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  1. Rewind is offline
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    01-09-2019, 08:26 PM #391
    Let this be a lesson: If you're a gambler betting on how many lies Donald Trump will tell, never go with the "unders." Always take the "overs."

    People bet on how much Trump would lie during his Oval Office address and won $276,424
    BuzzFeed News, Jan 9 2019 12:!7 AM

    A gambling site is paying out thousands of dollars to people who correctly bet that President Donald Trump would tell more than 3.5 lies in his Oval Office address on Tuesday. Bookmaker.eu asked people to wager on the President's truthfulness, offering odds of -145 for more than 3.5 lies and +115 for less than 3.5 lies. That means if a person bet $145 that Trump would lie at least four times, he would win $100. And some people won big. The site will lose $276,424, with 92% of its bettors correctly wagering that Trump would lie a lot.

    The maximum online wager was set at $2,000 but a few of the site's clients bet more upon request. The biggest bets of the night rang in at $25,000, $20,000, and $15,000 — all in favor of Trump telling more lies. The site used the Washington Post's Fact Checker as the arbiter of Trump's truth and lies. The Post's live blog corrected six statements that Trump made during the televised address.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...-lies-gambling

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    01-10-2019, 12:35 AM #392
    NBC News has published an essay by Nina Khrushcheva, professor of international affars at The New School, a private university in Manhattan. She is also a descendant of, and author of a book about, 1958-64 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. This is an excerpt; the complete essay is linked below.

    My great-grandfather built the Berlin Wall. Trump's wall is equally symbolic.
    By Nina Khrushcheva

    Instead of leading the world away from its worst impulses, as America did for most of the 20th century, President Donald Trump's demands for a wall on the US southern border look to be leaning closer to the autocratic acts and optics of tyrannical regimes.

    Throughout history, autocratic leaders have relied on walls to control their people. From the fierce tyrant who first began building China’s Great Wall in 220 BC to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (my great-grandfather) who ordered construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, walls have represented undemocratic forces. As a historical concept, walls often connote fear, closed-mindedness and isolationism.

    This symbolism alone should have given a President pause. Instead, Trump continues his vehement demands — and insisted on forcing a partial government shutdown once Congress balked. His opponents, meanwhile, argue that it is practically unnecessary and ideologically demeaning for the US to protect itself in such an outdated manner.

    Trump talked about his wall throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign. It was originally supposed to be concrete and paid for by Mexico. His recent proposal suggests the finished barrier could be iron or steel — and paid for by US taxpayers. Regardless of the building material, the Democrats in Congress are refusing to fund it.

    Around the globe many see this fight as a defense of American democracy. The White House, Trump's critics insist, should not be allowed to dismantle the US principles of inclusion, not exclusion. They ask why Republicans are not doing their job and providing checks-and-balances to Trump's worrying autocratic tendencies.

    The good news is that some House and Senate Republicans have begun to express disagreement with the president and the GOP leaders about the government shutdown. They should be moving faster, however. As a former citizen of the Soviet Union, which used walls to lower the quality of life of its citizens, I fear that the longer Trump's party allows him to act with impunity, the harder it could be to restore America to normalcy after he is gone.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinio...ory-ncna956411

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    01-10-2019, 02:38 AM #393
    Because Trump's childish trade wars and punitive tariffs are hurting American farmers and driving up prices for American consumers, Trump decided to use taxpayers' money to bail out the farmers -- but it seems that some of the tax money we pay in America doesn't stay in America.

    Trump farm bailout money will go to Brazilian-owned meatpacking firm, USDA says
    The Washington Post, Jan 9 2019

    US taxpayers will buy $5 million in pork products from a Brazilian-owned meatpacking firm under President Trump's bailout program, which was designed to help American farmers hurt by the administration's trade war, according to documents released today.

    JBS, one of the biggest meatpacking companies in the world, will sell 1.8 million pounds of pork products through a Trump bailout program that buys surplus commodities from farmers and ranchers, say records published by the Agricultural Marketing Service, a branch of the Agriculture Department.

    The bulk of the $12 billion bailout program consists of direct cash payments to farmers hurt by the downturn, although those payments have stalled amid the partial government shutdown. As part of the bailout, the administration is also buying $1.2 billion in surplus products from farmers, including more than $500 million from pork producers, for distribution to food banks across the country.

    In November 2018, a Chinese-owned pork firm rescinded its bid for bailout money after a backlash on Capitol Hill over the award. Smithfield Foods, owned by the Chinese conglomerate WH Group, had been awarded $240,000 in pork payments under the bailout program set up to help farmers weather the White House's trade war with China.

    "Why is USDA rewarding another foreign-owned meatpacker through its meat procurement program after the blowback it received from purchasing pork products from Chinese-owned Smithfield?" asked Tony Corbo, senior lobbyist at Food & Water Watch, which tracks federal agriculture programs.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tr...ays/ar-BBS287S

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    01-10-2019, 05:13 PM #394
    An editorial in today's Los Angeles Times assails the uninformed, authoritarian "bully" in the White House who, in a tweet, said he is cutting off FEMA assistance for California because our recent wildfires were a result of poor "Forrest Management." Those are his words -- and his spelling.

    Trump's 'forrest' mismanagement threats are as disturbingly uninformed as they are authoritarian

    In between his threats to keep the government shut for months or years if Congress refuses to fund his border wall, President Trump made time Wednesday morning to threaten to cut off disaster relief dollars to Californians whose homes were charred by wildfires last year. After complaining for the umpteenth time about the way the state manages its forests, Trump tweeted, "Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money."

    The threat is probably no more serious than it was the last time Trump uttered it. He has frequently shaken his fist at California — over its immigration policies in particular — and has rarely followed through. Still, Trump's response to the fires, like his response to congressional Democrats' refusal to waste billions of dollars on a bigger, longer border wall, reflects his disturbingly authoritarian view of the Presidency.

    Stung by criticism from California's Democratic leaders, Trump is proclaiming his intention to ignore the federal law governing disaster assistance and simply turn off the spigot of federal dollars. Frustrated that lawmakers won't fund his pet project at the border, Trump threatens to declare a national emergency so he can ignore the will of Congress and spend the money anyway.

    What’s especially galling about Wednesday's sniping was Trump's willful ignorance about the nature of California's wildfire problem. California is, in fact, getting its "act together," moving to spend $1 billion over five years to reduce fire risk and better prepare communities for the larger, more destructive fires driven, in part, by climate change. Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday called for even more money — an additional $100 million this year — to help accelerate the thinning of dry, dense forests and brush.

    Some 60% of California's forests are on federal land, however, and as Newsom points out, the US Forest Service budget has been cut by more than $2 billion since 2016. Instead of properly funding fire prevention on federal lands, where some of the most destructive fires in the state’s history have raged, Trump has repeatedly railed against the "gross mismanagement" of forests in California — whatever that's supposed to mean. Trump is myopically focused on forests when some of California's largest fires have been in the brush and grasslands.

    But such details apparently mean nothing to Trump. California leaders have dared to question his decisions and challenge his demands, therefore — in the World According to Trump — they do not deserve his government’s support. Never mind that thousands of Californians have lost their homes and businesses and are relying on federal assistance to rebuild their lives. Even if he doesn't carry out his threats, the fact that he would make them tells you a lot about the man who seeks to use the tremendous power of his office not to unite people, but to bully them into submission.

    https://www.latimes.com/opinion/edit...110-story.html

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    01-10-2019, 05:20 PM #395
    Letter from Eileen Bigelow of Whittier in today's Los Angeles Times:

    "Might Trump provide a comprehensive list of heinous crimes committed by our southern neighbors here illegally? I'm trying to recall how many of our horrible mass killings they've committed. I also wonder when Trump will devote this much fervor to gun control."

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    01-10-2019, 08:15 PM #396
    Trump was lying when he said he knew nothing about hush-money payments. Trump was lying when he said Michael Cohen was not his attorney. Trump said today he is not worried about Cohen giving the House Oversight Committee a "full and credible account" of his dealings with Trump -- and that is likely just another one of Trump's lies.

    Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen agrees to testify before Congress in February

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/u...-testimony.htm

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    01-10-2019, 11:13 PM #397
    Donald Trump visited McAllen, Texas today and was met with protests. (Think of the protests if he had come to California!) Mayor Jim Darling -- not to be confused with the father in Peter Pan -- told Trump that Texas is accepting of immigrants and already has a border and does not need, nor want, Trump's wall.

    Republican Representative Will Hurd, whose district includes much of the Texas borderland, doesn't want Trump's wall either, nor do people who own property along the border. A wall would have to be built north of the Rio Grande and they would wind up losing a lot of their land, as well as no longer being able to use the river for fishing or swimming or cattle watering.

    My favorite part of Trump's visit was a Border Patrol official showing him photographs of two border-crossing tunnels that had been dug beneath a wall that was already in place. That didn't bolster his argument for a "big beautiful wall." Agents also displayed drugs, guns and cash that had been seized at legal ports of entry, not brought in by illegal border-crossers. That, too, didn't bolster Trump's argument for a "big beautiful wall."

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    01-11-2019, 06:48 PM #398
    Frida Ghitis is a columnist for World Politics Review and a frequent contributor to CNN and The Washington Post. In an opinion piece for CNN, she calls the Trump administration "a vortex of incoherence" and says "there's a new sense of aimlessness lately in Trump's frenetic search for a crisis, his efforts to control the headlines and distract from other events and keep his base satisfied that he is the muscular fighter who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals." His number-one goal, of course, is a costly, unnecessary, ineffective border wall.

    "Trump's claim that there's an immigration crisis at the border is refuted by experts," Ghitis writes. "His demonization of immigrants treads a well-worn path of demagogues seeking to invent enemies to build support. Even people who live along the border are skeptical of his claim that a wall is a solution. And yet he has brought part of the government to a standstill over it."

    Trump is creating a 'crisis' to distract from the real crisis of a flailing President

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/10/opini...tis/index.html

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    01-11-2019, 07:02 PM #399
    Brian Kolfage, the Trump supporter who started this GoFundMe campaign, had previously raised money for wounded veterans and then kept it for himself. He also posted fake stories on Facebook and used Photoshop to create fake images of Obama having affairs and Hillary being arrested. Trump is probably proud of him.

    GoFundMe 'Trump Wall' campaign to refund all donors after falling short of $1 billion goal

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/border-...rt-2019-01-11/

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    01-11-2019, 07:34 PM #400
    Mitch McConnell is the Senate Majority Leader. I know what the Senate is and I know what a majority is -- but apparently the definition of "leader" must not be what I always thought it was.

    As shutdown drags on, McConnell heads home to Kentucky, leaving Democrats angry
    CNN, Jan 11 2019 6:08 PM ET

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was not in the Capitol today, when some furloughed federal workers missed their first paychecks and the government shutdown tied the mark for the longest in American history. McConnell, who has been brutalized by Democrats for blocking votes to reopen the government, skipped his customary remarks as the Senate gaveled in, when he might have defended his decision not to allow votes until a broad deal is reached between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over border wall funding. Instead, McConnell -- who was headed home to Kentucky -- and other Republicans largely left the floor to Democrats who gave speech after speech assailing them for not standing up for federal workers by standing up to Trump.

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/11/polit...own/index.html