Category: Constitution

Round And Round: The Web Spins ‘Round Trump

Nick gates to change plea

Nick Gates will change his plea to guilty, testify against Paul Manafort.

The web spins ever more tightly, creeping closer and closer to Donald Trump.

From the LA Times:

A former top aide to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign will plead guilty to fraud-related charges within days — and has made clear to prosecutors that he would testify against Paul Manafort, the lawyer-lobbyist who once managed the campaign.

The change of heart by Trump’s former deputy campaign manager Richard Gates, who had pleaded not guilty after being indicted in October on charges similar to Manafort’s, was described in interviews by people familiar with the case.

Gates will change his plea to guilty within the next few days, according to the report.

And this:

Gates, 45, who is married with four children, does not appear to be well positioned financially to sustain a high-powered legal defense.

“He can’t afford to pay it,” said one lawyer who is involved with the investigation. “If you go to trial on this, that’s $1 million to $1.5 million. Maybe more, if you need experts” to appear as witnesses.


Donald Trump Betrays America. He Must Be Stopped.

The GOP must get on board with stopping Donald Trump. The man is selling out this country piece by piece.

He must be impeached. As soon as possible.

From his Twitter rants today.

Trump’s latest Tweets

Trump’s latest Tweets

Why does Trump want to be Kim Jong-un’s friend?

why does he trust Putin over American intelligence?

Why is he still obsessed with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? Why does he feel so inadequate?

Why is he still in office?


Rand Paul’s Cliven Bundy Says People Think He’s Racist Because Martin Luther King Jr. Didn’t Finish His Job

Cliven Bundy

Cliven Bundy

Well, now I know who Cliven Bundy is, and I wish I didn’t.

And, for the life of me, I don’t understand why he’s getting so much attention.

Bundy has been allowing his cattle to graze on federally-owned lands. The feds don’t want that to happen any more. Bundy used an “ancestral rights” argument, likening his treatment to the way Native Americans were treated by the United States.

This man is a real tool.

Here is part of a CNN interview where he blames Martin Luther King Jr. that he, Bundy, can’t say anything he wants, like the N-word, calling black men “boy,” etc.

Watch as he moves from offensive to more offensive.

And, until he came out with his racist comments, Senator Rand Paul and other members of the GOP adopted him as their new love child.

Watch the interview and cringe:

H/T: http://www.politicususa.com


Get Rid of Corporate Rule! Direct TV Parody Compilation

Get rid of corporate rule!

The full campaign spoofing the Direct TV commercials, produced by Acronym TV for Move To Amend. All six spots, each about 30 seconds, are included here in this single video. 

Written by Lee Camp and Dennis Trainor, Jr, and Directed by Trainor, these spots aim to hijack a popular meme to shine a seriously unserious light on the issues of corporate personhood and money as free speech. 

Move to Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests.

We are calling for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.

Over 300,00 people have signed the Move To Amend statement that states:
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other related cases, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights. 

Links to each video as a stand-alone piece are below. We encourage you to share these far and wide.

Move To Amend, Direct TV Parody Campaign:
Don’t Be A Naked Hulk http://bit.ly/1eMqmeQ
Don’t Do Interpretive Street Corner Dance http://bit.ly/IKi65g
Don’t Miss The Supermodel Love Letter http://bit.ly/19fbNwm
Don’t Get Ducked Taped To A Chair In The Yardhttp://bit.ly/1g3IG7b
Don’t Do Cats http://bit.ly/1bdJL8P
Don’t Be A Loser With No One At Your Birthdayhttp://bit.ly/18YCOI2

Move To Amend’s Direct TV Parody Compilation
Written by Lee Camp and Dennis Trainor, Jr
Directed by Dennis Trainor, Jr.
Editing, graphics, keying and color correction by AJ Russo
Associate Producer Christopher Webb
Costumes Lara de Bruijn

Corporate personhood, Supreme court, Super Bowl Ad, Super Bowl parody ad, Super Bowl spoof commercial, Douche waffle, Douche Waffles, Money free speech, corporations are not people, corporate personhood, Lee camp, Dennis Trainor Jr, Acronym TV, parody, satire, comedy, spoof, Direct TV, Move To Amend, Amend the constitution, Legalize Democracy, End Corporate Rule.


Damn the GOP. What They’re Doing Is Unprecedented, Immoral, and Evil

The GOP government shutdown just hit home for a close friend.

His son, a laborer who lives in a so-called "Right To Work" state, was out of work. He had been let go from his previous job because he became injured outside of work. Rather than give him a month to heal, which is all he needed, his employer at the time just let him go. Tried to tell him that he was doing him a favor. That he could collect unemployment, as opposed to making nothing for the 30 days or so he would need to heal.

And his employer knew that this lad had only worked for him for five months, therefore not qualifying for unemployment. And, it turns out, this employer has done this to other workers, letting them go in the fifth month of employment, so the employer has to pay neither benefits nor unemployment.

This is what the GOP refers to as "Right To Work," the myth that, forbidding unions from requiring workers to join a union when they get a job, workers now can be "free" of union dues and work, because, dammit, they have the right to work.

In reality, it means states full of workers, like my friend’s son, who have no union protection, no unions who negotiated fair working conditions. None of that. Not at all.

And employers can be as ruthless as the nasty members of the GOP, some of the meanest pols we’ve seen since just before the Great Depression, when robber barons ruled, and pols danced to their commands.

So my friend’s son applied for another job. Went through the entire interview process. Passed every background check, drug test — paid for by the hiring company — and was given his "new employee" packet.

And, on what was supposed to be his first day of work, was told that the company could not start him, because of the government shutdown.

Because of the government shutdown, the company was not certain that some contracts would be upheld.

That’s not what they told him at first. But, after he pressed them, they admitted this was, in fact, the case. The government shutdown.

The damn GOP government shutdown.

His son says it was evident the company was scrambling. Some news from on high had reached the blue collar workers, and the company, and American company, was being downsized.

These inglorious GOP members of Congress have got to go.

All of them.

They claim that this shutdown is the fault of the Democrats and the Democratic President who "refuse to negotiate.

Bullshit.

And here’s proof.

From BillMoyers.com, proof that this debt ceiling crisis is not politics as usual:

Never before has a minority party linked controversial legislative demands with a threat to shut down the government or imperil the global economy. But House Republicans would have you believe otherwise.

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this morning, Rep. Paul Ryan writes that president Obama “says he ‘will not negotiate’ on the debt ceiling. He claims that such negotiations would be unprecedented. But many presidents have negotiated on the debt ceiling—including him. ”

Ryan was referring to a speech given in September before the Business Roundtable — an association of CEOs of large US companies — in which the president said, “You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt ceiling being used to extort a president or a governing party, and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and have nothing to do with the debt.”

Ryan continued: “He’s refusing to talk, even though the federal government is about to hit the debt ceiling. That’s a shame — because this doesn’t have to be another crisis. It could be a breakthrough.”

But that’s spin: Negotiating would set a dangerous precedent, because Obama’s right that this time really is different. Here are three reasons why.

Go to the original article here and read, and then act.


Obama Continues to Kick Ass as POTUS: U.S. Says Navy SEAL Team Captures Shabab Leader in Somalia

From the NYTimes:

A Navy SEAL team targeted a senior leader of the Shabab militant group in a raid on his seaside villa in the Somali town of Baraawe on Saturday, American officials said, in response to a deadly attack on a Nairobi shopping mall for which the group had claimed responsibility.

The SEAL team stealthily approached the beachfront house by sea, firing on the unidentified target in a predawn gunbattle that was the most significant raid by American troops on Somali soil since commandos killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Qaeda mastermind, near the same town four years ago.

The Shabab leader was believed to have been killed in the firefight, but the SEALS were forced to withdraw before that could be confirmed, a senior American official said. Such operations by American forces are rare because they carry a high risk, and indicate that the target was considered a high priority. Baraawe, a small port town south of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, is known as a gathering place for the Shabab’s foreign fighters.

Read more here.


Quash the Teabaggers! Reclaim America!

The following is from Congresswoman Robin Kelly:

This morning at 12:01am, Congressional Republicans shut down the government.

Millions of Americans are going to suffer — seniors, veterans, students, businesses, and workers — while those responsible for the shutdown get paid.

Democrats in Congress need to hear that the public is on their side in this fight and we need them to stand strong.

Click here to call Rep. Robin Kelly and tell her to stand strong against Tea Party demands.

This shutdown will end in one of two ways:

  1. Democrats will cave and cut vital programs like Social Security or
  2. Republicans will cave to immense public pressure. 

Flooding Democrats’ offices with phone calls will make sure it’s not option 1. We’re also running online ads targeting Republican Speaker John Boehner to make sure he feels extra pressure back home. 

Can you call Rep. Kelly and tell her that the American people need Democrats to stand strong? Click here.

Thanks for being a bold progressive. 

From Turning Left:

Thank you, thank you all, for being bold progressives!

Stay true, and reclaim America from the Tea Baggers!


Video: Former President Bill Clinton Explains the Affordable Care Act

On Wednesday, September 4, President Clinton delivered remarks from the Clinton Presidential Center on the critical role a high quality, affordable and accessible health care system plays in the United States and any country’s economic and social well being. Throughout his public career and now through the work of the Clinton Foundation, President Clinton has championed increasing access to health care and improving health systems for everyone.


I Don’t Trust the Government with All This

Wow.

This has been going on for quite some time.

I don’t trust the government with all this.

Not. At. All.

From the New York Times:

The National Security Agency is winning its long-running secret war on encryption, using supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications in the Internet age, according to newly disclosed documents.

The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world, the documents show.

Read more here.


Is the United States in Good Company on the Death Penalty?

Is the United States in good company?

These are the countries that permit the death penalty:

Death Penalty Permitted

  • Afghanistan
  • Antigua and Barbuda
  • Bahamas
  • Bahrain
  • Bangladesh
  • Barbados
  • Belarus
  • Belize
  • Botswana
  • Chad
  • China (People’s Republic)
  • Comoros
  • Congo (Democratic Republic)
  • Cuba
  • Dominica
  • Egypt
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • Ethiopia
  • Guatemala
  • Guinea
  • Guyana
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Jamaica
  • Japan
  • Jordan
  • Kuwait
  • Lebanon
  • Lesotho
  • Libya
  • Malaysia
  • Mongolia
  • Nigeria
  • North Korea
  • Oman
  • Pakistan
  • Palestinian Authority
  • Qatar
  • St. Kitts and Nevis
  • St. Lucia
  • St. Vincent and the Grenadines
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Singapore
  • Somalia
  • South Sudan
  • Sudan
  • Syria
  • Taiwan
  • Thailand
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Uganda
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United States
  • Vietnam
  • Yemen
  • Zimbabwe

Read more: The Death Penalty Worldwide | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html#ixzz2dJ2nEMbb