Last Call For Deportation Nation, Con't

With 10 days until the Midterms, Donald Trump plans to go all in on anti-immigrant racism next week in order to rally his fearful, hate-filled base.

President Trump is preparing to announce a sweeping border crackdown in a speech Tuesday, a week before the midterm elections, in which he is expected to invoke emergency powers to stop migrants from entering the United States and depict them as a grave national security threat, administration officials said Friday.

Trump is considering steps that would bar migrants from crossing the border and deny them a chance to apply for asylum in the United States, measures that legal scholars and immigrant rights groups say would contravene U.S. laws and international treaties, likely triggering challenges in federal court.

The president, undeterred, has been buoyed by rising approval ratings in recent weeks and eager to cudgel his Democratic rivals on border issues, depicting the migrant caravan moving through Mexico as a menace to U.S. security.

Administration officials with knowledge of the speech preparations said the exact measures Trump will announce remain under discussion, as attorneys from the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department and White House attempt to craft policies that put the administration on the least-vulnerable legal footing.

Trump plans to approach the speech as a chance to lay out his vision for an overhaul of immigration policies and border security, according to aides, eager to whip up his base and convince voters his party will take a firm stand on border security.

Democrats have accused Trump and Republicans of “fearmongering” on immigration ahead of the election.

“President Trump’s immigration policies have been a failure from day one,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “Unlike previous presidents, he has failed to work with our partners in the region, and we are seeing the consequences of his failure today.”

Trump will say he's going to seal the border and make a big production out of it, his base will buy it and go vote because they dream of the day when they can burst open heads like melons and they believe Trump will give them the chance to make that happen. 

Having such an order immediately blocked by a federal judge so that Trump can scream about the horde of evil brown people days before the midterms guarantees that the MAGAbomber gets off the front page too.

And if Hispanic or black folk get hurt or killed on the way to polling places as a result of the rhetoric, well that only means Trump is a manly man, doesn't it?  What they really want is for Trump to have to declare a national emergency and suspend rule of law, and then things get really fun, don't they?

Trump sure does love his autocrat playbook, because he's using every page in it on the way to his burgeoning dictatorship.

That Little Domestic Terroism Problem Of Ours, Con't

The MAGAbomber, as the suspect in the spate of dangerous packages this week mailed to Trump's enemies' list has been called on Twitter, has apparently been caught by law enforcement.

A man in Florida with a lengthy criminal record was arrested Friday in connection with the suspected mail bombs sent to high profile figures, authorities said.

The arrest came after law enforcement responded to two more devices on Friday — one in Florida, the other in New York — pushing the total number of packages found by authorities to 12. All of the devices were sent to people who have criticized or clashed with President Trump, and while none have detonated, officials have been on high alert and worried about whether more could be delivered.

The suspect has been identified as Cesar Sayoc, 56, according to a law enforcement official. State records show he had a criminal record dating back decades, including a past arrest for making a bomb threat.

These run-ins with law enforcement date back at least to an arrest for larceny when Sayoc was 29 years old, according to state records. Other charges of larceny, grand theft and fraud soon followed across the southern part of the state. In 2002, the Miami police arrested him for a bomb threat, a felony. Sayoc pleaded guilty without trial and was sentenced to probation, the records show.

According to the police report, Sayoc called Florida Power and Light, a power company, in August 2002 and threatened to blow them up.

“It would be worse than September 11th,” Sayoc said, according to the police report, which also said Sayoc threatened the company’s representative with physical harm if his electricity was turned off.

And of course, he's a registered Republican and a die-hard Trump fan who apparently had a white van covered with pro-Trump, anti-Democratic propaganda and he regularly went after liberals on social media.

Sayoc—who was named by several national media outlets as the man authorities arrested Friday in connection with the attempted bombings—tweeted frequently from what appears to be his account: @hardrock2016.

The account and his Facebook profile, which feature pictures of Sayoc, 56, at Trump rallies, also contain some of the same images plastered to Sayoc’s van, including flags for Florida’s Seminole tribe and collages of pro-Trump and anti-CNN meme stickers.

The Facebook account is almost exclusively pro-Trump content, including pictures and videos Sayoc purportedly filmed at one of the president’s political rallies. And the Twitter feed is littered with far-right conspiracy theories or violent threats aimed at some of President Trump’s most outspoken critics.

He appears to have repeatedly tweeted about George Soros, the liberal billionaire philanthropist who has long been the target of far-right, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

At one point, Sayoc purportedly wrote “you will vanish” in a tweet aimed at the billionaire. Soros received a suspicious package at his Westchester County home on Monday—the first of at least 12 mailed to liberal public figures this week.

Other tweets falsely claimed the February 2018 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was a false-flag operation orchestrated by Soros and his liberal allies.

It's weird how all of these domestic terrorists and mass shooters over the last couple of years are all registered Republicans who voted for and loved Donald Trump, hated liberals and the media, believed and spread conspiracy theories, and resorted to deadly violence in order to "win".  It's almost like Trump's rhetoric is gasoline on a bonfire and that Trump shares some responsibility for his legion of orcs howling for blood.

I mean it's not like the guy goes around the country regularly calling for violence against and prosecution of people he considers to be his political enemies, right?

 

Another #MeToo Moment, Con't

Only slightly behind the Trump regime and Congress and Hollywood as far as places where powerful men abuse women and have gotten away with it is Silicon Valley, and perhaps the tech industry is the worst at dealing with it.  Case in point, the latest NY Times bombshell report on legendary former Google executive Andy Rubin, the man behind the company's multi-billion dollar Android mobile operating system, and how his firing from the Big G involved a $90 million golden parachute and a 4-year cover-up.

Google gave Andy Rubin, the creator of Android mobile software, a hero’s farewell when he left the company in October 2014.

“I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next,” Larry Page, Google’s chief executive then, said in a public statement. “With Android he created something truly remarkable — with a billion-plus happy users.”

What Google did not make public was that an employee had accused Mr. Rubin of sexual misconduct. The woman, with whom Mr. Rubin had been having an extramarital relationship, said he coerced her into performing oral sex in a hotel room in 2013, according to two company executives with knowledge of the episode. Google investigated and concluded her claim was credible, said the people, who spoke on the condition that they not be named, citing confidentiality agreements. Mr. Rubin was notified, they said, and Mr. Page asked for his resignation.

Google could have fired Mr. Rubin and paid him little to nothing on the way out. Instead, the company handed him a $90 million exit package, paid in installments of about $2 million a month for four years, said two people with knowledge of the terms. The last payment is scheduled for next month.

It gets worse.  Much worse.

Mr. Rubin was one of three executives that Google protected over the past decade after they were accused of sexual misconduct. In two instances, it ousted senior executives, but softened the blow by paying them millions of dollars as they departed, even though it had no legal obligation to do so. In a third, the executive remained in a highly compensated post at the company. Each time Google stayed silent about the accusations against the men.

The New York Times obtained corporate and court documents and spoke to more than three dozen current and former Google executives and employees about the episodes, including some people directly involved in handling them. Most asked to remain anonymous because they were bound by confidentiality agreements or feared retribution for speaking out.

The transgressions varied in severity. Mr. Rubin’s case stood out for how much Google paid him and its silence on the circumstances of his departure. After Mr. Rubin left, the company invested millions of dollars in his next venture.

Sam Singer, a spokesman for Mr. Rubin, disputed that the technologist had been told of any misconduct at Google and said he left the company of his own accord. Mr. Singer said that Mr. Rubin did not engage in misconduct and that “any relationship that Mr. Rubin had while at Google was consensual and did not involve any person who reported directly to him.”

While Mr. Rubin’s exit from Google after an inappropriate relationship was previously reported, the nature of the accusation and the financial terms have not been disclosed.

Silicon Valley is broken.  Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, all these trillion-dollar companies are just too big and too powerful, and as we now know, too morally rotten to be allowed to continue. 

They must be broken up.

StupidiNews!

• The FBI continues to hunt for leads as more suspicious and dangerous packages have turned up mailed to prominent Democrats and vocal Trump regime critics.
• Two decades after Matthew Shepard was kidnapped and killed for being gay, his remains will be interred at the Washington National Cathedral.
• Saudi Arabia has changed its story on the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi once again, now saying that his death was premeditated and not unintended.
• The pharmaceutical lobby is coming down hard on Donald Trump's proposal to lower drug prices by calling it "socialized medicine" that will lead to prescription shortages and cost lives.
• CBS has ordered a Star Trek animated series for its streaming service that will take the series to a new "frontier": comedy.