May 31, 2019

WaPo: New documents on the census confirm: Trump's raison d'etre is white power

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-census-scheme-exposed-a-lie-to-increase-white-power/2019/05/31/b6f40ef6-83b3-11e9-95a9-e2c830afe24f_story.html?utm_term=.cec1891032b6

This week, the hood came off.

The Trump administration has devised a fundamentally racist policy: adding a question to the 2020 Census that will suppress participation by nonwhite people and, therefore, artificially increase white (and Republican) power in a new round of gerrymandering.

To do this, administration officials falsely told the public, the lower courts and the Supreme Court that the disadvantage to nonwhite Americans was statistically questionable and that the Justice Department needed the change to enforce the Voting Rights Act.

But documents released this week prove this all to be a ruse. Officials lied about their motives.

The documents, from the files of the late architect of the plan, show that this gerrymandering expert (Thomas Hofeller, whose role the Trump administration did not disclose to the courts) wrote a 2015 study saying his scheme (to use voting-age citizens for redistricting rather than total population) would require a “radical redrawing” of legislative districts that would “be advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.” This “would clearly be a disadvantage for the Democrats,” he wrote, packing Democratic voters into fewer districts and “strengthening the adjoining GOP districts.”

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May 31, 2019

WaPo Op Ed: If Trump doesn't warrant impeachment, who does?

By Eugene Robinson

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-trump-doesnt-warrant-impeachment-who-does/2019/05/30/0ae3ee8a-8311-11e9-bce7-40b4105f7ca0_story.html

What would a president have to do, hypothetically, to get this Congress to impeach him?

Obstruct a Justice Department investigation, perhaps? No, apparently that’s not enough. What about playing footsie with a hostile foreign power? Abusing his office to settle personal grievances? Using instruments of the state, including the justice system, to attack his perceived political opponents? Aligning the nation with murderous foreign dictators while forsaking democracy and human rights? Violating campaign-finance laws with disguised hush-money payments to alleged paramours?

Giving aid and comfort to neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Defying requests and subpoenas from congressional committees charged with oversight? Refusing to protect our electoral system from malign foreign interference? Cruelly ripping young children away from their asylum-seeking parents? Lying constantly and shamelessly to the American people, to the point where not a single word he says or writes can be believed?

President Trump has done all of this and more. If he doesn’t warrant the opening of an impeachment inquiry, what president ever would?

The message that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III delivered Wednesday was clear. Keeping scrupulously within the bounds of his 448-page report, he took pains to highlight three points: If the evidence had shown that Trump was innocent of obstruction of justice, the report would have said so. Mueller believed, however, that he had no authority to charge Trump with a crime. And “the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal-justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”

That process, like it or not, is impeachment. I’ve been back and forth on the wisdom of taking that step, but there’s one question that nags me: If the impeachment clause of the Constitution wasn’t written for a president like Trump, then why is it there?

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May 31, 2019

Jonathan Pie - Polarised Politics

May 31, 2019

It's Getting Worse: The IRS Now Audits Poor Americans at About the Same Rate as the Top 1%

As the agency’s ability to audit the rich crumbles, its scrutiny of the poor has held steady in recent years. Meanwhile, a new study shows that audits of poor taxpayers make them far less likely to claim credits they might be entitled to.

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-now-audits-poor-americans-at-about-the-same-rate-as-the-top-1-percent#

Every year, the IRS, starved of funds after years of budget cuts, loses hundreds more agents to retirement. And every year, the news gets better for the rich — especially those prone to go bold on their taxes. According to data released by the IRS last week, millionaires in 2018 were about 80% less likely to be audited than they were in 2011.

But poor taxpayers continue to bear the brunt of the IRS’ remaining force. As we reported last year, Americans who receive the earned income tax credit, one of the country’s largest anti-poverty programs, are audited at a higher rate than all but the richest taxpayers. The new data shows that the trend has only grown stronger.

Audits of the rich continue to plunge while those of the poor hold steady, and the two audit rates are converging. Last year, the top 1% of taxpayers by income were audited at a rate of 1.56%. EITC recipients, who typically have annual income under $20,000, were audited at 1.41%.

Part of the reason is ease. Audits of EITC recipients are largely automated and far less complicated.

“While the wealthy now have an open invitation to cheat, low-income taxpayers are receiving heightened scrutiny because they can be audited far more easily. All it takes is a letter instead of a team of investigators and lawyers,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.

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May 31, 2019

Blue Wave CA-45 freshman moderate Katie Porter never talked about impeachment,her constituents have

changed her mind, she is getting pressed at town halls, etc. We are going to start haemorrhaging base support if we do not at least start an enquiry.

CA-45 is Orange County, it is Democratic-held now for the first time since its creation. Porter is the archetypal new moderate Rep. in a pink or purple district that people point to when they say we cannot even do an enquiry. If she has now changed her mind, I see an inflection point coming eventually which Pelosi is not going to be able to ignore. The roadblockers fail to grasp the distinct possibility that stonewalling on even an enquiry can end up costing us far more votes than moving forward with a first step of an enquiry being opened.


Representative Katie Porter Faces Constituents And Impeachment Questions | The Last Word | MSNBC

Fresh off a town hall with her constituents in California, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter talks with Lawrence about her feelings on impeaching president Trump and what her constituents think of her performance in Washington.


more evidence.....

Black Voters Challenge House Members: Why Is Trump Still in Office?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/us/politics/black-voters-impeachment.html

May 31, 2019

Our latest Westminster voting intention has the Lib Dems in first place and the Brexit Party second

with Labour and the Tories pushed into third.

YouGov
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Our latest Westminster voting intention has the Lib Dems in first place and the Brexit Party second place, with Labour and the Tories pushed into third:
Lib Dem - 24%
Brexit Party - 22%
Con - 19%
Labour - 19%
Green - 8%
UKIP - 1%
Change UK - 1%
Other - 6%

Lib Dems lead the polls as they start to become “the party of the 48%”

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/05/30/lib-dems-lead-polls-they-start-become-party-48?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=website_article&utm_campaign=VI_29_May_2019

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1134215891644801027

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1134215894379503621

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1134215896917041152

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1134215899492311042

May 30, 2019

If I was impregnated due to rape, I have been told I need to get over it that a Dem Governor may

very well soon sign a bill (Bel Edwards) in Louisiana that would potentially put me in prison for an abortion. I have been told to accept this due to the fact that Louisiana is a Red State and that he will do a bit of good on other fronts.

FUCK THAT SHIT.

If this is the length we are now going to go to as a Party, I am beyond dismayed. It is OUTRAGEOUS that we will now submit to one of our own signing goddamn anti-human rights level legislation in order to claim a damn 'D' after the name of a governor. I will be FUCKED if I acquiesce to this rot in the name of political expediency. I do not give a DAMN if the calculation/rationalisation is that it would would A-OK for him to do this if the SCOTUS (a different SCOTUS ,with Clintonian appointees) would smash it down. NO IT WOULD NOT make it ok! No one put a bloody gun to his head to sign this ROT and anyone who signs into law a bill that gives the government to right to make me carry to term a rape pregnancy is FUCKED. Seriously, they can FUCK RIGHT OFF.

If this gets me banned, then I go leaving you all knowing I AM RIGHT!

Bel Edwards, the willing enabler of RADICAL Rethug xians MONSTERS, can fuck right off. My fucking womb, all women's wombs and our collective fundamental body/reproductive autonomy are NEVER up for political gamesmanship (I say gamesmanship because almost all of these bastards are MEN) and Machiavellian bargains!!!!!!

May 29, 2019

The brand new one page memo from Mueller's office that MSNBC was talking about

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New document from Mueller’s office contrasts Barr’s assertion about how Mueller determines if there “was an obstruction of justice” — to Mueller’s different explanation:

https://twitter.com/AriMelber/status/1133792145230434306

May 29, 2019

Kamala Harris: We need to start impeachment proceedings. It's our constitutional obligation.

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What Robert Mueller basically did was return an impeachment referral. Now it is up to Congress to hold this president accountable.

We need to start impeachment proceedings. It's our constitutional obligation.

6:08 PM - 29 May 2019

https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1133767050000838657

May 29, 2019

AP: Booker says Mueller clearly suggests impeachment

https://www.apnews.com/48deed79280b4256be9f44a2e0414747

12:20 p.m.

Cory Booker is calling on fellow congressional Democrats “to begin impeachment proceedings immediately” in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s public statement on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including the question of whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice.

The Democratic presidential candidate and New Jersey senator tweeted the statement Wednesday after Mueller spoke publicly for the first time since he was appointed two years ago.

Booker has previously declined to press for impeachment. But he said Mueller’s statement “makes it clear: Congress has a legal and moral obligation” to initiate the impeachment process.

Mueller referred to a Justice Department legal opinion that says “the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”

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