NSFW THE TRUMPOCALYPSE

[MadamSarcastra]

Why Is Bill Browder Banned from America?

 

[Andy_T]

President Trump still thinks tax reform will pay for itself

 

[FortyTwo]

In the last day or so, I keep hearing that no administration has done more in the last 9 months than the current administration...doesn't he mean "undone" more? Kind of not the same thing.

"Done" more as in, had more notable events happen during the presidency and related to it? Absolutely.

"Accomplished"? Well.

 

[Mischief]

Jeff Flake, Republican Senator from Arizona, has announced he will not run for re-election in 2018:

“Here's the bottom line: The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is a path I'm not willing to take, and that I can't in good conscience take,” Flake told the Republic in a telephone interview. “It would require me to believe in positions I don't hold on such issues as trade and immigration, and it would require me to condone behavior that I cannot condone.”

Analysis | Jeff Flake’s big white flag in the face of Trumpism

The GOP is the party of trump. This sets the seal on it.

 

[MadamSarcastra]

Eric Trump and Don Jr. Are Planning to Open 'Plantation-Style' Luxury Hotels in Poor Black Areas

 

[Mischief]

From Jeff Flake's speech on the floor of the Senate:

“Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is,’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified,” Flake said on the Senate floor. “And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else: It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength—because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and weakness.”

“We must never regard as ‘normal’ the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals,” he said. “We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country—the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve. … They are not normal.”

“I am aware that a segment of my party believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect,” he said. “Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party.”

'I Will Not Be Complicit'

 

[Calliegirl]

It would be nice to see these Republicans actually do something, instead of making just making grand exit speeches. Actions speak louder than words, and they have the ability to show it with their votes.

 

[MadamSarcastra]

'Jane Doe' Immigrant Has Abortion In Texas, After Battle With Trump Administration

 

[MadamSarcastra]

https://www.salon.com/2017/10/24/th...r&tse_id=INF_c8519500b9ad11e78240a3a6bbddd67d

 

[Mischief]

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus (R) announced Wednesday he will retire at the end of his current term in office, a decision that comes after a year in which his battles with conservatives in the state Senate dominated Lone Star State politics.

Straus, who is from San Antonio, has served as Speaker since 2009. He is seen as a close ally of business interests in Austin and a pillar of traditional Republican conservatism.

Straus, the first Jewish Speaker in Texas history, also endured a fusillade of anti-Semitic assaults on social media, complete with swastikas and other Nazi imagery. Even some state Republicans who wanted to replace Straus said they would prefer a Christian hold the Speaker’s office.

Texas House speaker to retire after battles with conservatives

We need to face it - it's very likely that things will get a whole hell of a lot worse, rather than better.

 

[MadamSarcastra]

Trump Releases New Version Of 'Make America Great Again' Hat, And The Jokes Came Rolling In

 

[Mischief]

A federal judge in California on Wednesday denied a request from 19 attorneys general across the country to force the Trump administration to resume funding of cost-sharing payments under the Affordable Care Act.

The ruling leaves intact President Trump’s decision earlier this month to immediately end the payments that reimburse insurers for discounts the law requires them to give lower-income customers with health plans through ACA marketplaces. The attorneys general, from 18 states and the District, were seeking a judicial order that would have maintained the funding.

In his decision, Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California wrote that resuming the payments to insurers “would be counterproductive.”

Chhabria pointed out that most states’ insurances regulators had already prepared for a possible end to the money, by allowing companies to charge higher rates for the coming year.

Federal judge refuses to order the Trump administration to resume ACA payments

 

[Mischief]

Premiums for the most popular ObamaCare plans are rising by an average of 34 percent in 2018 in states that use Healthcare.gov, according to a new independent analysis.

The study released Wednesday by consulting firm Avalere Health said the premium increases in "silver" plans are being driven primarily by marketplace instability amid uncertainty over the future of ObamaCare.

Specifically, the study said the Trump administration's elimination of cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments, lower than anticipated enrollment in the marketplace, limited insurer participation and insufficient action by the government to reimburse plans that cover higher-cost enrollees all helped contribute to the premium increases.

Analysis: Premiums for most popular ObamaCare plans to rise 34 percent

 

[Mischief]

Alexander Nix, who heads a controversial data-analytics firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign, wrote in an email last year that he reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about Hillary Clinton’s missing 33,000 emails.

Nix, who heads Cambridge Analytica, told a third party that he reached out to Assange about his firm somehow helping the WikiLeaks editor release Clinton’s missing emails, according to two sources familiar with a congressional investigation into interactions between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Those sources also relayed that, according to Nix’s email, Assange told the Cambridge Analytica CEO that he didn’t want his help, and preferred to do the work on his own.

If the claims Nix made in that email are true, this would be the closest known connection between Trump’s campaign and Assange.

Cambridge Analytica did not provide comment for this story by press time.
After publication, Assange provided this statement to The Daily Beast: ”We can confirm an approach by Cambridge Analytica and can confirm that it was rejected by WikiLeaks.”

Trump Data Guru: I Tried to Team Up With Julian Assange

 

[MadamSarcastra]

Congress: Trump Won’t Implement Russia Sanctions—and He Won’t Tell Us Why

 

[Mischief]

Immigrant advocates are protesting the Border Patrol's apprehension this week of a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who is in the country illegally after she was operated on at a Texas hospital.

Federal immigration officers intercepted the child as she and a cousin, who is a U.S. citizen, were in an ambulance being transferred between two hospitals so that she could receive emergency gall bladder surgery.

Rosamaria Hernandez was brought to the United States illegally from Mexico when she was 3 months old, according to her family and immigrant advocates involved in her case. She was traveling in an ambulance to Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi when federal immigration officers stopped the vehicle at a checkpoint.

The Border Patrol agents followed the ambulance to the hospital. When the hospital discharged the child, Border Patrol agents took the 10-year-old into custody instead of allowing her cousin to take her back to her parents, who are also in the country illegally, in Laredo.

The young Mexican national has now been transported to a government-contracted juvenile shelter in San Antonio, 150 miles from Laredo, and put into deportation proceedings.

Democrats in Congress recently demanded the homeland security secretary rein in immigration agents making an increasing number of arrests at or near hospitals, churches and schools. Immigrant advocates are calling it the latest outrage under President Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement.

Alex Galvez, a lawyer representing Rosamaria, tells Newsweek that "this wouldn't have happened during the Obama administration."

"This current administration wants to send a clear message to all undocumented immigrants — that if you want to go to [a] hospital, you better think twice about it because you might be deported," he told the magazine.

10-Year-Old Girl Is Detained By Border Patrol After Emergency Surgery

This is what we are as a nation now.

Despicable.

 

[MadamSarcastra]

 

[MadamSarcastra]

 

[Mischief]

All too true.

 

[Mischief]

The grand jury has approved the first criminal charges resulting from Mueller's investigation. The person(s) charged may be arrested as early as Monday. No information yet as to identities.