https://www.npr.org/2018/11/30/672430998/ex-dallas-officer-charged-with-murder-of-unarmed-black-neighbor

The white former Dallas police officer who shot and killed her unarmed black neighbor in his apartment, which she says she had entered it by mistake, was indicted on a murder charge by a grand jury Friday.

Four-year police veteran Amber Guyger, 30, was originally charged with manslaughter three days after the Sept. 6 slaying of Botham Shem Jean, 26, a native of the Caribbean island of St. Lucia and Dallas accountant.

As NPR reported on the aftermath of the controversial killing,

"An affidavit for an arrest warrant says the officer found the door ajar at what she thought was her own apartment. It says it was dark inside, she saw the silhouette of a man, and she gave him orders that he didn't follow. She told investigators she thought the man was a burglar.

"An attorney for the family disputed that version of events, according to WFAA TV. Lee Merritt said he talked with two witnesses who said they heard knocking at a door and a woman they believed to be the officer saying, 'Let me in.' He also said Jean had placed a red mat at his door to differentiate his apartment from the others...

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-voters-cal-20181130-story.html

California Republicans, drummed out of office by the carload in the recent election, have exited whining.

They’ve figured out why they got thumped so badly, and it’s simple: California, that dastardly state, allowed voters to vote. The result was that seven Republican House seats turned Democratic, including all four in Orange County, transforming that once reliably GOP stronghold into a blue streak.

“I just think it’s weird,” outgoing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said of California’s system of allowing every vote to be counted, even if it’s filed with local election officials days after election day. “California defies logic to me.”



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The GOP’s focus on California is understandable, given its decline in the state. But it’s probably a mistake for the party to avoid noticing that its problems are more widespread. Ryan lamented that the party was down by only 26 seats on election night but today, three weeks later, its losses come to 40. California, however, accounted for only five of those late gains.


The most comprehensive whine about California’s vote has come from Shawn Steel, a former state Republican Party chair, writing in the conservative Washington Times. Steel’s argument deserves careful scrutiny, especially since he concedes at the outset that “there’s no evidence of ballot box shenanigans” in California.

Instead, Steel complains, California has changed its voting laws to allow more voters to vote. Taking Steel’s particulars from the top, they are:


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4. Teen preregistration. The state has begun registering 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, in preparation for their casting ballots after they turn 18. Steel calls this “a thinly veiled effort to capture voters while they’re young and more likely to identify as liberal Democrats” and notes that “of the nearly 89,000 minors that participated in the program, only 10 percent registered as Republicans.”

There’s an obvious solution to this for Republicans: Start advocating policies that young persons find appealing, rather than the racist, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ pap that the GOP has become identified with. Maybe then more young people will register as Republicans.

https://twitter.com/PMBreakingNews/status/1068893328387842049

https://twitter.com/Kokomothegreat/status/1068902466056581122

Limbaugh knows this isn't true. but he's part of the coordinated effort of Faux news and rightwing radio to keep the Trump base ignorant.


https://twitter.com/amvetsupport/status/1068739040910831617

Just like with McCain he will complain that too much is being done to honor GHWB

“Repulsive though he is, nominee Trump’s character defects aren’t what make him a threat. What does sicken and alarm, and what ought to concentrate African American minds, is the thought of Trump with the powers of the presidency in his hands. Therein lies the danger.”

I admit that, at the time, I did not fully appreciate just how damaging and degrading a Trump presidency could become. Trump’s two years of shameless and cynical exploitation of fears and anxieties within the ranks of his white base of support, and his unprincipled governance, have left this country more fractured along racial lines than at any time since the civil rights revolution.

The Trump effect has drawn the attention of The Post, the FBI, the Anti-Defamation League and other entities concerned about the hatred he has let loose in the land.

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And it’s being demonstrated through his federal judicial appointments. Trump’s racial animosity can’t get anymore obvious than his choice of Thomas Farr to be a district court judge in North Carolina.

Farr is well known for his work as a lawyer defending a 2013 North Carolina voter ID law ruled discriminatory against African Americans. The federal appeals court that struck down the law called it “the most restrictive voting law North Carolina has seen since the era of Jim Crow,” saying it targeted black voters “with almost surgical precision” because the forms of voter identification North Carolina deemed acceptable were ones disproportionately used by white people.

Farr also worked on the reelection campaign of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) in 1990 that the Justice Department said sent more than 120,000 postcards to African American voters telling them that they were ineligible to vote and might be arrested if they tried.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) and two other members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote in a letter last year to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing Farr’s nomination that “it is no exaggeration to say that had the White House deliberately sought to identify an attorney in North Carolina with a more hostile record on African-American voting rights and workers’ rights than Thomas Farr, it could hardly have done so.”

There it is. Trump knew what he was doing, and what the nation would be getting, when he chose to put Thomas Farr on the federal bench — a voter suppression advocate after Trump’s own heart.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-knew-just-how-damaging-and-degrading-a-trump-presidency-would-be/2018/11/30/4a30f536-f4bb-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html?utm_term=.24d76bc1d184

Michael D’Antuono depicted Trump as a cards-cheat in his biting reimagining of Andy Thomas’ “The Republican Club.”

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-presidents-painting-reimagined-michael-dantuono_us_5bffe10de4b027f1097b0f60

A heartless New Jersey substitute teacher shattered the hearts of first-graders when she revealed that Santa Claus isn’t real, according to a report Friday.

The unnamed sub let the Christmas spirit-stomping secret slip at Cedar Hill School in Montville on Thursday, prompting officials to send parents apology letters, according to NJ.com.

“During the course of the day, a substitute teacher apparently announced to the class that Santa was not real,” Michael J. Raj wrote in the letter, which was provided to the site. “As a father of four myself, I am truly aware of the sensitive nature of this announcement.”

Raj told parents he was giving them a heads up about the bah-humbuggish behavior, in case their kids have questions about whether St. Nick is legit.

“[I’m writing] so that you are aware of the situation and if the conversation comes up at home over the next few days you can take appropriate steps to maintain the childhood innocence of the holiday season,” he said in the letter.

Raj gave the substitute teacher a talking-to about her “poor judgement in making this proclamation,” he said, according to nj.com.

The school’s superintendent, Rene Rovtar, added that she was “troubled and disheartened by this incident.”
https://nypost.com/2018/11/30/new-jersey-teacher-tells-first-grade-students-there-is-no-santa/

if his mouth is open, he's lying

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/donald-trump-tower-moscow-project-admits/

President Donald Trump attempted to downplay the stunning admission by his former personal attorney that he had lied to Congress about efforts to develop a Trump Tower project in Moscow well into the presidential election, insisting in a pair of tweets Friday morning that his business dealings were “very legal and very cool.”