Honeycombe8
Honeycombe8's JournalWouldn't it be odd for someone to cite a "Donald Trump for President" article in this forum?
As proof of an "alternative" story that would be bad for Democrats? (Not as an example of a wacko theory.)
And the article is in a rightwing hack site?
Question submitted by Honeycombe8
What a bad week for Trump.
Emoluments lawsuit can proceed.
Stormy Daniels case is proceeding...the lawyer on tv and aggressive.
Trumpers disgusted over new spending bill signed by Trump.
Trump can't find a new lawyer.
Trumpers not liking tariff law, so Trump walking that back, gradually exempting almost all countries besides China.
Appeals Court rules against the Trump Travel Ban (again).
Trump loses arbitration to win back control of Panama hotel
Comes out that Trump campaign aide Rick Gates was knowingly in contact w/a Kremlin spy.
PPP poll approval rating has dropped to its lowest level in months (but different poll shows highest rating in months, at 42%)
--and--
Mueller is still there.
How to look up your Facebook data (the stuff that was mined)
I just looked up my Facebook data, to see the stuff that could have been mined. Wow. Everything is there, I think. The photo, the groups you participate in, your posts, your private messages, your profile, etc.
If you haven't, here's how to do it. https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/
"Stormy Weather" (in honor of the Stormy interview today)
Small local elections in BubbaLand....surprise!
I hope these small local elections show there is a continuing blue wave. These elections were in south Louisiana, very much a red area.
There was a mayoral election in a neighboring small city: The Democrat beat the incumbent Republican. 58% to 42%.
There were several councilman elections: Of the several, two Democrats ran. BOTH won.
Turnout was good.
In short, whenever a Democrat ran, s/he won.
This is good news. I hope this is a sign of a continuing blue wave. If the blue wave is in the deep south in small elections, it's a very good sign.
Is your area having a March for Our Lives MFOL today???? My dark red gun-totin' area is!
I didn't think my area would have a March for our Lives today. I live in a dark red deep south area. I call it BubbaLand. There is no Democratic Party presence here. Pickup trucks & guns is the way it rocks here.
So I did a search, just to see....and guess what? There IS a March for our Lives! Imagine that!?! Someone registered it! There's a location and everything! I RSVP'd to the march!
So I'm going to go and see what's up and support the cause. It may be only a handful of young people, but for there to even be such a protest in this area is remarkable. The info on the march says they are not advertising it, so as to avoid interference before it gets under way. Who registered the protest? And why does it not start until 6:00 p.m.?
Is YOUR area having a MFOL protest today? https://event.marchforourlives.com/event/march-our-lives-events/search/
Schumer & Pelosi press conference on Omnibus Spending Bill
The talk about the substance of the bill starts at 17.00.
Trumpers & The Freedom Caucus will have a fit listening to this, as Schumer lists the positives from a Dem Party point of view, and as they listen to all the (gasp!) spending.
Pelosi is at 23:20, where she explains why the Repubs did the bill on a fast track & not the regular three-day order, was because they didn't want their colleagues to see what was in the bill. (a little zinger there)
And from a rightwingnut point of view, you can check out, on your own, reactions by Ann Coulter & Rush Limpballs, for funsies.
I think I'm beginning to get this Schumer-Trump relationship. They are both big guys in New York. The spending bill gives NY $60 BILLION for a tunnel, but doesn't fund the Mexican border wall (well, a small amt for repairing existing fencing and such). There's something else in the bill for NY, but nothing for the Repub immigration issue or low-income programs in education. So altho Trump didn't write the bill (of course...can he write?), he would not have been opposed to big bucks for NY. What's good for NY is good for Trump.
4 Winners, 4 Losers in the new $1.3 TRILLION spending bill
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17152122/winners-losers-omnibus-congress-spending(Note: I put these items in my own words, except where I indicate quotation marks or excerpt blocking. If I missed something or accidentally used the same terminology, that is a mistake and was not my intention. I deleted a lot of detail, and wrote a gist of what was passed, so hopefully it's just a rundown that is easier to read than the article.)
1. No funding for going after sanctuary cities.
2. Repubs wanted funds for 1,000 more ICE agents & 500 border officers, & more detention beds. What they got: May have to reduce detention beds, $ for about 325 more agents & border officers combined.
3. $1.6B border wall funding (W.H. asked for $25B), most of which goes for repairing existing fencing or double fencing where fencing already exists. (Funding with restrictions.)
1. Democrats did a deal with the Repubs to amend language to fix an error made in spending bill passed end of 2017 (about agricultural tax breaks), in exchange for expanding the low-income housing tax credit that goes toward building more affordable housing.
2. IRS gets $196M budget boost.
DeVos wanted $1B for big plans to cut budgets for public schools & after-school programs and spend instead on vouchers & such.
What she got: None of it.
1. Educ. Dept gets $3.9B increase in budget.
2. DeVos wanted to cut $1.7M from Office of Civil Rights (a bureau in Education). Office of Civil Rights budget was INCREASED by $8.5M.
3. DeVos wanted to freeze Pell Grant awards for low-income students at $5,920. The bill INCREASED them to $6,095.
4. DeVos wanted to cut mental health programs. The bill has more funding for school-based mental health programs.
5. DeVos wanted to cut programs to help low-income students with college. The bill INCREASES those programs.
I'd say that's a resounding rejection of DeVos' leadership.
1. The Census Bureau will get another $1.34B in funding, double what the Trump admin. proposed. This was a Democratic priority.
2. For the first time ever, the bill requires the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency that produces reports on a wide variety of procedural and policy topics, to post all of its reports online.
3. The bill also includes a proposal that will reinforce the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the system gun sellers use to verify if someone is eligible to buy a gun. This bill increases enforcement, steps up requirements for federal and state agencies to update records, gives states financial incentives to report to NICS, and penalizes agencies that don’t upload their records.
But she didn’t see a vote on the health care bills in return.
She co-sponsored a bill to fund the Obamacare subsidies.
1. The spending bill does not include Collins' bill to fund the subsidies.
1. The National Institutes of Health got a $3 billion funding increase for medical research.
2. The spending bill clarifies that current law doesn’t prevent any federal agency from using taxpayer money on public health research about firearms. (a result of a larger debate Congress has been having about gun control after the tragic school shooting in Parkland, FL).
The Freedom Caucus has come out against the bill. They called it an “insult to America’s taxpayers, as well as their many rank-and-file representatives who had no say in the omnibus negotiations.” The Heritage Foundation tweeted that the omnibus was an “embarrassing rundown of broken promises.” Sen. Bob Corker called it “grotesque.”
It's a $1.3 TRILLION spending bill, one of the largest ever...far from the conservative "small government" meme. And it doesn't fund going after sanctuary cities or defunding Planned Parenthood.
During the Obama admin., a regulation was passed that gave workers sole propriety over the tips they earned.
1. The spending bill repeals the regulation, and gives employers control over the tips. But it adds a worker protection (an amendment by Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA) that will bar employers from taking their workers’ tips.
(Note: I'm not convinced this worker protection is enough, but we'll see.)
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17152122/winners-losers-omnibus-congress-spending
All in all, it's not as bad as it could have been. What is missing in this article is the BIG WIN for the military. Why isn't that listed?
And I confess it gives me pleasure that the alt-right and apparently some Trumpers are not happy with this bill....not happy at all. I've seen some comments in another forum by Trumpers, asking..."Well, if you're a liberal, are you happy NOW???" As if, "Look what you've done." Another one posted that he was sorry he had been taken by this guy (Trump) because of funding the murderous Planned Parenthood.
We tried to tell them. He LIES. He's unreliable. He's mental. All they have to do is wait until tomorrow...he'll probably be tweeting at how horrible the bill is, and how it's so-and-so's fault for misleading him about what was in the bill. We know how it goes. The buck always stops...over there somewhere.
Google launches news initiative to combat fake news
Source: Reuters
Google is launching the Google News Initiative, to weed out fake news online and during breaking news situations, it said in a blog post on Tuesday.
Google said it plans to spend $300 million over the next three years to improve the accuracy and quality of news appearing on its platforms. (bit.ly/2DHgQf0)
The changes come as Google, Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) face a backlash over their role during the U.S. presidential election by allowing the spread of false and often malicious information that might have swayed voters toward Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-news/google-launches-news-initiative-to-combat-fake-news-idUSKBN1GW2C0
I hope this works. Whatever happens with this, things should be better for the mid-terms, insofar as fake news, with Facebook, Twitter, and Google all on the hot seat about what happened, and with steps that are, and will be, taking place to combat fake news.
I believe that this is one reason Trump adopted the "fake news" meme. Because he participated in a scheme to spread fake news, and it's part of the GOP strategy to attack your opponent with negativity that you yourself are guilty of, before they get a chance to do it. That way, after you have claimed "fake news," they own the term, so when the opposition tries to use it, it falls flat and seems more like a "you, too" thing said defensively.
Also why he yelled "the election is rigged!" When all along, HE had participated in rigging the election.
Hope whatever Google does, helps with this problem, though. For myself, I use news organization sites directly, whenever possible. I don't rely on "news" on social media, like Facebook. If it's not being reported by Reuters, AP, CNN, MSNBC, MSN, NBCnews, CBSnews, etc. Legitimate news orgs that at least have a vetting procedure in place for what it reports. Some journalistic cred.
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Member since: Sat Feb 10, 2007, 01:29 PM
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