells author she fabricated testimony | US news | The Guardian: "Carolyn Bryant"

(Via.)

The Trump team also needs to read this case which further protects the press from civil actions which the Trump administration has said it would consider

The Trump team also needs to read this case which further protects the press from civil actions which the Trump administration has said it would consider:

376 U.S. 254 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (No. 39)
Decided: March 9, 1964

Syllabus

Respondent, an elected official in Montgomery, Alabama, brought suit in a state court alleging that he had been libeled by an advertisement in corporate petitioner's newspaper, the text of which appeared over the names of the four individual petitioners and many others. The advertisement included statements, some of which were false, about police action allegedly directed against students who participated in a civil rights demonstration and against a leader of the civil rights movement; respondent claimed the statements referred to him because his duties included supervision of the police department. The trial judge instructed the jury that such statements were "libelous per se," legal injury being implied without proof of actual damages, and that, for the purpose of compensatory damages, malice was presumed, so that such damages could be awarded against petitioners if the statements were found to have been published by them and to have related to respondent. As to punitive damages, the judge instructed that mere negligence was not evidence of actual malice, and would not justify an award of punitive damages; he refused to instruct that actual intent to harm or recklessness had to be found before punitive damages could be awarded, or that a verdict for respondent should differentiate between compensatory and punitive damages. The jury found for respondent, and the State Supreme Court affirmed.

Held: A State cannot, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, award damages to a public official for defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves "actual malice" -- that the statement was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false. Pp. 265-292.

(a) Application by state courts of a rule of law, whether statutory or not, to award a judgment in a civil action, is "state action" under the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 265.

(b) Expression does not lose constitutional protection to which it would otherwise be entitled because it appears in the form of a paid advertisement. Pp. 265-266. [p255]

(c) Factual error, content defamatory of official reputation, or both, are insufficient to warrant an award of damages for false statements unless "actual malice" -- knowledge that statements are false or in reckless disregard of the truth -- is alleged and proved. Pp. 279-283.

(d) State court judgment entered upon a general verdict which does not differentiate between punitive damages, as to which, under state law, actual malice must be proved, and general damages, as to which it is "presumed," precludes any determination as to the basis of the verdict, and requires reversal, where presumption of malice is inconsistent with federal constitutional requirements. P. 284.

(e) The evidence was constitutionally insufficient to support the judgment for respondent, since it failed to support a finding that the statements were made with actual malice or that they related to respondent. Pp. 285-292.[p256]

The Trump Team Needs To Study The Constitutional Case Law On Government Restrictions From Intimidating And Restricting The Press

The Trump team needs to read this Supreme Court case which outlines the law, as it is today which protects the press from government interference or censorship.

Near v. Minnesota 283 U.S. 697 1931

1. A Minnesota statute declares that one who engages "in the business of regularly and customarily producing, publishing," etc., "a malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, magazine or other periodical," is guilty of a nuisance, and authorizes suits, in the name of the State, in which such periodicals may be abated and their publishers enjoined from future violations. In such a suit, malice may be inferred from the fact of publication. The defendant is permitted to prove, as a defense, that his publications were true and published "with good motives and for justifiable ends." Disobedience of an injunction is punishable as a contempt. Held unconstitutional, as applied to publications charging neglect of duty and corruption upon the part of law-enforcing officers of the State. Pp. 704, 709, 712, 722.

2. Liberty of the press is within the liberty safeguarded by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by state action. P. 707.

3. Liberty of the press is not an absolute right, and the State may punish its abuse. P. 708.

4. In passing upon the constitutionality of the statute, the court has regard for substance, and not for form; the statute must be tested by its operation and effect. P. 708. [p698]

5. Cutting through mere details of procedure, the operation and effect of the statute is that public authorities may bring a publisher before a judge upon a charge of conducting a business of publishing scandalous and defamatory matter -- in particular, that the matter consists of charges against public officials of official dereliction -- and, unless the publisher is able and disposed to satisfy the judge that the charges are true and are published with good motives and for justifiable ends, his newspaper or periodical is suppressed and further publication is made punishable as a contempt. This is the essence of censorship. P. 713.

6. A statute authorizing such proceedings in restraint of publication is inconsistent with the conception of the liberty of the press as historically conceived and guaranteed. P. 713.

7. The chief purpose of the guaranty is to prevent previous restraints upon publication. The libeler, however, remains criminally and civilly responsible for his libels. P. 713.

8. There are undoubtedly limitations upon the immunity from previous restraint of the press, but they are not applicable in this case. P. 715.

9. The liberty of the press has been especially cherished in this country as respects publications censuring public officials and charging official misconduct. P. 716.

10. Public officers find their remedies for false accusations in actions for redress and punishment under the libel laws, and not in proceedings to restrain the publication of newspapers and periodicals. P. 718.

11. The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any the less necessary the immunity from previous restraint in dealing with official misconduct. P. 720.

12. Characterizing the publication of charges of official misconduct as a "business," and the business as a nuisance, does not avoid the constitutional guaranty; nor does it matter that the periodical is largely or chiefly devoted to such charges. P. 720.

13. The guaranty against previous restraint extends to publications charging official derelictions that amount to crimes. P. 720.

14. Permitting the publisher to show in defense that the matter published is true and is published with good motives and for justifiable ends does not justify the statute. P. 721.

15. Nor can it be sustained as a measure for preserving the public peace and preventing assaults and crime. Pp. 721, 722.

[p699]
APPEAL from a decree which sustained an injunction abating the publication of a periodical as malicious, scandalous and defamatory, and restraining future publication. The suit was based on a Minnesota statute. See also s.c., 174 Minn. 457, 219 N.W. 770

Donald Trump Lies About Losing The Popular Vote | The Last Word | MSNBC

President Donald Trump's First Negotiation Was A Humiliation | The Last ...

Trump's False Claims and Executive Orders: A Closer Look

Thursday, January 26, 2017

More Specific Details On Trump's Long History Of Racist Housing Discrimination

In a Swirl of ‘Untruths’ and ‘Falsehoods,’ Calling a Lie a Lie - The New York Times

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"Words matter.

And from the moment he became president, Donald J. Trump has unleashed so many of consequence that the public has barely had time to parse their full implication. Words about the dishonest media, the end of Obamacare, the construction of that border wall with Mexico — this is an abbreviated list, and he hasn’t even completed his first week in office.

Amid the verbal deluge, President Trump this week repeated an assertion he made shortly after his election: that millions of ballots cast illegally by undocumented immigrants cost him the popular vote. If true, this would suggest the wholesale corruption of American democracy.

Not to worry: As far as anyone knows, the president’s assertion is akin to saying that millions of unicorns also voted illegally.

But such a baseless statement by a president challenged the news media to find the precise words to describe it. This will be a recurring challenge, given President Trump’s habit of speaking in sales-pitch hyperbole and his tendency to deride any less-than-flattering report as ‘fake news.’

Continue reading the main story The Trump White House Stories on the presidential transition and the forthcoming Trump administration. Pence Will Speak at Anti-Abortion Rally JAN 26 Trump Follows Obama’s Lead in Flexing Executive Muscle JAN 26 As Trump Thunders, G.O.P. Lawmakers Duck and Cover JAN 26 Tracking Trump’s Agenda, Step by Step JAN 26 Pro Golfer Denies Telling Trump About Voter Fraud JAN 26 See More »

The words needed to be exactly right. ‘And the language has a rich vocabulary for describing statements that fall short of the truth,’ said Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Information. ‘They’re ‘baseless,’ they’re ‘bogus,’ they’re ‘lies,’ they’re ‘untruths.’’

Rarely are these words, each with its own nuance, applied directly to something said by a president, though others have also dissembled (like Bill Clinton on whether he had sex with an intern). ‘This is the very unique situation that we find ourselves in as journalists and as a country,’ said Joshua Benton, the director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. ‘We have an administration that seems to be asserting a right to its own facts and doesn’t seem to be able to produce evidence to back those claims.’

Still, carefully chosen words can capture that. ‘A whole vocabulary has come bubbling up that would not have been used five years ago,’ Mr. Nunberg said in an interview. ‘People are going to have to sit down and decide: Are we going to want to go over the moral consequences of telling an untruth? The mere fact of it being untrue? Or the fact that it’s bogus, baseless or groundless?’

Some news organizations used words like ‘falsely’ or ‘wrongly’ — adverbs that tend to weaken the impact — in framing what the president said. Some used ‘with no evidence,’ or ‘won’t provide any proof,’ or ‘unverified claims,’ or ‘repeats debunked claim.’

The New York Times, though, ultimately chose more muscular terminology, opting to use the word ‘lie’ in the headline. After initially using the word ‘falsely,’ it switched to ‘lie’ online and then settled on ‘Meeting With Top Lawmakers, Trump Repeats an Election Lie’ for Tuesday’s print edition."

(Via.).  In a Swirl of ‘Untruths’ and ‘Falsehoods,’ Calling a Lie a Lie - The New York Times:

 

Former Trump Rental Agent Describes Racist Policy | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

Trump sued for housing discrimination in the 1970s, Donald Trump was President of the company. Trump's applications had racial code marking them "C". Trump tried to sue the government for defamation but the suit was thrown out of court. The evidence Against them was overwhelming.

.  Donald Trump was President of the company. Trump's applications had racial code marking them "C". Trump tried to sue the government for defamation but the suit was thrown out of court. The evidence Against them was overwhelming.

Trump's comments on torture ricochet across the globe | MSNBC



Trump's comments on torture ricochet across the globe | MSNBC

Rather on unease over Trump: 'We've never had this before' | MSNBC




Rather on unease over Trump: 'We've never had this before' | MSNBC

Private Prisons Cheer Trump’s Immigration Crackdown - The Daily Beast

 "Private prison companies saw an immediate and sustained stock bump when President Donald Trump was elected. And investors think things will keep getting better. An article on Seeking Alpha, the investment research site, speculated that GEO Group’s stock value may increase by 25 percent this year. ‘The basic rationale is that a Trump administration will emphasize private industry and law-and-order, both which will serve as significant macro tailwinds for the private prison industry over the next 4 years,’ it said. That emphasis began in earnest Wednesday with a series of executive orders signed by Trump to crackdown on illegal immigration. Besides announcing that he will triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and order the Department of Homeland Security to start building the wall (even though Mexico has yet to pony up the cash), Trump and his team also committed to locking up more immigrants who illegally cross the border. These measures are expensive; an analysis from the progressive Center for American Progress——a think tank linked to the Clinton campaign—estimated the whole project could cost more than $117 billion over the next 10 years. And much of that money will go straight to private prison companies. ‘The reality is, DHS is not going to have the ability to detain all these folks,’ said David Inserra, a homeland security policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. ‘You have to rely on the private contractors.’ The majority of immigrants in detention (62 percent in 2015, according to Quartz) are in facilities managed by private prison companies—companies that were subjects of a blistering Justice Department report last summer. During Obama’s presidency, the Justice Department announced it would phase out its reliance on private prisons. And Hillary Clinton promised on the campaign trail to do the same. Trump, in contrast, has defended their use (and one of those companies, in turn, contributed generously to a pro-Trump super PAC). His attorney general pick, Sen. Jeff Sessions, also has a favorable approach to the controversial industry. And private contractors are open for (additional) business. Pablo Paez, a spokesman for GEO Group—the second largest private prison company in the U.S.—told The Daily Beast that his company is optimistic about the future. ‘We can’t speculate about future policy initiatives, but we look forward to working with both the new Administration and the new Congress in continuing our longstanding partnership with the federal government providing high quality and cost effective services, while treating those entrusted to our care with the respect and dignity they deserve,’ he said. GEO Group recently hired two former Sessions staffers onto its D.C. lobbying team, as Politico reported. A spokesman for CoreCivic, the nation’s largest private prison company, shared a similar sentiment. ‘We are in continual contact with our federal agency partners and they are aware of our capacity and capabilities,’ said spokesman Jonathan Burns. ‘As in the past, we remain committed to providing flexible, innovative solutions to the challenges they face.’ Critics of immigrant detention, meanwhile, are gearing up for legal fights. The ACLU released a statement ripping into the president’s plan."

(Via.).  Private Prisons Cheer Trump’s Immigration Crackdown - The Daily Beast

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

US sent $221 million to Palestinians in Obama's last hours

FILE - In this Jan. 15, 2017 file-pool photo, Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with the media in Paris. Defying Republican opposition, officials say the Obama administration in its waning hours quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that GOP members of Congress had been blocking. The official said John Kerry had informed some lawmakers of the move shortly before he left the State Department for the last time on. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool, File)





"WASHINGTON — Officials say the Obama administration in its waning hours defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that GOP members of Congress had been blocking.

A State Department official and several congressional aides said the outgoing administration formally notified Congress it would spend the money Friday morning. The official said former Secretary of State John Kerry had informed some lawmakers of the move shortly before he left the State Department for the last time Thursday. The aides said written notification dated Jan. 20 was sent to Congress just hours before Donald Trump took the oath of office.

In addition to the $221 million for the Palestinians, the Obama administration also told Congress on Friday it was going ahead with the release of another $6 million in foreign affairs spending, including $4 million for climate change programs and $1.25 million for U.N. organizations, the congressional aides said. The aides and the State Department official weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

Congress had initially approved the Palestinian funding in budget years 2015 and 2016, but at least two GOP lawmakers — Ed Royce of California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Kay Granger of Texas, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee — had placed holds on it over moves the Palestinian Authority had taken to seek membership in international organizations. Congressional holds are generally respected by the executive branch but are not legally binding after funds have been allocated."



US sent $221 million to Palestinians in Obama's last hours

Monday, January 23, 2017

How 'dreamers' are preparing in case Trump ends Obama immigration actions

Supreme court rejects appeal to restore 'discriminatory' Texas voter ID law | US news | The Guardian

"The supreme court on Monday rejected an appeal from Texas in its effort to restore its strict voter identification law.



The justices said they will not review a lower court ruling that held the law was discriminatory. That court ordered changes in the law before the November election.



Chief Justice John Roberts said in a brief statement that the court could take up the case at a later date because the case is continuing in federal district court in Texas. A hearing that had been set for Tuesday was rescheduled for next month.



Texas softened what election experts said was among the toughest voter ID measures in the nation. But Republican attorney general Ken Paxton had wanted the supreme court to restore the law to its original state.



As written, the law required showing one of seven forms of photo identification, allowing concealed handgun licenses but not college student IDs."



Supreme court rejects appeal to restore 'discriminatory' Texas voter ID law | US news | The Guardian

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Unbelievable how the American Presidency has dropped to a level unseen in decades an arguably not in nearly a century. America was warned what they were getting and they have it. Sad and pathetic. - Meet the Press: Political News & Interviews with Chuck Todd - NBC News



Meet the Press: Political News & Interviews with Chuck Todd - NBC News

The Trump Era Has Begun and Some White Racist Men Feel Free To Express Their Bigotry

The Trump Era Has Begun and Some White Racist Men Feel Free To Express Their Bigotry.
I experienced two blatant, racial incidents, in two days; Thursday January 19th and Friday January 20th 2017.  Thursday, I was filling up a cup of Coke Zero at Justin's Deli Dunwoody, three miles my home in Brookhaven Georgia, when a slightly older White man rudely called to me "are you going to clean this up?" pointing to a soda spill at the salad bar. I responded "do I look like I work here?" He responded saying "well" while gesturing towards me with his hand. (Justin's workers where a kaki Justin's hat with a name tag.) I was wearing a blue hat and blue shirt and no name tag. We were dressed similarly. I responded to him; "so you think every Black person must be an employee? I am a retired lawyer and law professor."I walked quickly away towards my seat and he did not respond. He was about 5 or 6 years older than me.

Inauguration day, after exiting my car, to go into the Brookhaven, Cosco's Wear-house, a middle aged White man yelled at me "Boy, do you want this shopping cart?" Apparently he did not feel like rolling it back to the it's stall. I responded "no, and if you see a boy you kick his ass" and I walked toward the entrance. Inside I luckily ran into one of my former students, a beautiful, young, Latina woman Cynthia. I told her what happened. She said there had been a few racial incidents in Cosco recently. 

It is so frustrating, for people of color, to try get White Americans, particularly males to understand how significant race was in Trump's victory. The media has purposefully downplayed it's importance, in spite of the overt rhetoric and actions of Trump and his supporters. Look at all of the threats to Jewish Community Centers just this week. I posted an article concerning the rise of anti-Semitism. This was only the first day of the Trump administration and the day before. The Sysiphsian ball of racial and religious progress is already rolling down it's hill in the perpetual cycle of progress and regress which has characterized racial progress in America. All that has really changed has been based on the social requirements of technological advance. Unlike President Obama's exhortations, I am afraid, very afraid.

Trevor Noah hits a home run. The Inauguration of Donald Trump: The Daily Show

This addresses the two racist incidents I experienced Thursday and Friday. SNL Hosts Aziz Ansari Monologue Targeted Trump, Racists 01/21/2017

Atlanta Women's March January 21st 2017



Elizabeth Warren fires up women's march in Boston: "I'm here to fight back" - CBS News



Elizabeth Warren fires up women's march in Boston: "I'm here to fight back" - CBS News

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Donald Trump era begins with Obamacare rollback and missile defence plan | US news | The Guardian

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"Dr Martin Luther King Jr once said: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” Now is not the time for us to be silent. We must join together and refuse to allow this vision for our country to go unchallenged. We must resist."

Donald Trump era begins with Obamacare rollback and missile defence plan | US news | The Guardian: ""

(Via.)

Donald Trump era begins with Obamacare rollback and missile defence plan | US news | The Guardian

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"Donald Trump has begun his presidency with a series of policy interventions, taking aim at Barack Obama’s signature healthcare policy, raising the prospect of a new US missile defence system and ushering in a new period of American protectionism.

The 45th president of the United States, who was sworn into office on Friday, began his four-year term of office with a series of executive orders that will set the tone for his government. It was, he said, a government that would ‘put only America first’.

Before attending a series of inaugural balls around Washington DC, the Republican sat down to sign an executive order aimed at undermining Obama’s signature healthcare law, known as Obamacare.

he order notes that Trump plans to seek the “prompt repeal” of the law. In the meantime, it allows the Health and Human Services Department and other federal agencies to delay implementing any piece of the law that might impose any economic cost.

Using a similar order, the new president also signed into law a new national day of patriotism, and in a separate statement on the White House website, said he intends to develop a “state of the art” missile defense system to protect against attacks from Iran and North Korea. It did not say whether the system would differ from those already under development, specify the cost or say how it would be financed.

The Trump White House stripped the official website of all mention of Obama’s key policy agendas, including climate change and LGBT rights along with the civil rights history section.

The various subsections of the White House website were replaced with just six; energy, foreign policy, jobs and growth, military, law enforcement and trade deals."

The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc – Latest News & Video

The Rachel Maddow Show on msnbc – Latest News & Video: ""

Monday, January 16, 2017

In Trump’s Feud With John Lewis, Blacks Perceive a Callous Rival - The New York Times





"Days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald J. Trump is engaged in a high-profile feud with some of the country’s most prominent African-American leaders, setting off anger in a constituency already wary of him after a contentious presidential campaign.



Mr. Trump’s criticism of Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a widely admired leader of the civil rights movement, has prompted a number of Democratic lawmakers to say they will not attend his inauguration on Friday.



Blacks around the country have reacted to Mr. Trump’s remarks with fury, and the subject has dominated social media and discussions among black activists. Mr. Trump said on Saturday on Twitter that Mr. Lewis, who asserted last week that Mr. Trump was not a “legitimate president,” should focus on his district and “the burning and crime infested inner-cities.”



The angry reaction is driven not only by Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts but by what many blacks say they reveal about the president-elect’s lack of understanding of the reverence with which the civil rights movement and its leaders are viewed by African-Americans.



“I don’t think we have ever had a president so publicly condescending to what black politics means,” said Mark Anthony Neal, an African and African-American studies professor at Duke University.



Mr. Neal added that while other presidents, like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, may have imposed policies that hurt black communities, they were more sensitive to issues of race. Mr. Trump, through Twitter, is giving the world access in real time to his unvarnished thoughts, which Mr. Neal called “raw, unsophisticated, ignorant and uninformed.”



“He doesn’t care that people think the civil rights movement was important,” Mr. Neal said. “He doesn’t feel the need to perform some sort of belief that it is important.”



Mr. Trump’s talk is especially striking as it comes during the transition period, when, typically, incoming presidents are focused on trying to bring the country together.



Mr. Trump has also not made any public announcement of plans to commemorate Martin Luther King’s Birthday, a tradition observed by most Republican and Democratic politicians. A plan for him to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Monday has been scrapped."





In Trump’s Feud With John Lewis, Blacks Perceive a Callous Rival - The New York Times

Sunday, January 15, 2017

New Orleans Scales Back Its Extensive, Expensive Bail System | FiveThirtyEight

"Earlier this week, the Vera Institute of Justice released a report showing that New Orleans’s bail system was costly for criminal defendants — and for the city, which was spending more money to jail people who couldn’t pay bail, fines and fees than it was collecting. On Thursday, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to end bail requirements for most nonviolent city crimes.



The bill wasn’t merely the product of the Vera report, which was released Tuesday: The council had been considering changing bail requirements for months. An earlier version of the bill last year met resistance from the sheriff, judges and bail bondsmen and didn’t make it out of the council’s Criminal Justice Committee. The bill passed Thursday keeps the bail requirement for some nonviolent offenses, including illegal weapons possession and impersonation of a police officer. The Vera report was cited by Councilmember Susan Guidry in the discussion of the bill Thursday, according to Mathilde Laisne, a co-author of the Vera report.



The Vera report found that on any given day, there are about 550 people in jail in New Orleans because they couldn’t pay bail, fees or fines — about a third of the city’s total jail population. Even if, as expected, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu signs the bill passed Thursday, it won’t do much to reduce that number because most of those people have been charged with felonies, excluded misdemeanors or state crimes, which aren’t covered by the city’s bill. “It’s definitely only one step in the right direction,” Laisne said





New Orleans Scales Back Its Extensive, Expensive Bail System | FiveThirtyEight

Saturday, January 07, 2017

Thursday December 8th 2011 Vladimir Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of encouraging Russian protests | World news | The Guardian

"Vladimir Putin has accused Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, of fomenting an increasingly vociferous opposition movement in Russia, threatening to derail the two countries' fragile resetting of relations.



The accusation builds on months of Russian statements and media coverage blaming popular uprisings around the Arab world on western scheming. It comes as Washington and Moscow tussle over a host of disagreements, from missile defence to Syria.



Speaking to supporters on Thursday, Putin accused Clinton of giving "the signal" to opposition leaders, who are expected to gather with tens of thousands of supporters for a protest on Saturday. He rejected Clinton's repeated criticism of a parliamentary vote last weekend that gave Putin's United Russia party nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread reports of fraud.



"[Opposition leaders] heard the signal and with the support of the US state department began active work," Putin said during a meeting of the All-Russia People's Front, a new political movement set up to support his presidential candidacy in a 4 March election.



"We are all grownups here. We all understand the organisers are acting according to a well-known scenario and in their own mercenary political interests," he said.



Clinton raised the issue of Russia's elections again on Thursday during a visit to Brussels. "Human rights is part of who we are," she said, after Putin's comments emerged. "And we expressed concerns that we thought were well founded about the conduct of the elections.



"We are supportive of the rights and aspirations of the Russian people to be able to make progress and realise a better future for themselves."





Vladimir Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of encouraging Russian protests | World news | The Guardian

Putin is mad at Hillary Clinton for calling out his violent reprtession after Russia'a 2011 election.


Trump lies about intelligence report on Russia easily spotted | MSNBC




Trump lies about intelligence report on Russia easily spotted | MSNBC

Don Donald Trump


Trump’s alleged mob ties | MSNBC




Trump’s alleged mob ties | MSNBC