Look up idiot in the dictionary and you may see this picture.
President Donald Trump’s actions and words in office have tarnished America’s image and the very idea of the country far more than the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough on Tuesday, which marked the anniversary of strikes in New York and Washington D.C.
Scarborough, a frequent critic of Trump, was expounding on an op-ed he wrote for The Washington Post and described how the country was able to rebuild and come together after the attacks. Unlike the way in which he claimed the president had damaged the nation’s image around the globe.
“Forget about knocking down buildings in the financial district. Forget about running planes into the Pentagon. Those are tragedies, but those tragedies bring us closer together. America is an idea, you gut America of that idea that’s when you do the most harm,” Scarborough said.
He specifically noted the president’s travel ban on immigrants from predominantly Muslim-majority countries, as well as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s refusal to speak about the ban during his confirmation hearings.
“The accumulation of that, the retweeting of neo-Nazi videos, Charlottesville. I mean I could go on and on, what he said about majority black countries. That is tearing more at the fabric of America than attacks on the Twin Towers did. We rebuilt from that. We became stronger because of that. But this seems to me a far graver threat to the idea of America,” Scarborough said.
Scarborough also pointed to failed American policies since the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives at New York’s Twin Towers, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. The country has since fought two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with troops still stationed in each Middle East nation and no end in sight.
“Sixteen years of strategic missteps have been followed by the maniacal moves of a man who has savaged America’s vital alliances, provided comfort to hostile foreign powers, attacked our intelligence and military communities, and lent a sympathetic ear to neo-Nazis and white supremacists across the globe,” Scarborough wrote in The Post op-ed.
Scarborough continued: “For those of us still believing that Islamic extremists hate America because of the freedoms we guarantee to all people, the gravest threat Trump poses to our national security is the damage done daily to America’s image. ”
The president started Tuesday morning by firing off a tweet regarding his ongoing feud with the FBI and Justice Department over the Trump-Russia probe, rather than a message commemorating the lives lost on 9/11.
However, Trump and first lady Melania are scheduled to participate in a ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the memorial for flight United 93.
How In The Hell Can Anyone Not See This Corruption?
Remember Anthony Weiner, also known as “Carlos Danger” — the former congressman who kept texting people pictures of well, umm, that part of his name? It all made quite the splash because he is married to Hillary Clinton’s consigliere and constant sidekick, Huma Abedin.
Turns out that Anthony was such a perp — and so enthralled with his own — that he was sexting with a minor. That is a federal offense carrying up to 10 years in prison. So, he got raided by the New York Police Department and the New York office of the FBI.
They seized his laptop computer. It would have been bad enough if it had only had contained all his porn. But it posed a huge problem for the FBI, DOJ and Mrs. Clinton.
Comey had already exonerated Hillary of her blatant Espionage Act violations and obstruction of justice violations two months before — in time for her to wrap up the election they all expected and wanted her to win.
Peter Strzok and the Trump-hating key players in the Clinton email “investigation” were already well into crafting and leaking the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
Only a few hours after the New York office of the FBI took possession of the Weiner laptop, on September 26, 2016, the FBI computer expert discovered it contained more than 140,000 emails involving Hillary Clinton. They were from multiple domain names: State.gov, Clintonemail.com, ClintonFoundation.org, HillaryClinton.com and Blackberry devices. The agent had what he told the inspector general was an “oh shit moment” — recognizing that he had found evidence important to the most important investigation — and he immediately reported it up the chain.
We already knew that President Barack Obama was emailing her on her unsecure server at Clintonemail.com, and Cheryl Mills had written an email noting how “obvious” it was to anyone that this was not State.gov and therefore unsecure. The president jolly-well knew it was not a secure communication as he used an alias.
This was a gargantuan problem for the FBI and for Mrs. Clinton. Other people knew about it, too.
Indeed, according to the inspector general, 39 high-ranking FBI agents knew of it, along with the New York office and people in the New York U.S. Attorney’s office. The New York FBI informed them all during a secure video-conference on September 28 — chaired by Andrew McCabe.
One agent said the announcement of finding hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop was “like dropping a bomb in the middle of the meeting.”
The New York agent Sweeney followed up with two calls to McCabe later that evening — after McCabe did not call him as promised.
So . . . what did McCabe, Comey and Strzok do? They sat on it until police officers in New York and FBI agents in New York threatened to expose them.
By October 28, it was only 11 days before the election. Comey panicked. The jig was up. They had been hiding it for three weeks. Comey’s guilt and concern for his own career caused him to realize he could not keep it quiet any longer.
Everything exploded when Comey wrote a letter to Congress vaguely reporting the discovery of “additional emails that appear to be related to the investigation.” He wrote further, “the FBI cannot assess at this time whether or not the material may be significant.”
Comey’s words to Congress are belied by the inspector general’s report who bought none of their excuses for the multi-week delay in addressing the emails.
On October 30, 2016, The Daily Caller reported that the Department of Justice had not even sought a warrant for review of the 350,000 Clinton emails.
Breitbart reported on November 4, 2016 that the New York Police Department officers who had seen the evidence on Weiner’s laptop had threatened to blow the whistle. Remarkably, the “Justice Department” shut them down by allegedly threatening to indict NYPD officers on the two-year old death of Eric Gardner if the NYPD disclosed it.
In a stunning assertion, Director Comey told the Inspector General he did not know Anthony Weiner was married to Huma Abedin. Perhaps they should have told him it was “Carlos Danger?”
Either Comey was bald-faced lying, which is punishable under 18 U.S.C. §1001, or the level of ignorance and incompetence inherent in that representation alone warranted his termination.
Moreover, if Comey’s claim were true, then Comey, McCabe and Strzok should have flown into action at the mere thought of a perverted stranger in a sexual offense investigation having 350,000 emails of the secretary of state including highly classified information — covering her entire tenure there.
From the FBI’s and DOJ’s “handling” of the “Weiner problem,” there is more than enough evidence to demand immediate production of the Weiner laptop and all emails should be obtained from NSA or otherwise to be given to an independent special prosecutor for a full and thorough investigation.
In addition, all of this raises scores upon scores of additional questions.
Here are just 10 such questions:
1. What are the names of all the people the FBI has identified as having emailed Hillary Clinton on her obvious unsecured server at Clintonemail.com? (We already know Obama emailed her on it under an alias. Which other high-ranking officials also emailed Clinton at her unsecured server? What about Robert Mueller? What about Eric Holder?
2. Did the inspector general ask Lynch about threats to NYPD to prosecute officers if they didn’t back down on exposing the email cover-up? Why not?
3. Did the FBI show Hillary the email by Cheryl Mills stating it was “obvious” Clintonemail.com was not secure?
4. Who are the three — just three — FBI agents who reviewed the Weiner laptop and conducted the miraculous de-duping and review in only a few days of 350,000 emails that covered her entire tenure as Secretary of State?
5. Who in the Department of Justice reviewed the 350,000 Clinton emails on Weiner laptop?
6. Who in Department of Justice talked to the New York office about the Weiner laptop?
7. How many classified, top-secret and even more secret chains were found from Clinton’s own production on Weiner’s laptop?
8. Who stripped the classified and confidential markings from the documents Mrs. Clinton received before sending them to her?
9. Where is Weiner’s laptop right now?
10. Who made that phone call from the Department of Justice to the New York Police Department? Exactly what was said?
Idiots wasting taxpayer money on fake Climate Change.
Los Angeles officials are going forward with a $40,000-a-mile program to coat public streets to fight climate change, despite the city’s many financial challenges — including a $73 million budget shortfall for dealing with the ever-expanding homeless population.
The program uses a light-colored sealant to cover the streets, which decreases the pavement temperature of so-called “heat-islands,” according to media reports.
The LA Street Services began rolling out the project last May, which preliminary testing shows has reduced the temperature of roadways by up to 10 degrees.
The project involves applying a light gray coating of the product CoolSeal, made by the company GuardTop.
Los Angeles painting city streets white in bid to combat climate change
California officials are hoping their latest attempt to stem the rising tides of climate change leads to a more socially conscious — and cooler — summer.
“CoolSeal is applied like conventional sealcoats to asphalt surfaces to protect and maintain the quality and longevity of the surface,” according to the company website. “While most cool pavements on the market are polymer based, CoolSeal is a water-based, asphalt emulsion.”
advertisement
Last year, the L.A. Daily Newsreported on the high cost of the project — and that local officials approved it nonetheless.
The morning temperature of the black asphalt in the middle of a nearby intersection read 93 degrees. The new light gray surface on Jordan Avenue read a cool 70 — on what would turn out to be the first heat wave of the year.
“It’s awesome. It’s very cool — both literally and figuratively,” exclaimed Councilman Bob Blumenfield, whose Los Angeles district includes Canoga Park, squinting into the laser handheld thermometer. “We are trying to control ‘the heat island effect’ ” — or hotter temperatures caused by urban sprawl.
“The downside: we won’t be able to fry eggs on the streets,” Blumenfield said.
Los Angeles painting city streets white in bid to combat climate change
California officials are hoping their latest attempt to stem the rising tides of climate change leads to a more socially conscious — and cooler — summer.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is eyeing a run for the White House in 2020, has embraced the program “as part of an overall plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city by 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2025,” according to Fox News.
And environmental activists are praising L.A.’s street-sealing project.
“Advocates are confident that advances in asphalt technology will drive down the cost,” Mother Nature Network reported on Sunday.
“There’s also the related economic benefits to consider: in once-sweltering neighborhoods where streets are now painted white, residents will be less likely to crank the air conditioning on full blast, leading to significant savings on energy bills and decreased emissions,” the website reported.
“What’s more, the highly reflective nature of white-coated asphalt means that street lighting doesn’t have to kick in quite as early in the evening, saving additional energy.”
What About All The Killings By Gang Members And Homies In The Hood.
A group of Chicago youth staged a “die-in’ at City Hall to demand that the city defund police and fund marginalized communities instead. The youth, all members of #NoCopAcademy, also announced that the organization is suing Mayor Rahm Emanuel for withholding critical emails regarding construction of the proposed $95 million building for a Police and Fire training center in West Garfield Park.
They Are On Their Way To College I’m Sure.
“Rahm supports schools and resources for cops, not for Black and Brown kids,” their mission reads. “We demand a redirecting of this $95 million into Chicago’s most marginalized communities instead. Real community safety comes from fully-funded schools and mental health centers, robust after-school and job-training programs, and social and economic justice. We want investment in our communities, not expanded resources for police.”
Today, members of the #NoCopAcademy — a movement led by Black youth in Chicago but fueled and organized by a group of multiracial youth— took over Chicago’s City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle Dr., to demand that the mayor invests in black and brown communities and resources for the youth.
The young protestors first disrupted the Chicago City Council meeting and then staged a “die-in” in the City Hall lobby. The group set up cardboard tombstones with the names of people killed in police shootings, like Laquan McDonald, an unarmed Black teen fatallyshot by Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke. The tombstones also had the names of schools, mental health facilities, and social service institutions that have been shut down by the city due to lack of funding.
“16 shots and a cover-up!” the group chanted as police arrived at the lobby, a twitter video shows.
The youth argue that Chicago already spends $1.5 billion on police every year, an approximately $4 million every day.
“We spend 300% more on the CPD as a city than we do on the Departments of Public Health, Family and Support Services, Transportation, and Planning and Development (which handles affordable housing). This plan is being praised as a development opportunity to help local residents around the proposed site, but when Rahm closed 50 schools in 2013, six were in this neighborhood,” their mission reads.
West Garfield Park is a predominantly Black neighborhood and it was in September 2017 that community leaders decided to take matters into their own hands by creating the #NoCopAcademy Movement, wrote Juanita Tennyson for Teen Vogue. The group of teens met with City Council members, held press conferences, canvassed and door knocked on the West Side to raise awareness of the project.
Maria Mora, described as a lead organizer and canvasser with #NoCopAcademy spoke before City Council and said that the group had surveyed 500 residents of West Garfield Park and communities nearby about the project.
“88% are opposed,” she said. Mora added that the majority agreed that building a police academy was not the “best deal for a $95 million investment” in the neighborhood, and 7% need more information.
Listen. Listen listen listen! Maria has been leading canvassing on the west side asking neighbors of proposed cop academy what they think. She breaks down the results of the 500 people surveyed so far here and it’s
She added that most people agreed that the investment in the West Side should be in community safety, schools, community spaces, mental health clinics, substance abuse clinics, homelessness and to reclaiming abandoned spaces.
During a Council meeting in November 2017, Chance the Rapper spoke out against Rahm’s plan and shortly after took it to social media, making #NoCopAcademy a trending topic.
Today, the Grammy-winning South Side rap artist sent his support to the youth at City Hall through a tweet.
“Students in Chicago are staging a SIT IN at City Hall right now. I ask that you stop by and show them that you are in SUPPORT of their REVOLUTION. Bring food if you can, these children are fighting for our future kids as well as themselves #NoCopAcademy121 N LASALLE ST,” he tweeted.
Students in Chicago are staging a SIT IN at City Hall right now. I ask that you stop by and show them that you are in SUPPORT of their REVOLUTION. Bring food if you can, these children are fighting for our future kids as well as themselves #NoCopAcademy
121 N LASALLE ST
“All the aldermen on the West Side voted for this because they understand — they have felt forgotten from the type of public investments that can spur economic growth,” Emanuel said. “It will have its own value of safety for the entire city. It will have its own value of safety… to the West Side. And it will be an investment in the kind of economic activity we want to see.”
Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) in charge of the West Garfield Park area said that the academy would provide a way for the department to try to fix some of the training inadequacies and, that way, address the pattern of constitutional violations by police against residents. She added that the training center could be an anchor for economic development and give residents a sense of safety in a part of the city that has been beset by poverty and violence for decades, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The only aldermen to vote no was Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) who in the midst of today’s action in City Hall tweeted a series of photos of an introduction of an ordinance for a “Chicago Civilian Oversight Commission.”
“#LaquanMcDonald, #RekiaBoyd, the victims of police violence deserve TRUE civilian oversight & accountability. This ordinance from Mayor’s Public Safety Committee Chair is a joke and an insult to the victims of police violence and every Chicagoan fighting for justice in policing.”
I got off work early for spring break and headed directly to City Hall where #NoCopAcademy organizers and supporters have taken over the lobby since around noon.
Obama, stands with his nominee to become Health and Human Services secretary, Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell who is the President of the liberal college now.
American University rolled out a $121 million diversity and inclusion plan Tuesday, which includes the creation and implementation of a mandatory two-semester race and social identity course.
American has allocated $60 million for FY 2018, though it began spending the $121 million last spring, and intends to keep spending through next year.
The majority of the funds have been earmarked for scholarships to minority applicants, but $7 million has already gone toward the creation of the American University Experience course.
The first section of AUx, taken in the first semester of freshman year, is built as a psychological, social, cultural, and academic transition into college life. Topics covered include “exploring and expressing identities,” as well as “diversity, bias, and privilege,” in addition to mental health maintenance.
The sole focus of the second semester is “race and social identity.” Students will be instructed in identifying and countering the “coded, contentious, or uncomfortable ways” in which “ethnicity, gender and sexual expression, class, disability, and religion are often discussed.”
“AUx2 seeks to create a space for conversations and learning about these topics that pushes beyond the norm,” according to the course description.
The year-long class will be mandatory for freshman starting in fall 2018, as part of American’s overhauled core curriculum — which includes an additional, separate “Diverse Experiences” requirement.
AUx director Andrea Malkin Brennertold a campus news outlet, “The best critique of things that we could change for [the course] would be to expand the number of intersectional identities that we talked about.”
An effort to increase faculty diversity has also been promised in the new American diversity blueprint .
The school has said the initiative has been in the works for the last couple of years, but its character was impacted by incidents in recent semesters that some have labeled racist.
In May bananas marked with the acronym for the black women’s sorority were found hanging from noose-like ropes, while in September a Confederate flag was hung on campus. Last week, anti-immigration posters were found posted around the campus.
According to a 2016 campus survey, 33 percent of black students reported feeling included at American, compared to 71 percent of white students.
The University of Maryland-College Park announced last week that it had allotted nearly $4 million for diversity programming, including a $200,000 program to train student leaders on intercultural competency, following the murder of a black Bowie State University student by a white Maryland student in May.
