JaneAusten

At least with Trump(and his entire administration including Pruitt and the "I was just following orders for torture" Gina Haspel) the world is getting a real sense of who America is as the so called "responsible leadership". Obama could have reshaped our role and image but in some ways he couldn't. I believe he realized his role as the first black president and had he varied too far of the so called "establishment" presidential role, he would have been impeached. whether he broke a law or not. The hatred and resentment for him was that high. The US is an imperialistic empire. As much as Russia may have interfered in our election, the real culprits are the Saudi's and Israeli's. Their politicking has led us to break the Iran deal plus Trump's desire to undo everything Obama did. The Iran deal had it's flaws but it is the one positive I can point to in his foreign policy strategy for the middle east. Israel wants the unrest as do the Saudi's. And it also benefits Russia. Trump is following the Bush Jr. Middle East playbook now. Next coming - war with Iran. Count on it.

Well if it's any consolation, the Deputy AG is the former assistant Federal Prosecuter under Preet Bharara in the SDNY

I know the Guardian has a piece on this a couple of days back. And kudos to them. Farrow is becoming quite the journalist. I am guessing it's some of the same sources he used for this, but IMO he's sitting on a gold mine. This is dirty and traitorous. No Israel is not part of the US but they might as well be the way that we pander to them. I think many of us will always have empathy for Israel. The rest of the middle east doesn't want them there or on the planet, and defending oneself is critical. But they have truly become a brutal regime, and have turned into an apartheid state. Netanyahu has been the worst thing to happen to them and us. He was the one who fed Cheney the "intelligence"(I'll call it idea) to make up the WMD story about Iraq. Now Israel is using that blueprint with Iran. Iran ain't Israel and our allies who were with us on Iraq, are not there with Iran. I want to know why the media and press bend over for Israel and Saudi Arabia. Well I know. They are bought and paid for by large corporations. Thank goodness for independent journalism. NBC is looking dumber and dumber for blocking Farrow's work.

Conroy must be a Jesuit like the Pope is. Explains why Ryan holds him with so much contempt. He can't stand anyone who has sympathy for the poor or believes education is necessary.

The fact that this man feels he deserves a comeback is delusional. How many of these people are sociopaths. He apparently is.

This is one example at least right now of the US backing out in some capacity of foreign involvement around the world and it having a hopefully positive impact. In this case it was accidental as 45 is such a fool and incompetent, it forced the South and North Koreans to take the lead. This is far from over and I don't believe North Korea will denuclearize, but it's a good step. And yes IMO China will ultimately be the biggest capitalistic beneficiary of this. The fear of course is continued human rights abuses and that spreading compared to the reverse, but time will tell. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/world/asia/north-korea-south-kim-jong-un.html

There was an article about 4 months ago - where I don't recall - that talked about how the GOP had lost at that time 5-8 percent of it's members.

It's hard for me to not be cynical. I understand there are women and children who have died from the gas attacks, but I can't help forget that when Saddam was our Ally, we turned a blind eye to the atrocities he committed towards his own people, we also are complicit in the starvation crisis going on in Yemen. The one thing we could do we are not doing, which is providing humanitarian aid and cover. Why are we only accepting34 Syrian refugees yet we are oh so outraged at Assad's chemical attacks against women and children we could provide refuge to and could care less that over 500k Syrian civilians have been killed in Syria over the past 7 years, victims of other forms of violence.

So it seems as if the Oklahoma Teachers are not happy that their union ended the walkout and accepted what they see as a subpar solution. We will see what happens. Maybe @Khan as you live there you can share some insight. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/9kggj8/oklahoma-teachers-arent-happy-their-union-ended-the-walkout-after-nine-days

I don't believe the tax plan is polling effectively at all. If you recall, they ended up pulling the ads in the PA race that Connor Lamb won because it ended up working against them. Ryan's tweet bragging about a secretary getting an extra $1.50 a week is a prime example as to how out of touch these people are.

Bingo and part of the reason Vietnam was so unpopular was because we had a draft and that people actually for the first time had the real images of war brought to them on TV thanks to reporters like Dan Rather. The caskets coming home was also heavily covered at the time. My cousin gave up a 4 year baseball scholarship to Purdue to enlist at the time as a marine because his dad(my uncle) served in WW2 as one. He was killed after 7 months serving. My uncle never forgave himself and turned into a pacifist as a result. Folks should watch this speech by Eisenhower at the end of his final term warning Americans of the Military Industrial Complex. The itch to war has a LOT to do with exactly what he warned Americans of.

One of the best parts of the renewed activism has been seeing the education community finally seem to stand up in mass. First in West Virginia, Arizona, and now in places like Oklahoma and Kentucky. As someone who's worked in the education field, it's gratifying to see these folks standing up, some without the support of their unions.

I never believed he wouldn’t pardon anyone but I do think with several such as Kuschner and Trump Jr. who would be the most,likely to be pardoned, will be up being prosecuted in New York if it happens, where Trump has no pardoning authority. There has been rumors that Mueller is in fact working with AG Schneiderman in NY. On another topic So crooked Scott Walker in Wisconsin backed into a corner decided he actually needs to hold special elections in Wisconsin, after attempts to delay knowing seats may goto Democrats. There was talk that the Wisconsin legislature was going to change the law in lieu of the courts order here, but apparently they dropped that as well. A minor victory but every battle matters. http://www.wbay.com/content/news/The-Latest-Wisconsin-DOJ-appeals-special-elections-order-478177563.html

You know why I can't take Haberman as more than the new Rona Barrett? Is because her White House source is likely Trump himself.

I only read the local playbook for Politico which covers local issues by Natasha Korecki. The rest meh. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/illinoisplaybook I tend to agree with you on the national news stories and I appreciate the recommendation and am going to look into it. I don't know by the way talking about news sources if anyone has followed what The Guardian did the past 48 hours. They gave the editorial staff of the award winning Eagle Eye, the student paper for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, to guest edit their publication. They also assigned 11 journalists from that student paper to cover the march and rally in Washington D.C. Some saw this as pandering, but if you read some of the content and their manifesto, it shows these young people know a lot more than a lot of Americans out there. https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-us-press-office/2018/mar/23/the-guardian-invites-student-journalists-from-parkland-florida-to-serve-as-guest-editors-of-guardian-us-for-the-next-48-hours

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/03/25/stormy-daniels-60-minutes-5-new-things/457414002/ Interesting not one mention of the potential campaign finance violations. Not salacious enough I guess, even though it was described as worse than John Edwards

Such a tragic story. Another beautiful young life taken by a gun. Sorry to hear this and it hurts even more when it's so close to home. Take care.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kris-kobach-proof-of-citizenship-trial_us_5ab508d2e4b0decad0494b28?v4d So if you were not following this, the ACLU basically destroyed Kris Kobach's voter fraud claims in that trial over the last few weeks.

Im not expecting any kind of dramatic turn in the MSM and press but at least we are finally seeing a few stories on PoC and economics and now WoC and politics. It’s been tiring seeing the same old WWC Trump supporter stuff endlessly. I’m not suggesting any kind of dramatic change, but it’s gratifying to see a couple of stories. Let’s hope they continue. Maybe The NY Times can actually hire some diversity on their OpEd Page vs pretending diversity with the likes of Bari Weiss. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/record-number-black-women-are-candidates-alabama-n857576

Dumb but not shocking.

Bolton was all for the war in Iraq and with Cheney pushed it and still considers it a success, despite how we left Iraq and the rest of the middle east. He also is reputed to be one of the architects of the false intelligence info on the WMD lie. Don't believe for a second Trump does not want to be a war president. He just hired the top war monger of the United States next to Cheney.

This is the first time I have been seriously terrified since Jan 2017. John Bolton is the worst thing out of a series of awful and bad.

He ran unopposed. The GOP never bother slating a candidate against him which was likely intentional+. They always have in the past regardless of losing badly. Dan Lipinski the blue dog in the same district looks like he pulled out a narrow win over a progressive Marie Newman. How? When Bernie supporters talk about how great open primaries are, lets remember Lipinski likely won because Illinois is an open primary state and republicans in his district likely pulled democratic ballots to not voter for the Nazi. Lipinski is conservative enough for some of them.

As I listened to the Family Meeting yesterday on the radio(my fave radio program), they pointed out white people in America are getting the *ss whooping minorities and to a lesser degree white women have been getting for years. No matter how powerful this country thinks we are, the world is moving on. And I will say it again, the big winner here is China who is no longer even pretending it's trying to strike a balance with authoritarianism. Diff between Xi and Trump, Xi is more polished, smart, ruthless and dangerous in the long run.

Food for thought. Read John Deans book “the Nixon Defense what he knew and when he knew it”. Very important item about Deep Throat. Thet all knew it was Mark Felt but were afraid of having him fired or getting him outed becauase of all he knew about many things and the potential retaliation of members of the FBI.