Political Block Busters

The courts have come out to say that political figures, government public servants, after all, cannot block people on social media for opposing viewpoints under the First Amendment.

Does the First Amendment bar public officials from blocking people on social media because of their viewpoint?

That question has hung over the White House ever since Donald Trump assumed the presidency and continued to block users on Twitter. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University has sued the president on behalf of blocked users, spurring a lively academic debate on the topic. But Trump isn’t the only politician who has blocked people on social media. This week, a federal court weighed in on the question in a case with obvious parallels to Trump’s. It determined that the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause does indeed prohibit officeholders from blocking social media users on the basis of their views.

Davison v. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors involved the chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Phyllis J. Randall. In her capacity as a government official, Randall runs a Facebook page to keep in touch with her constituents. In one post to the page, Randall wrote, “I really want to hear from ANY Loudoun citizen on ANY issues, request, criticism, compliment, or just your thoughts.” She explicitly encouraged Loudoun residents to reach out to her through her “county Facebook page.”

Brian C. Davidson, a Loudon denizen, took Randall up on her offer and posted a comment to a post on her page alleging corruption on the part of Loudoun County’s School Board. Randall, who said she “had no idea” whether Davidson’s allegations were true, deleted the entire post (thereby erasing his comment) and blocked him. The next morning, she decided to unblock him. During the intervening 12 hours, Davidson could view or share content on Randall’s page but couldn’t comment on its posts or send it private messages.

Davidson sued, alleging a violation of his free speech rights. As U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris explained in his decision, Randall essentially conceded in court that she had blocked Davidson “because she was offended by his criticism of her colleagues in the County government.” In other words, she “engaged in viewpoint discrimination,” which is generally prohibited under the First Amendment. Cacheris elaborated:

Defendant’s offense at Plaintiff’s views was therefore an illegitimate basis for her actions—particularly given that Plaintiff earned Defendant’s ire by criticizing the County government. Indeed, the suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards. By prohibiting Plaintiff from participating in her online forum because she took offense at his claim that her colleagues in the County government had acted unethically, Defendant committed a cardinal sin under the First Amendment.

In response to Randall’s claim that Davidson retained the ability to express his views elsewhere, Cacheris cited the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Packingham v. North Carolina, in which the court asserted that social media may now be “the most important” modern forum “for the exchange of views.”

“The Court cannot treat a First Amendment violation in this vital, developing forum differently than it would elsewhere,” Cacheris wrote, “simply because technology has made it easier to find alternative channels through which to disseminate one’s message.”

So what does this mean for Trump?  It depends on what he means his official Twitter account is for.

There’s just one lingering issue with this comparison: It isn’t clear whether Trump intends his personal Twitter page to function as a public forum the way Randall did. (Trump has a presidential account, @POTUS, from which he does not block users—but he doesn’t use it for interesting communications.) Public officials have more latitude to censor expression in personal, private forums than they do in forums that they use to speak in their official capacity. Trump’s lawyers will almost certainly argue that his personal Twitter feed is a private forum, not a government project.

But that argument will likely fail. As Trump’s recent tweets banning transgender military service demonstrate, the president uses Twitter not just to convey official policy but also for lawmaking. This habit would seem to turn his feed into a quintessential public forum. And so, under the First Amendment, he lacks the power to block those users who tweet their discontent at @realDonaldTrump.

The WHite House too has said that such declarations on Trump's persona Twitter account amount to official public statements by the administration, and that means in no way is Trump's account "private".

It would seem obvious that the account must remove all blocks for that reason, but then again Trump doesn't really care about the law, does he.
 

Drive (Out) The All-New Reince Priebus

With the collapse of Trumpcare in the Senate, Tang the Conqueror is going to be looking for some heads to roll in order to sate his impotent rage, and it looks like the head on a silver platter that Trump will get is that of White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

But gosh, who could ever replace such an effective lead brawler for the Oval Office?

Reince Priebus is still the White House chief of staff and on Wednesday he told ABC News he intends to remain in the position, but people close to President Donald Trump say he is increasingly frustrated with the management of the West Wing and the president’s most trusted advisers are already making suggestions about who could be the next chief of staff. 

Here is a list of possible Priebus replacements being talked about: 

White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway: Conway has had some tough days in the White House over the past six months, but by all accounts her stock is rising. Close personally to the president and first lady, Conway was the first woman to serve as campaign manager on a winning presidential campaign. She would be the first woman to serve as chief of staff. 

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg: Currently the chief of staff and executive secretary for the National Security Council, Kellogg already spends a lot of time around the president. He was also an important adviser to the president during the campaign and one of the first senior military officers to endorse Trump. He has earned the trust of a president who likes to be in the company of generals. 

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney:Mulvaney didn’t have much of a relationship with the president before the inauguration, but he came highly recommended by Vice President Mike Pence to be OMB director. The president has come to rely on him when it comes to dealing Congress and, of course, on budget issues. 

Retired Gen. John Kelly: To many in the president’s inner circle, Homeland Security Secretary Kelly is considered the MVP of the Trump Cabinet. Kelly might well be the president’s first choice for chief of staff, but there is a big downside: He also likes him in his current role. 

Newt Gingrich: Gingrich has spent a lot of time with the president in recent weeks and has become a close confidant of the Trump family. He is a loyalist from the early campaign days but is not afraid to tell the president when he thinks he is making a mistake. Most recently, Gingrich told Trump he should not fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 

Other possibilities being bandied about include Tom Barrack, Corey Lewandowski, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Gary Cohn.

I don't think Trump will choose a current cabinet member or current GOP member of Congress should Reince go.  Trump would have to have forgiven Newt for the 2016 campaign for him to get the job, and Trump doesn't forgive people.  Conway and Lewandowski remain the most likely choices, but in the end it'll be whomever Jared and Ivanka talk him into, so that could be a number of folks.

Anyway, when the press is openly discussing your termination but also the list of your replacements, odds are pretty good that you're not going to last much longer.

Also note who's suddenly missing from that list:  Tony Scaramucci.  Guess he cursed himself out of a job last night.

We'll see what happens.

[UPDATE] And Trump just announced John Kelly as WH Chief of Staff on Twitter.

Collins And Murkowski Save Obamacare, Oh And That McCain Guy I Guess Too Whatever

I stayed up last night as long as I could to get you the Last Call on Trumpcare's final fate in the Senate but I kinda conked out around midnight.  I knew that Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski were no votes, and once again Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain was uttering platitudes that suggested he would vote no if his action ever matched his lofty rhetoric, which it most certainly did not do earlier this week when McCain voted to advance debate on legislation killing the ACA despite his vocal misgivings about the Senate repeal plan.

You can imagine my surprise this morning when I woke up and found that John McCain was the deciding vote again...this time as the 51st vote to save Obamacare and kill the GOP's plan to repeal it.

A months-long effort by Senate Republicans to pass health legislation collapsed early Friday after GOP Senator John McCain joined two of his colleagues to block a stripped-down Obamacare repeal bill.

“I regret that our efforts were simply not enough, this time,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor after the vote. “This is clearly a disappointing moment.”

“It’s time to move on,” he added after pulling the bill from the floor.

The decision by McCain to vote no came after weeks of brinkmanship and after his dramatic return from cancer treatment to cast the 50th vote to start debate on the bill earlier this week. The GOP’s ‘skinny’ repeal bill was defeated 49-51, falling just short of the 50 votes needed to advance it. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski also voted against it.

It wasn’t immediately clear what the next steps would be for the Republicans. The repeal effort had appeared to collapse several times before, only to be revived. And several Republicans pleaded for their colleagues not to give up, even as President Donald Trump blasted the vote.

“3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down, As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!” he wrote on Twitter at 2:25 am Washington time.

But McConnell has struggled to find a compromise that satisfies conservatives, who have demanded a wholesale repeal of Obamacare, and moderates, who have been unnerved by predictions the bill would significantly boost the ranks of uninsured Americans.

Democrats immediately called for a bipartisan debate on how to fix Obamacare.

“We are not celebrating. We’re relieved,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote. “Let’s turn the page and work together to improve our health care system.” He also said Democrats would be willing to help expedite bipartisan legislation and to advance Trump administration nominations.

So for now, millions of Americans can breathe a sign of relief as their health care is spared...for now.  The next battles include raising the debt ceiling and of course the House GOP Austerity Budget which will cut well more than a trillion dollars in spending, including hundreds of billions in Medicaid cuts.

But Republicans will need 60 Senate votes to pass those efforts.  Where things go from here is unknown but I do know Democrats will have much more leverage than they do now.

In the end, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, the 48 Democrats in the Senate, the millions up us who marched and called over the last several months, they deserve credit.  They made McCain do the right thing in the end.  They deserve the plaudits and accolades.  Remember that.

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• A 1 AM vote on the Senate GOP "skinny repeal" plan to replace the Affordable Care Act failed, three GOP senators who voted with Dems to stop it: Collins, Murkowski...and McCain.
• The US is warning Iran that Thursday's rocket test launch by Tehran violates 2015 UN sanctions and that the UN Security Council will meet today to discuss the next step. 
• Russia is retaliating against the US after a 98-2 Senate vote to pass new sanctions against Russia, Iran, and North Korea yesterday, Moscow is ordering multiple US diplomats to leave.
• The State Department is ordering US diplomats in Venezuela to send relatives home ahead of Sunday's planned vote by President Nicolas Maduro to rewrite the country's constitution.
• Researchers in Oregon are the first American team to use genetic editing on a human embryo, their findings suggest CRISPR gene editing technology in humans is not yet safe for use.

Going (Pay)Back To Alaska

If Donald Trump is anything, he's an inveterate liar.  If he's two things, he's an inveterate liar with a massive vindictive streak who likes to bully those he thinks have slighted him in any way, real or perceived. Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski is finding out that second fact today as the Trump regime is now considering The Last Frontier as The Enemy of Trump for her refusal to throw her own constituents off Medicaid.

President Donald Trump isn't going to just let Sen. Lisa Murkowski's no vote on Tuesday's health care motion go.

Early Wednesday, Trump took to Twitter to express displeasure with Murkowski's vote. By that afternoon, each of Alaska's two Republican senators had received a phone call from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke letting them know the vote had put Alaska's future with the administration in jeopardy.

The response follows Trump's no-holds-barred style of governing, even when it comes to his own party. It is his first strike of retaliation against Murkowski, however, despite her tendency to stray from the party line and the president's priorities.

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan said the call from Zinke heralded a "troubling message."

"I'm not going to go into the details, but I fear that the strong economic growth, pro-energy, pro-mining, pro-jobs and personnel from Alaska who are part of those policies are going to stop," Sullivan said.

"I tried to push back on behalf of all Alaskans. … We're facing some difficult times and there's a lot of enthusiasm for the policies that Secretary Zinke and the president have been talking about with regard to our economy. But the message was pretty clear," Sullivan said. The Interior secretary also contacted Murkowski, he said.

First of all, this is Alaska's other senator, Dan Sullivan (who *did* vote for throwing his own constituents off Medicaid like Trump wanted) that is the source of this story. Sullivan confirmed that Zinke's threat was definitely based on Murkowski's no vote to proceed on Trumpcare on Tuesday.  There are several federal projects on the line here, most notably expanded oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that are now in jeopardy.  Alaska overall relies on a lot of federal dollars for infrastructure and economic assistance.

Those dollars now have to be considered in real trouble.

The second thing is that Trump is more than happen to screw over the entire state to punish Murkowski.  He doesn't exactly care about Alaska's citizens, because he figures most of them will vote for him again in 2020 anyway, and he's probably right.  Trump clearly figures that Alaskans will side with him over Murkowski.

What happens now is anybody's guess, but if I were Ryan Zinke, I might want to keep in mind that the Chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Resources, which controls both the budget and oversight for the Interior Department happens to be...Lisa Murkowski.

This could get interesting.

No Sanctuary For Cities, Con't

The Trump regime has been broadly hinting at retaliation against sanctuary cities across America, but so far nothing's happened other than vague threats and trial balloons involving federal law enforcement grants.  That's still billions of federal dollars at stake, but as of yet, it's nothing more than posturing.

That situation appears to be about to change from posturing to action, rapidly.

On Tuesday night, the Department of Justice announced its first real attempt to prohibit “sanctuary cities” — cities that, in the federal government’s view, don’t do enough to help federal agents enforce immigration law — from getting federal funds. 

Under the DOJ’s new criteria for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program, the biggest federal grant for local law enforcement, states and cities will only be able to apply if they agree to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers into local jails — and if they notify ICE agents at least 48 hours before anyone ICE has expressed interest in gets released. 

The Trump administration’s been saber-rattling against “sanctuary cities” during its whole six months in office (not to mention on the campaign trail). But until now, the actual steps it’s taken to change federal policy to crack down on “sanctuaries” have been relatively toothless. Tuesday’s announcement puts an end to all that. It signals that the fight to defund sanctuary cities has begun in earnest.

In other words, this just got deadly serious, and the Trump DoJ is now actively moving to cut off a quarter of a billion from police departments across the country in places like New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and more.

The Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program hands out funds to states and cities that get used for everything from training to military-style equipment. It’s the biggest grant the Department of Justice administers to local law enforcement; in fiscal year 2016, it handed out more than $263 million in funds. 

The Trump administration isn’t trying to strip funding that’s already been promised. But starting in the fall, according to the DOJ’s Tuesday announcement, applicants for new Byrne grants are going to have to certify three things: 

• that they comply with a federal law banning any state or local policy that prohibits municipal employees from sharing information with the feds about someone’s immigration status;
• that they allow ICE agents into local jails; and
• that, whenever ICE sends local jail officials a “detainer request” — a request to hold someone after they’d otherwise be released so ICE can pick them up (sent when ICE agents have reason to believe someone in a local jail is deportable) — jail officials give ICE at least 48 hours’ advance notice before letting that person go.

The first criterion is in line with the steps the Trump administration has already taken against “sanctuary cities,” which have focused on the idea that cities are violating the federal law against local bans on information-sharing. 

But it’s a pretty toothless critique. Even the most outspoken sanctuary cities in America claim that they don’t prohibit anyone from sharing immigration information with the federal government.

But the second two criteria added to the Byrne JAG program, though, take turn the rhetoric against sanctuary cities into actual policy.
Many cities and states limit the circumstances under which jails can hold people just because ICE asks them to. And while the DOJ isn’t officially requiring grantees to agree to all ICE requests, it’s requiring them to do things that would lead to pretty much the same outcome.

The bottom line is that current local laws make those last two items impossible to meet in several cities right now, or that the 48-hour notice is impossible to meet in such a large city like Los Angeles when there's potentially thousands of prisoners at any given time.

What ICE wants to do is turn city and county jails into de facto deportation pipelines. Local governments would have to hold anyone suspected of being an undocumented immigrant for at least 48 hours, informing ICE beforehand and they must be able to hold and produce anyone ICE tells local law enforcement that they suspect of being deportable.

In other words, county and city jails would become deportation holding facilities, and local cops and county sheriff's deputies would become de facto immigration agents.

And they'll do it, or lose millions in federal grants.

This is now stated DoJ policy.

Will cities comply?

StupidiNews!

• Conservative GOP lawmakers say they did not ask for the total ban on transgender service members in the US military that Donald Trump announced on Twitter Wednesday morning.
• An 18-year-old man was killed and five otheres injured when a ride malfunctioned at the Ohio State Fair in Columbus, GOP Gov. John Kasich has ordered all rides closed for inspection.
• Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada will reportedly resign over a suspected coverup of troop involvement in possible criminal acts by UN peacekeeper forces in South Sudan.
• As both the Senate GOP Trumpcare replacement plan and full repeal plan votes have failed, the Senate will take up dozens of Obamacare fix amendments offered by Democrats today. 
• Apple has been ordered to fork over more than a half-billion dollars in a patent violation case to the University of Wisconsin's research arm.

Last Call For Redneck Paradise

BuzzFeed's Jane Coaston gets it: the only thing that matters to Republicans in 2017 is "Does it piss off liberals, and how much?"  There's no better symbol of that than musician Kid Rock, who appears to be serious about his Senate run against Debbie Stabenow in Michigan.  The guy has zero credentials or skills other than making albums, but that doesn't really matter in the Age of Trump, does it?

Kid Rock says he wants to be Michigan’s next senator.

Some may think a man who recently sold his 8,300 square foot Balinese-style mansion in Malibu is an unlikely voice for the working people of Michigan, whose swing to the right helped send Donald Trump to the White House. But the author of hits like Black Chick, White Guy("his dick was metal / her pussy was a magnet”) can, in fact, represent the voice of a very specific Republican voter, whose political identity can be summarized as "wants to stick it to liberals."
Pissing off liberals is what the Republican party does best right now. If your political identity is any more conservative than that, you might have a hard time voting for Kid Rock, a supporter of the legalization of all drugs whose position on abortion is “it’s not up to a man to tell a woman what to do.” Take away the commitment to offending liberal snowflakes, and he’s basically Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson, if Johnson had once briefly served as the lead singer for both Metallica and Guns N’ Roses.

Which is to say that Kid Rock is not really a conservative, or even someone who pretends to be one. And that’s just fine with many conservatives. As The Federalist put it, he may currently lack "a cogent list of reasons why he wants the job," but will benefit from "a blood connection through his baby’s momma with African-Americans” — as well as the fact that his Democratic opponent “resembles an overweight, scolding aunt.” Kurt Schlichter, of conservative news site Townhall.com, wrote that Kid Rock deserved to be elected to the Senate for the following reasons: He will annoy liberals, and he will also annoy conservative columnist George Will. "We’re past voting for the ideology," he wrote. "Now we’re ready to vote for the id."

"Vote for the Id" would make a pretty solid tagline for Republican politics circa 2017. The policy conversations and conflicts and basic premises that once governed conservatism — or at least appeared to — have been largely replaced by a set of principles built on the rock-solid foundation of irritating liberals.

After winning a presidential election with a candidate who had no serious conservative bona fides, the Republican Party has come to an important conclusion: Conservatism doesn't sell all that well. Telling Americans in desperate need of affordable health care that free markets will somehow sort it out someday is not a popular policy prescription — and Republicans have essentially given up on trying to enact those changes in the first place, settling instead for gesturing dismissively in its general direction. It turns out that many people, including President Donald Trump, kind of like Big Government, especially when a six-figure hospital bill is staring them down.

So amid the quagmire of the Obamacare repeal effort, Republicans are learning once more that being opposed to something is far easier than building consensus in support of something else. And fortunately for their party, plenty of voters also seem to enjoy focusing their searing anger onto other people and relishing in their apparent suffering, conservative values be damned. 

Once again, as long as the person in question is willing to run to make Obama voters suffer, Republicans will vote for them every time.  There's no hope in courting them by the left, they'll never vote for a Deocrat as long as they live.  But they'll vote for anybody with an R next to their name, anyone, even a faux northern redneck asshole from a millionaire family like Kid Rock, as long as their campaign promise starts with "I will make liberals angry, because screw them."

That's literally the only qualification you need to be a Republican and get 40% of the vote minimum in any election in America, and in about two-thirds of states, that's probably a win.

We'll see what happens in 2018.

Getting Hard-Pressed In The White House

New WHite House Communications Director Tony Scaramucci has one job as far as his boss is concerned (Donald Trump, not WH Chief of Staff Reince Preibus, which is a whole other issue actually) and that's to get heads for leaks to the press.  Scaramucci's first trophy is assistant press secretary Michael Short, along with his own credibility. TPM's Matt Shuham:

Shortly after telling a reporter that he planned on firing assistant White House press secretary Michael Short, White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said it was “unfair” that the public knew about the firing before Short did — even though Scaramucci himself was the source of the news.

The surreal course of events unfolded over a couple of hours Tuesday morning.

First, Politico’s Tara Palmeri reported that Scaramucci had told her, in her words, “that he plans to dismiss assistant press secretary Michael Short,” as part of his early war on White House leakers and other staffers deemed insufficiently supportive of President Donald Trump.

Short did not respond to TPM’s request for comment, but CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reported less than an hour after Palmeri’s article went live that Short had not been informed of his upcoming firing.

Fifty minutes later, Time’s Zeke Miller reported that Scaramucci said leakers were “unpatriotic” and that Scaramucci refused to confirm Short’s firing, saying it would be inappropriate to speak publicly about the matter — even though, as Miller pointed out, he already had.

Then, Scaramucci blamed “leaking” for the fact that reporters, and thus the general public, knew about Short’s potential firing before Short himself did, even though Politico cited Scaramucci as the source of the information.

In the stunning statement reported by Miller and The Hill, in which Scaramucci blamed leaks for his own actions, he seemed to “leak” yet again, putting forward the hypothetical, “Let’s say I’m firing Michael Short today. The fact that you guys know about it before he does really upsets me as a human being and as a Roman Catholic.”

As comical as Tony the Mooch is, what the White House is doing isn't funny.  Looking closely at yesterday's Washington Post story on Jeff Sessions is that Sessions himself says that investigations and possibly prosecutions are coming for leakers.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions will reportedly make an announcement about several criminal leak investigations within days.

Officials told The Washington Post about the forthcoming news from the Justice Department. The investigations will be centered around news reports containing sensitive material about intelligence, the report said. 

The news comes as newly-appointed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci publicly decried leaks coming from within the West Wing in his first week on the job and vowed to fire staffers who continue talking to reporters.

The impending announcement also comes as Trump grows publicly unhappy with Sessions, last week criticized the attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation.  

If there's one thing that will get Trump off Sessions's back, it's Evil Keebler Elf announcing heads are going to roll over leaks, which Trump takes to Twitter to scream about two or three mornings per week these days.  We'll see where this goes, but my guess is that this is how Sessions keeps his job.

Until the next major leak about Mueller's investigation hits the Washington Post and New York Times, that is.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Here in Cincinnati, the political aftermath of the two mistrials of former U of C campus police officer Ray Tensing over the shooting death of unarmed black motorist Sam Dubose is coming to a head. Now that the Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office has dropped charges against Tensing after refusing a third trial, Cincinnati Police have decided that County Prosecutor Joe Deters needs to be dismissed and odds are very good that Deters is in real trouble.

Cincinnati police officers have taken the extraordinary step of issuing a vote of no confidence in the county prosecutor and another that directed their union leader to withdraw from a group working to refresh the city's Collaborative Agreement. 

Both votes, taken late Monday, stem from anger at how Cincinnati Police Sgt. Shannon Heine was treated in the wake of her testimony in the trial of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing. She said under oath that she believed his actions were justified. 

A jury couldn't come to a unanimous agreement last week on murder or voluntary murder charges brought against Tensing in the fatal shooting of Sam DuBose during a traffic stop, resulting in a mistrial.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said his office was "blindsided" by Heine's testimony and that it changed the direction of the prosecution's case.

An internal affairs report released by the police department Friday found Heine did not deceive prosecutors, but the Citizen Complaint Authority also has received a complaint against Heine. It was filed by Al Gerhardstein, who represents the DuBose family, on behalf of the Black United Front. 

“I’m especially disturbed by Mr. Gerhardstein’s baseless accusations that Sgt. Heine conspired with the defense. That’s a huge accusation. There’s no evidence of it whatsoever, it’s just they did not like her opinion in that case,” Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 69 President Dan Hils said. 

Deters said Tuesday he remains committed to doing the best job as prosecutor he can and that "I have full confidence in the Cincinnati Police Department.”

The vote of no confidence is believed to be the first of its kind and was shocking because Deters has long enjoyed support from the law enforcement community for his tough-on-crime stances. 

The Tensing case was the first he lost while in the top job at the prosecutor's office, but he told the Enquirer he stood by his decision, despite criticism that he over-charged Tensing. 

The Collaborative Agreement refresh was championed by Mayor John Cranley to revisit the police-community agreement that is seen as a national model. Cranley brought back monitor Saul Green for an eight-month look at the agreement with the support of original signers including community activist Iris Roley, Gerhardstein and the police department.

Understand that the issue with Sgt. Heine's testimony is a smokescreen, the issue is that Deters dared to ever indict Tensing.  The police union is making it very clear that the collaborative agreement between the police, the City Council, the Mayor, and the black community is dead unless Deters is fired, and that's something Mayor Cranley can't afford to let crumble as he faces re-election.

That puts Cincinnati in a very bad place.  If the police union bails from the Collaborative Agreement, Cranley is toast and he knows it.

How long Deters survives as County Prosecutor is anyone's guess if the FOP has turned on him.

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• After voting to open debate on replacing Obamacare, the Senate rejected the Senate GOP replacement 43-57 as senators will take up the House version later today.
• Russia is vowing "painful" retaliation against the US should a package of sanctions against Moscow, Iran, and North Korea that overwhelmingly passed the House yesterday become law.
• Texas Republicans have advanced their version of North Carolina's failed "bathroom bill" through the state Senate, the measure faces a less-certain future in the Texas House.
• The UK is following France's lead and will ban internal combustion engine vehicles by 2040, industry groups say the move could be devastating if automakers don't have enough time.
• A new pediatric study finds that measles vaccination rates among children have slipped to the point where the disease may become endemic again, costing the country millions per year.

Last Call For McCain Saves Trumpcare

With 48 Senate Republicans voting yes to proceed on debate on a Trumpcare bill that literally none of them have even seen, GOP Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and John McCain of Arizona stood holding the fate of the country in the balance.  Johnson of course voted yes, making it 49.

Guess what path "Maverick" McCain chose.

Senate Republicans voted Tuesday voted to open debate on repealing Obamacare, dramatically reviving an effort that many GOP lawmakers left for dead just a few days ago. 

The vote is a huge political win and turnaround for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans who've promised for seven years to repeal Obamacare if voters gave them control of Congress and the White House.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), recently diagnosed with brain cancer, entered the chamber to a standing ovation and cast the 50th Republican vote. GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska broke ranks to oppose the measure, forcing Vice President Mike Pence to break a 50-50 tie. 

All Democrats opposed the measure. Underscoring the significance of the vote, many senators sat at their desks for the vote. 

The vote is no guarantee that the fractured Republican caucuses can coalesce around a single health care plan. Now that debate has officially started, Republicans in the Senate lack 50 votes on a policy. Moderates oppose repealing Obamacare without a replacement, and conservatives don’t like the idea of significantly replacing it. 

The leading idea now is to repeal only a small portion of the health law just to get a bill to a conference with the Senate.

Of course that "small portion" will be restored in conference to be 95%-100% of the awful House bill, and then these same GOP "heroes" will vote for Trump again, and that will be it for millions of Americans and they lose their insurance and millions more will find care unaffordable in any way, with millions more going bankrupt.

But it doesn't matter to the GOP, as long as they get to erase the nation's only black president from existence.

Never forget that McCain was the deciding vote to proceed in the Senate with whatever the GOP passes and puts on Trump's desk.

The Bong Show Is About To Be Canceled

So all the folks out there who voted for Trump because he promised to leave matters of marijuana legalization to the states and you didn't trust Clinton to follow Obama's hands-off approach?  Jeff Sessions is about to seriously harsh your buzz, man.

The Trump administration is readying for a crackdown on marijuana users under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 

President Trump’s Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, led by Sessions, is expected to release a report next week that criminal justice reform advocates fear will link marijuana to violent crime and recommend tougher sentences for those caught growing, selling and smoking the plant.

Sessions sent a memo in April updating the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department of Justice Department (DOJ) component heads on the work of the task force, which he said would be accomplished through various subcommittees. In the memo, Sessions said he has asked for initial recommendations no later than July 27.

“Task Force subcommittees will also undertake a review of existing policies in the areas of charging, sentencing, and marijuana to ensure consistency with the Department's overall strategy on reducing violent crime and with Administration goals and priorities,” he wrote.

Criminal justice reform advocates fear Sessions’s memo signals stricter enforcement is ahead. 

“The task force revolves around reducing violent crime and Sessions and other DOJ officials have been out there over the last month and explicitly the last couple of weeks talking about how immigration and marijuana increases violent crime,” said Inimai Chettiar, director of the Brennan Center's Justice Program.

“We’re worried there’s going to be something in the recommendations that is either saying that that’s true or recommending action be taken based on that being true.”

Sessions sent a letter in May asking congressional leaders to do away with an amendment to the DOJ budget prohibiting the agency from using federal funds to prevent states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."

“I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime,” said the letter from Sessions, first obtained by Massroots.com and verified by The Washington Post.

The real drug issue in America is opioids and big pharma's role in spreading them across the country with painkiller abuse, but the Trump regime wants to crack down on weed as an excuse to put more black and brown people in profitable private prisons.  That was always the plan, but hey, people voted for Trump because they bought his campaign nonsense like the suckers they were.

Also notice that Sessions isn't making any distinction between recreational and medical use of marijuana, that both are responsible "for the increase in violent crime" and that he wants the GOP Congress to unchain the DoJ to start a massive wave of federal prosecutions for pot.

In other words, we're headed back for the bad old days of the Reagan/Bush War on Drugs.

But hey dude, you were warned.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

More new developments this week on the Trump/Russia front as White House "adviser" and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner lawyers up to talk to Congress...behind closed doors and not under oath, of course.

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, spent two hours Monday answering questions from Senate investigators about his contacts with Russian officials, as the various probes into Russian interference during the 2016 campaign entered a new phase involving some of those closest to Trump.

After his closed-door questioning, Kushner spoke briefly to reporters outside the White House.

“Let me be very clear: I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so,” he said. “I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, and I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information.

“Since the first questions were raised in March, I have been consistent in saying I was eager to share whatever information I have with investigating bodies, and I have done so today,’’ he said. “All of my actions were proper.’’

Legal experts expect that all of Kushner’s answers to the Senate Intelligence Committee will be shared with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is conducting a separate investigation of potential criminal activity surrounding Russian meddling and key figures in the Trump campaign.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president “was very proud of Jared for voluntarily going to the Hill and being very transparent with every interaction that he’s had. He thought Jared did a great job and was very glad that he was able to go through that process and lay everything out and I think show the members of that committee as well as everybody else what a witch hunt and hoax this whole thing is.’’ 

There are holes in that statement Donald Trump could drive a fire truck through, frankly.  Kushner knows it, Congress knows it, and Robert Mueller knows it.  I'm betting Mueller knows otherwise.  What Kushner did say was that Donald Trump Jr. was basically the bad guy in all this, cavalierly tossing Trump's son under the Mueller bus and dusting off his hands.  As far as the White House is concerned, this is all over now, right?

The only other Russian contact during the campaign is one I did not recall at all until I was reviewing documents and emails in response to congressional requests for information. In June 2016, my brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. asked if I was free to stop by a meeting on June 9 at 3:00 p.m. The campaign was headquartered in the same building as his office in Trump Tower, and it was common for each of us to swing by the other's meetings when requested. He eventually sent me his own email changing the time of the meeting to 4:00 p.m. That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time. As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4:00 PM at his office. Documents confirm my memory that this was calendared as "Meeting: Don Jr.| Jared Kushner." No one else was mentioned. 

I arrived at the meeting a little late. When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting. Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting." I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since. I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently. I did not read or recall this email exchange before it was shown to me by my lawyers when reviewing documents for submission to the committees. No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted. Finally, after seeing the email, I disclosed this meeting prior to it being reported in the press on a supplement to my security clearance form, even if that was not required as meeting the definitions of the form.

Kushner hung Trump's own son out to dry, and it looks like he might even get away with it.  For now.

Oh, and it seems our pro-Russian House GOP friend Dana Rohrabacher has Russian problems of his own now.

A new complaint filed with the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control alleges that California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and his staff director, Paul Behrends, violated the Magnitsky Act when they tried to get Russia's deputy general prosecutor, Victor Grin, removed from the US sanctions list last year.

The complaint was filed by US financier Bill Browder, the founder of Hermitage Capital Management, who spearheaded the Magnitsky Act in 2012 to punish Russian officials suspected of being involved in the death of his accountant, Sergey Magnitsky.

Magnitsky uncovered a $230 million tax fraud scheme in 2008 when he was working for Hermitage that implicated high-level Kremlin officials and allies of President Vladimir Putin. He was later thrown in jail by the same Interior Ministry officers he testified against during criminal proceedings to punish those involved in the tax scheme, Browder said in 2015, and died in custody after being held for 358 days.

Browder's complaint rests largely on a Daily Beast report published last week alleging that Rohrabacher, a staunch defender of Russia and Putin, met with officials from the prosecutor general’s office in Moscow in April 2016. The report said he accepted a "confidential" document that Rohrabacher then used to try to undermine the Magnitsky Act on Capitol Hill.

"Changing attitudes to the Magnitsky story in the Congress ... could have a very favorable response from the Russian side," the document said, according to the Daily Beast.

Considering the House is expected to overwhelmingly approve even more sanctions on Russia today, Rohrabacher is not in a good place right now.  He's not Trump, he's not in the White House, and he's not going to be able to dodge things for much longer.

Eventually the truth comes out.

BREAKING: Senate Judiciary Committee issues subpoena for former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to testify.

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 25, 2017

Gonna be a fun time ahead.

StupidiNews!

• The Senate GOP will vote today on proceeding with debate and amendments on the Trumpcare bill, Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, recently diagnosed with brain cancer, will be on hand.
• A new USA Today poll finds that only 27% of Americans believe Trump will definitely finish his first term, 30% say probably so, but 36% say he either probably or definitely will not.
• The House is expected to overwhelmingly approve a package of new sanctions against Russia, North Korea and Iran today, the Senate will most likely take up the bill next month.
• Appalachian coal states want Trump to spare a $10 billion natural gas storage and pipeline project to help the economies of West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Ohio. 
• A federal judge has refused to block demands from Trump's voting integrity commission for voter data from states, saying the commission is exempt from executive agency privacy laws.