Last Call For (Red) Meat The Press, Con't

The print media finally unites against the fascism of Trump regime, but at this point when journalism is considered to be as disgusting a profession as possible by Americans, and a plurality of Republicans want Trump to have the power to eliminate news organizations that criticize him, does it even matter anymore?

"The dirty war on the free press must end."

That's the idea behind an unusual editorial-writing initiative that has enlisted scores of newspapers across America.

The Boston Globe has been contacting newspaper editorial boards and proposing a "coordinated response" to President Trump's escalating "enemy of the people" rhetoric.

"We propose to publish an editorial on August 16 on the dangers of the administration's assault on the press and ask others to commit to publishing their own editorials on the same date," The Globe said in its pitch to fellow papers.

The effort began just a few days ago.

As of Saturday, "we have more than 100 publications signed up, and I expect that number to grow in the coming days," Marjorie Pritchard, the Globe's deputy editorial page editor, told CNN.

The American Society of News Editors, the New England Newspaper and Press Association and other groups have helped her spread the word.

"The response has been overwhelming," Pritchard said. "We have some big newspapers, but the majority are from smaller markets, all enthusiastic about standing up to Trump's assault on journalism."

Instead of printing the exact same message, each publication will write its own editorial, Pritchard said.

That was a key part of her pitch: "The impact of Trump's assault on journalism looks different in Boise than it does in Boston," she wrote. "Our words will differ. But at least we can agree that such attacks are alarming."

Sadly, this is an idea that would have been a hundred times more effective on August 16, 2016, rather than August 16, 2018.  But Trump has everything he needs from the media now, and they will remain a convenient enemy for him to terrorize until they either submit to him, or go out of business.

What the news media needs to do is starve Trump of attention, to cut him off and stop covering him, then across the board, start supporting local Democrats.  They won't, and as long as they refuse to do so, Trump will continue to use them, more journalists will be hurt or possibly killed, and Trump will use them to serve his purposes.

America has a choice in November, but so do the media.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

This is where the party of Trump is in 2018: Republicans, scrambling to save indicted Rep. Chris Collins's seat in NY-27, are fighting to take his name off the ballot in order to construct a Rube Goldberg write-in machine to keep the seat in GOP hands.

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), who was charged this week as part of an insider trading scheme, is suspending his re-election campaign and will attempt to remove his name from the ballot.

The third-term congressman announced the decision Saturday morning on Twitter, just days after he vowed to clear his name and remain on the ballot.

Collins is facing multiple counts of securities fraud, as well as charges of wire fraud and lying to investigators. His son and another associate were charged in the scheme as well.

Federal prosecutors allege Collins — who sits on the board of an Australian pharmaceutical company — shared non-public details about the failure of a multiple sclerosis drug in clinical trials. Using that information, Collins’ family members were able to sell off shares and avoid more than $760,000 in losses, prosecutors say.

Collins, the first member of congress to endorse President Donald Trump in 2016, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Under New York law, Collins’ name can be supplanted on the ballot at this stage of the cycle only if he dies, moves out of state or is nominated for another office — like a local judgeship. According to Erie County GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy, the exact mechanisms are still being worked out, but he noted Collins owns houses in Florida and Washington, D.C.

“At this point, he has decided it’s a distraction focusing on his legal situation,” Langworthy said. "It was a distraction for us trying to retain the seat as conservative and Republican leadership. So, I think it was the best decision given the circumstances, and I wish him and his family the best.”

Republican leaders from each of the eight counties in the 27th District — which covers rural areas as well as suburbs of Buffalo and Rochester — will meet to select a replacement candidate, Langworthy said. There are more than 40,000 active Republicans than Democrats in the district, which went for Donald Trump by 24 points in 2016.

So we'll see if Republicans will vote for the party that's cheated Upstate New Yorkers out of everything over the last two years, or if sanity will prevail and Democrats will get their chance here.

Last Call For Taking A Knee

It's August, and that means preseason NFL action got underway Thursday.  But all eyes are on the players before the ball is even snapped, and the resistance to Trump is picking up right where it left off last season.

Player demonstrations took place during the national anthem at several early NFL preseason games Thursday night.

In Philadelphia, Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins and cornerback De’Vante Bausby raised their fists during the anthem, and defensive end Chris Long placed his arm around Jenkins’ shoulder. Jenkins had stopped his demonstration last December.

Defensive end Michael Bennett walked out of the tunnel during the anthem and walked toward the bench while it played. It appeared all the Steelers stood.

“Everybody is waiting for what the league is going to do,” Jenkins said. “We won’t let it stop what we stand for. I was very encouraged last year with the direction and that obviously took a different turn.

“I think it’s important to utilize the platform as we can because for whatever reason, we have framed this demonstration in a negative light, and often players have to defend why we feel the need to fight for everyday Americans, and in actuality we’re doing the right thing.”

At Miami, Dolphins receivers Kenny Stills and Albert Wilson and defensive end Robert Quinn protested during the anthem. Stills and Wilson kneeled behind teammates lined up standing along the sideline. Quinn stood and raised his right fist. There were no apparent protests by the Buccaneers.

“As a black man in this world, I’ve got an obligation to raise awareness,” Quinn said. “If no one wants to live in unity, that’s why we’re in the situation we’re in.”

Stills kneeled during the anthem during the 2016-17 seasons and has been vocal discussing social injustice issues that inspired the protest movement by NFL players.

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, a leader of the movement, tweeted support for Stills and Wilson.

“My brother @kstills continued his protest of systemic oppression tonight by taking a knee,” the tweet said. “Albert Wilson joined him in protest. Stay strong brothers!”

And in Seattle, three Seahawks players ran into the team’s locker room prior to the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Defensive linemen Branden Jackson and Quinton Jefferson, and offensive lineman Duane Brown left the field following team introductions and before the start of the anthem. They returned to the sideline immediately after it concluded. All three were among a group of Seattle players that sat during the anthem last season.

Needless to say, Tang the Conqueror isn't a happy camper.

Trump is openly delivering ultimatums for the players at this point, he will not be defied except by, well, the player defying him.  Expect the NFL owners to cave very quickly here, and the players to take a knee anyway.

Losing The Racist Battle, Winning The Racist War

As the one-year anniversary of the white supremacist march on Charlottesville, Virginia arrives this weekend, Adam Serwer argues that in that year the forces of racism certainly suffered setbacks, but with their greatest champion being Donald Trump himself, they're winning the war.

From the looks of it, the Nazis lost the battle of Charlottesville. After all, Donald Trump’s handling of the aftermath of the rally, in which he said there were “very fine people” on both sides of the protest, drew bipartisan condemnation. The attempted rebranding of white nationalism as the genteel and technologically savvy alt-right failed, the marketing campaign faltering after the murder of the counter-protester Heather Heyer and the attempted murder of several others revealed to the nation the logical conclusion of alt-right beliefs and arguments. The bloody outcome of that day foiled the white nationalists’ attempt to garner sympathy from the mainstream right, and in doing so, make themselves respectable.

But the alt-right and its fellow travelers were never going to be able to assemble a mass movement. Despite the controversy over the rally and its bloody aftermath, the white nationalists’ ideological goals remain a core part of the Trump agenda. As long as that agenda finds a home in one of the two major American political parties, a significant portion of the country will fervently support it. And as an ideological vanguard, the alt-right fulfilled its own purpose in pulling the Republican Party in its direction.

A year after white nationalists in Charlottesville chanted, “You will not replace us!” their message has been taken up and amplified by Fox News personalities. Tucker Carlson tellshis audience that “Latin American countries are changing election outcomes here by forcing demographic change on this country.” Laura Ingraham says that “the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore” because of “massive demographic changes” as a result of “both illegal and sometimes legal immigration that progressives love.” They echo the white-nationalist claim that America is at risk because the nation is growing more diverse, an argument that treats the mere presence of nonwhite people, citizen or noncitizen, as an existential threat to the country. White nationalists like Cantwell are cheered to hear their beliefs championed on Fox. Cantwell wrote last year that Carlson “is basically telling white America to prepare for war as directly as he can get away with while remaining on Fox News.”

American history is replete with tragedies that are epic in scale, but few are comparable to what has happened to the party of Lincoln, who struck perhaps the most decisive victory against the principle that America is a white man’s country with the proposal and ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. There is no reason that this new generation of immigrants cannot become loyal Republican voters, much as a previous generation of despised foreign newcomers did. The obstacle is the conservative movement’s growing embrace of a definition of American citizenship that is inherently racial. Where prior conservative champions like George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan might have seen a new generation of Republicans, today many conservatives see only an invasion.

While few sitting Republican legislators echo these sentiments publicly, Republican audiences are now being fed white-nationalist philosophy through mainstream conservative figures with national followings. Unless something changes, conservative constituencies will eventually begin to demand that their representatives adopt those views as well.

White nationalists win by activating white panic, by frightening a sufficient number of white people into believing that their safety and livelihoods can only be protected by defining American citizenship in racial terms, and by convincing them that American politics is a zero-sum game in which white people only win when people of color lose. While this dynamic has always been present in American politics, it has been decades since the White House has been occupied by a president who so visibly delights in exploiting it, aided by a right-wing media infrastructure that has come to see it as a ratings strategy. It is not just the white nationalists who win when racialized fears surrounding crime, immigration, and terrorism shape the political behavior of white voters. Donald Trump also wins. And both the Trump White House and the men who rallied in Charlottesville for the cause of white power know it.

We're at a critical juncture here.  I'm convinced that findings from the Mueller probe, plus a Democratic takeover of the House will galvanize white nationalism within the Republican party and make it the primary policy of the GOP.  "Getting rid of the enemies of America" will become the singular motivation, and those enemies will be the black, the brown, and the non-Christian.

Sometime in 2019 the Republicans will fully embrace white supremacy as the central tenet of the party.  The rest won't matter.  You'll see 2020 primary candidates openly advocate for mass deportations, detention camps for Muslims, police action to "cleanse" black and brown neighborhoods and "protecting the white way of life".  And these candidates will start winning.  Corey Stewart will not be the outlier that drags the party down in 2018, but the winning norm in 2020.

The pretenses will be dropped in 2019.  The Republican party will fully become the party of American white supremacy.  History fully informs us where the country goes after that, and things get very ugly from there.

Is It Time For New Blood?

A new poll finds that among Democrats, it's a dead even split as to whether Rep. Nancy Pelosi should remain the Democratic leader in the House in 2019.  As for Republicans and independents, well, they are heavily against her.

Only 27 percent of people surveyed in a new poll think Democrats should keep Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as their leader in the House, with nearly half of Democrats surveyed saying the caucus should pick a new chief.

The new American Barometer poll released Thursday by Hill.TV and HarrisX found that just 51 percent of Democrats surveyed think that House Democrats should keep Pelosi as their leader. Forty-nine percent said the caucus should pick a new leader.

Seventy-nine percent of independents said that Pelosi should be replaced, while 91 percent of Republicans said House Democrats should pick a new leader.

The dismal figures come as a number of Democratic candidates and incumbent members of the House refuse to say they will support Pelosi in a vote for the House Speakership.

In June, Politico reported that more than 20 Democratic House candidates have said they would not vote to elect Pelosi to be their party’s leader.

The declarations have raised real questions about whether Pelosi could secure the 218 votes needed on the House floor to become Speaker.

I don't buy that last part, but we also have a number of Democratic House candidates who have said that they will not vote for Pelosi as Leader or as Speaker next year.   It was 20 in June.  It's 50 now.

As Democrats battle to retake control of Congress in November, their leader — Nancy Pelosi — could also be facing a coming fight of her own.

Fifty Democrats running for the House say they won't support the California lawmaker for speaker, according to an NBC News survey of candidates and their public statements.

At least 41 of the party's nominees for House seats have declared they will not back Pelosi and nine incumbent Democratic lawmakers are on the record opposing her.

The most recent voice to the chorus came Thursday, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who is on track to become the first Muslim woman in Congress, said she would "probably not" support Pelosi because "she doesn't speak about the issues that are important to the families of the 13th congressional district, and they are a priority for me."

An additional 34 Democratic nominees are neither for nor against Pelosi, who has led her party in Congress since 2003.

The significant opposition is a sign of the movement for a generational change in Democratic leadership on the Hill — some believe that Pelosi should step aside so younger members of the party can move up in its ranks. The majority are Democrats running in Republican voting areas, where the minority leader is despised by the GOP. And some of it stems from the ascendant progressive movement, which wants to promote different policies and take a more aggressive approach in Congress to the Republicans and to President Donald Trump.

Frankly, Nancy Pelosi is the one Democrat over the last fifteen years who demonstrably has been good at her job, but if she can't get the 218 votes in January, then Democrats need to figure out who can and fast.  I suspect she has things under control and will throw her support behind a candidate for leadership, but the village can't resist DEMS IN DISARRAY stories.

We'll see.

Last Call For Counting Coup

Our old friend Kris Kobach is in a razor-thin primary fight for Governor of Kansas with current Governor Jeff Colyer, and with fewer than 100 votes now separating him from his opponent, keep in mind that Kobach has not recused himself as Secretary of State yet, meaning he's technically overseeing his own vote counting and an inevitable recount.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s lead over Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Republican primary has shrunk to only 91 votes after election officials discovered a mistake in the listing for one county’s results in the state’s tally of votes.

The lead is minuscule when compared with the 311,000 votes cast.

The final, unofficial results posted on the secretary of state’s website show Kobach winning Thomas County in northwest Kansas, with 466 votes to Colyer’s 422. But the tally posted by the Thomas County clerk’s office shows Colyer with 522 votes, or 100 votes more, a number the clerk confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday.

Bryan Caskey, state elections director, said county officials pointed out the discrepancy Thursday following a routine request for a post-election check of the numbers to counties by the secretary of state’s office.

County election officials have yet to finish counting late-arriving mail-in ballots or provisional ballots provided to voters at the polls when their eligibility wasn’t clear.

“This is a routine part of the process,” Caskey said. “This is why we emphasize that election-night results are unofficial.”

Thomas County Clerk Shelly Harms said it’s possible that her handwriting on the tally sheet faxed to the secretary of state’s office was bad enough in the rush of primary-night business that the number for Colyer wasn’t clear.

“They just misread it,” she told The Associated Press.

Colyer’s campaign said Thursday that it had set up a “voting integrity” telephone hotline after it had received “countless” reports of voters experiencing issues at the polls.

Kobach is the state’s chief elections officers and told reporters Wednesday that he knew of no reports of irregularities outside of a long delay in the reporting of results from Johnson County, the state’s most populous county, because of issues with its new machines.

“We’ll certainly be going through the results county by county,” Colyer spokesman Kendall Marr said.

No matter how you look at it, for the most vocal critic of voting procedures in the US, a man who screamed about "massive widespread voting fraud" for years and did everything he could to remove as many Democrats as possible from the voter rolls to be in charge of his own vote count is insane.

But that's the GOP for you.  Anything that actually would be even remotely humbling like this, they could not give less of a crap about.

When Colyer manages to lose, I wonder what he'll do?

I know what Kansas should do, and that's vote for the Democrat in the race, Laura Kelly.

The Mask Slips Once Again, Con't

The mask slips, and a Republican accidentally tells the truth.

Hard-line conservative Republicans in the House recently hit a roadblock in their effort to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when Speaker Paul Ryan opposed the move. But one of those conservatives, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., gave a different explanation to donors recently when asked why the impeachment effort had stalled.

He said it's because an impeachment would delay the Senate's confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made the statement in an audio recording surreptitiously made by a member of a progressive group who attended a Republican fundraiser on July 30 in Spokane, Washington. The recording was obtained by The Rachel Maddow Show and was played on MSNBC on Wednesday night.

Asked about the the impeachment plans, Nunes told a questioner that "it's a bit complicated" because "we only have so many months left."

"So if we actually vote to impeach, OK, what that does is that triggers the Senate then has to take it up," he said on the recording. "Well, and you have to decide what you want right now because the Senate only has so much time.”

He continued: "Do you want them to drop everything and not confirm the Supreme Court justice, the new Supreme Court justice?"

"The Senate would have to drop everything they're doing ... and start with impeachment on Rosenstein. And then take the risk of not getting Kavanaugh confirmed," Nunes said. "So it's not a matter that any of us like Rosenstein. It's a matter of, it's a matter of timing."

Conservative lawmakers have accused Rosenstein of trying to stymie congressional oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of alleged interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The audio of the Spokane fundraiser was obtained by the Maddow show from a member of the "Fuse Washington" progressive group who paid the $250 entry fee to attend the dinner. The event was a fundraiser for Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. A spokesperson for her campaign had no comment on the recording and Nunes' office didn't return calls for comment.

This is the real reason why Rosenstein was never going to be impeached.  The clock is ticking and confirming Kavanaugh has to be done before Mueller drops the hammer on Trump and company, if only to make sure Trump has five SCOTUS votes to dodge uncomfortable questions, the answers to which could very well implicate other Republicans like Nunes. 

No, as I told you weeks ago, impeaching Rosenstein was at best, fundraising fodder for House Freedom Caucus leaders like Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, and at worst, cover for Trump to fire him.  The clock is ticking fast and Republicans are increasingly looking like the bill for their massive corruption is coming due.

The entire Trump era has been a festering pit of barely disguised ongoing corruption. But the whole sordid era has not had a 24-hour period quite like the orgy of criminality which we have just experienced. The events of the last day alone include:

(1) The trial of Paul Manafort, which has featured the accusation that President Trump’s campaign manager had embezzled funds, failed to report income, and falsified documents. His partner and fellow Trump campaign aide, Rick Gates, confessed to participating in all these crimes, as well as to stealing from Manafort.

(2) Yesterday, Forbes reported that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross may have stolen $120 million from his partners and customers. Meanwhile Ross has maintained foreign holdings in his investment portfolio that present a major conflict of interest with his public office. (The “Don’t worry, Wilbur Ross would never do anything unethical just to pad his bottom line” defense is likely to be, uh, unconvincing to the many people filing suit against Ross for allegedly doing exactly that.)

(3) Also yesterday, ProPublica reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs is being effectively run by three Trump cronies, none of whom have any official government title or public accountability. The three, reports the story, have “used their influence in ways that could benefit their private interests.”

(4) And then, this morning, Representative Chris Collins was arrested for insider trading. Collins had been known to openly boast about making millions of dollars for his colleagues with his insider knowledge. He is charged with learning of an adverse FDA trial, and immediately calling his son — from the White House! — urging him to sell his holdings.

It has been, in sum, quite a day.

A lot of people are going to jail, and they are going to need Trump around to pardon them.  For that to happen, the GOP needs Kavanaugh confirmed as quickly as possible.  Every route the GOP sees out of the Mueller investigation goes through Kavanaugh being the fifth vote immunizing Trump from anything and everything short of actual impeachment.

Keep that in the back of your mind.

StupidiNews!

• One of the several California wildfires currently causing mass evacuations was deliberately set according to CalFire officials, a suspect has been arrested in connection with the Holy Fire.
• The Trump regime is finally admitting that Russia was behind the nerve agent attack earlier this year in the UK, new US sanctions will be imposed that go into effect August 22.
• The Red Cross is saying that air strikes by the Saudi-led Arab coalition in Yemen killed dozens of civilians, including children, as a bus was hit in the Saada region, at least 63 were wounded.
• The Trump regime pushed Energy Department scientists to play up the benefits of coal power in a government report on last January's "bomb cyclone" blizzard deep freeze.
• NYC becomes the first city to impose a cap on the number of ride-sharing cars as Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new City Council ordinance restricting Uber and Lyft on Wednesday.

Last Call For The GOP Race To The Bottom, Con't

When I say the Republican party is the party of racism and bigotry and treason, I mean that quite literally they nominate people for federal office who praised the Confederacy and intimate that we need a Second American Revolution today in order to bring those policies back.

Corey Stewart, the Republican nominee for a US Senate seat for Virginia, praised in a speech last year Virginia's decision in 1861 to secede from the Union, putting it on par with rebellions during the American Revolution and today. 

The Virginia Republican made the comments in April 2017 at an event in South Boston, Virginia, hosted by an unapologetic secessionist. A video of his remarks, given during his failed 2017 gubernatorial run, was posted on his Facebook account. 

He is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, a strong favorite to keep his seat, and national Republicans are worried that Stewart's candidacy will turn off some GOP voters, potentially hurting Republican's ballot races. 

"When you say you're from Virginia, when you travel outside of this state and somebody asks where you're from, you say with pride, 'I am from Virginia. I'm very, very proud of it,'" Stewart said. "You're very, very proud of it. And why is it? It's because of our history, folks. It's because of our history. This is the state of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and James Monroe. It's a state of the founders. It's the state of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. 

"But it's also the state of Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart. Because, at the base of it, Virginians, we think for ourselves," he continued. "And if the established order is wrong, we rebel. We did that in the Revolution, we did it in the Civil War, and we're doing it today. We're doing it today because they're trying to rob us of everything that we hold dear: our history, our heritage, our culture."

Hey guys?  The Confederacy was actual treason, there was no "heritage" there other than slavery and misery and states and people so entirely dedicated to the idea of keeping black people as slaves that they went to actual war over it, and a significant percentage of the people in this country died as a result.

This is what "history" Corey Stewart sees himself as carrying on.  If you're defending this as heritage or history, if you're proud of this like Stewart, you need to take a good long look at your heart, and a history book.  It's not okay.  It's not romantic.  It's not misunderstood or misinterpreted.  It's human slavery, guys, point blank.

Stewart, whose defense of Confederate symbols became a staple of his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, defined the established order earlier in the speech as the mainstream media, liberals, Democrats and establishment Republicans "trying to convince us that there's something wrong with our heritage in Virginia." 

In response to a comment request from CNN, Stewart released the following statement: "Unlike Wimpy Tim Kaine, Virginians have a warrior spirit and a rebel heart." 

Stewart has continually tried to downplay his past ties and praise of white nationalist figures like Jason Kessler, an organizer of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and Paul Nehlen, the anti-Semitic Republican congressional candidate who took on Paul Ryan in 2016. 

According to records from Virginia's Department of Elections, the event in which he praised secession was paid for by avowed secessionist George Randall. Stewart was introduced by Randall's wife, Donna, who also promoted the event on Facebook. 

Randall is an unapologetic secessionist, telling The New York Times, "I'm a secessionist because the federal government is anti-Christian and we're different culturally."

And yes, these traitors are actually still very much with us, and we have the Republican party happily running candidates for Senate -- and currently in the White House, I might add -- who are okay with this because it means they get political benefit from it.  And next week, these same white supremacists are going to be in Virginia, in Charlottesville for the one-year anniversary of their little cross-burning party.  And Corey Stewart?  He'll be supporting these guys.

So let me make this plain, folks.

The. Republican. Party. Is. The. Party. Of. White Supremacists.

The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Another Republican goes down in flames, this time New York Congressman Chris Collins was picked up by the FBI for insider trading and fraud leaving the door wide open for his Democratic challenger, Nate McMurray.

Rep. Chris Collins, R-New York, was arrested Wednesday and charged with insider trading relating to an Australian biotechnology company, according to federal prosecutors.

The Buffalo-area congressman, who also served on the board of directors of the company Innate Immunotherapeutics and was the first member of Congress to endorse President Donald Trump's White House bid in 2016, is charged with passing nonpublic information about a multiple sclerosis drug to his son, Cameron, who shared it with his future father-in-law.

While the drug failed testing tanked the company's share price by 92 percent, Collins' tip allowed all three men to avoid nearly $800,000 in losses, according to the indictment.

Attorneys for Collins said they would "mount a vigorous defense to clear his good name."

"We are confident he will be completely vindicated and exonerated," they said in a statement.

The House Ethics Committee had been investigating the allegations against Collins since August of 2017. The Office of Congressional Ethics, in its report to the Ethics Committee found "substantial reason to believe" that Collins "shared material nonpublic information in purchasing stock" of Innate Immunotherapeutics, in violation of House rules, standards and federal law.

Collins, a vocal Trump ally, worked closely with the administration during the presidential transition, serving as the point of contact between lawmakers and the Trump transition team.

Needless to say, Collins's opponent, Nate McMurray, just had Christmas arrive in August.  Both had an easy time of winning their respective primaries five weeks ago as they were unopposed, so McMurray has been going after Trump's tight relationship with Trump for some time now. 

Still, this seat was entirely off the radar for the Dems, Cook Political Report has the district (which consists of the Niagara/Genesee farmland between Buffalo and Rochester) weighted as R+11 and even then Collins won in 2016 by almost 35 points, his support for Trump certainly didn't hurt him then.

Being in prison on the other hand might.

We'll see.

(Red) Meat The Press

We're not too far now from where a majority of Trump's fascist supporters will be comfortable with calling for the regime to take CNN, MSNBC, and other Trump critics off the air, as a new Ipsos poll for the Daily Beast finds 43% of Republicans want Trump to have final authority over which news outlets are allowed to operate in the US.

Freedom of the press may be guaranteed in the Constitution. But a plurality of Republicans want to give President Trump the authority to close down certain news outlets, according to a new public opinion survey conducted by Ipsos and provided exclusively to The Daily Beast.

The findings present a sobering picture for the fourth estate, with respondents showing diminished trust in the media and increased support for punitive measures against its members. They also illustrate the extent to which Trump’s anti-press drumbeat has shaped public opinion about the role the media plays in covering his administration.

All told, 43 percent of self-identified Republicans said that they believed “the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior.” Only 36 percent disagreed with that statement. When asked if Trump should close down specific outlets, including CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, nearly a quarter of Republicans (23 percent) agreed and 49 percent disagreed.

Republicans were far more likely to take a negative view of the media. Forty-eight percent of them said they believed “the news media is the enemy of the American people” (just 28 percent disagreed) while nearly four out of every five (79 percent) said that they believed “the mainstream media treats President Trump unfairly.”

But of course, it's not just Republicans.

But swaths of self-identified Democrats and Independents supported anti-press positions as well. According to the survey, 12 percent of Democrats and 21 percent of Independents agreed that “the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior” (74 percent and 55 percent, respectively, disagreed). Additionally, 12 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Independents agreed that “the news media is the enemy of the American people” (74 percent and 50 percent, respectively, disagreed)

The concept of an enemy press corps has become a staple of Trump’s tweets and public utterances in recent months. Much of it appears prompted by stories about internal frictions within the White House and a growing fear over the state of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Members of the press, as well as top officials at some of the nation’s leading publications, have objected to the phrase, arguing that it is both wildly inaccurate and deeply dangerous. They have pointed to mob-like treatment of the media by Trump supporters at various rallies as evidence for their fears. Offered the opportunity, Trump’s spokesperson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, declined to denounce the phrase. Other Trump supports have insisted that he was merely referring to those outlets that spread false information.

It's depressing, really.  Still, 85% of people in the survey agreed that freedom of the press is "essential for American democracy".  That's something, but we're not far off from when that freedom is sharply curtailed, both by corporate pressure and by Trump.

StupidiNews!

• Tuesday's House special election in OH-12 is too close to call this morning and looks to be headed for a state-mandated recount in a district that has been reliably red for decades.
• California says it will keep strict Obama-era auto emissions limits despite Trump regime plans to strip states of the power to set auto pollution standards.
• Iran says that the Trump regime will not stop the country's oil exports despite threats of US action against countries that buy Iranian oil as Washington resumed sanctions against Tehran this week.
• Tesla founder Elon Musk tweeted yesterday that he could choose to take the electric car company private by buying out $82 billion in stock using his own money.
• FCC Chairman Ajit Pai admitted Monday that the agency lied about a denial-of-service attack taking down public comments on net neutrality, but is blaming the Obama administration anyway.

Last Call For Immigration Nation, Con't

I've been saying for months now that the Trump regime's true goal on immigration was never to stop at "build the wall", but to reverse more than 50 years of immigration and citizenship in the country and to reduce the number of citizens -- and eligible voters -- in the US by tens of millions by building a demographic rampart to white nationalism.  

It's a three-part plan: end undocumented immigration and refugees, end legal immigration and citizenship, and mass deportation of immigrants.  The third part is coming, but right now we have to worry about the other two parts of the plan, especially the second part where legal immigrants start losing all paths to citizenship.

The Trump administration is expected to issue a proposal in coming weeks that would make it harder for legal immigrants to become citizens or get green cards if they have ever used a range of popular public welfare programs, including Obamacare, four sources with knowledge of the plan told NBC News.

The move, which would not need congressional approval, is part of White House senior adviser Stephen Miller's plan to limit the number of migrants who obtain legal status in the U.S. each year.

Details of the rulemaking proposal are still being finalized, but based on a recent draft seen last week and described to NBC News, immigrants living legally in the U.S. who have ever used or whose household members have ever used Obamacare, children's health insurance, food stamps and other benefits could be hindered from obtaining legal status in the U.S.

Immigration lawyers and advocates and public health researchers say it would be the biggest change to the legal immigration system in decades and estimate that more than 20 million immigrants could be affected. They say it would fall particularly hard on immigrants working jobs that don't pay enough to support their families.

Many are like Louis Charles, a Haitian green-card holder seeking citizenship who, despite working up to 80 hours a week as a nursing assistant, has had to use public programs to support his disabled adult daughter.

Using some public benefits like Social Security Insurance has already hindered immigrants from obtaining legal status in the past, but the programs included in the recent draft plan could mean that immigrant households earning as much as 250 percent of the poverty level could be rejected.

A version of the plan has been sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the sources said, the final step before publishing a rule in the federal register. Reuters first reported that the White House was considering such a plan in February.

And if they can never become citizens, they become much easier to deport when we get to stage three, right?

In all serious, all this along with gutting civil rights, voting rights, and "reinterpreting" the Fourteenth Amendment is the path we're heading down, and the right to vote will be massively restricted in the years to come unless we stop the GOP here in 2018.

If we don't, it may be too late.

A Supreme Scandal In West Virginia

I haven't been following the story of West Virginia's state Supreme Court about to be impeached, and yes, I mean the entire court over a spending scandal, but it seems like it has just become a very important national story.  One of the five justices has retired, one is facing a number of federal charges, and the other three are are also in trouble after investigation by the state House of Delegates.

The articles of impeachment were introduced against the remaining four justices this morning.

The West Virginia House of Delegates Judiciary Committee has drafted 14 articles of impeachment against the four sitting justices on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

The articles were presented to the committee at about 9:25 a.m. Tuesday morning with mention of all four justices – Margaret Workman, Robin Jean Davis, Allen Loughry and Beth Walker.

Justice Loughry faces six charges, and Chief Justice Margaret Workman faces five charges.

Justices Robin Jean Davis and Beth Walker each face six charges.

Some of the articles charge more than one justice at a time with a given impeachable offense.

Each justice is charged with “unnecessary and lavish” spending of state dollars to renovate their offices in the East Wing of the Capitol.

Loughry faces additional charges related to his use of state vehicles for personal travel, having state furniture and computers in his home, and for handing down an administrative order authorizing payments of senior status judges in excess of what is allowable in state law.

Davis and Workman are charged with actually signing documents authorizing that senior status judges be paid in excess of what’s allowable in state law.

Additionally, Beth Walker is charged with unnecessarily allowing the state to pay $10,000 to a contractor to write an opinion in a case in 2017. Current Supreme Court Interim Administrator Barbara Allen, who was not an employee of the court at the time, authored the opinion.

Workman also is charged with facilitating the employment of an unnecessary employee to do I.T. work for the court in 2014. That employee worked on Workman’s campaign prior to working for the court.

The committee met in executive session for about five hours Monday night, when the articles were drafted.

Members of the committee are considering each article one-by-one.

If the committee approves any or all of the articles, the articles will be presented to the full House of Delegates.

A simple majority, or 51 members, of the House will have to approve the articles for them to advance to the Senate.

In the Senate, two-thirds of the elected members, or 23 senators, will have to approve the articles. If they approve the articles, the Senate will be responsible for facilitating an impeachment trial.

Anyone found "guilty" of committing an impeachable offense by the Senate will be removed from office and permanently banned from seeking public office in the state.

Basically this has never been attempted before in West Virginia for one justice, let alone all five.  It's widely unprecedented, and both parties seem to be working together on getting this done.  I'm not sure if there's a larger game here afoot or what, but I do know that impeachment and removal of a state's highest court isn't something that should ever be considered lightly.

I'll definitely keep an eye on this.

ZVTS Turns Ten

I can't believe I made it this far, but here we are.  After a decade, I'm still a dirty hippie lefty blogger, and believe it or not people are still paying attention to what I say.

There are a lot of people I'd like to thank for the last ten years in no particular order:

Bon Tindle:  A dear friend and activist who I've known for over a decade now, and was here to help me get started.  It's always a pleasure to have her grace my place with her presence, and I learn so much from her even today.  She's still fighting the good fight in Springfield, Missouri and still kicking ass.

Martin Longman:  I got my start blogging over at BooMan Tribune, and enough people liked my work there on the 2007-2008 financial crisis that I decided to get my own place about ten years ago.  Martin's community is still going strong, and you can find him writing for several places.

Imani Gandy:  The world-famous Angry Black Lady herself, Imani is senior legal analyst over at ReWire News these days, fighting for repro rights and blocking fools on social media.  I went from a scrub nobody to my D-List status today because of her help, she's still an awesome friend and I've met so many other great people because of her.

John Cole:  The old man at Balloon Juice, where I got my big break as a contributor all those many years ago.  I haven't written for the Juice in a while, they still have a strong staff and several of you are avid readers over there.  I did write for them for years frankly, and should again.  John is a reformed wingnut who always reminds me people can change for the better (even if they hate all life on earth.)

Elon James White:  The force behind This Week In Blackness, the man turned a website into a podcast empire and then TV,  major news sites, and has a wonderful wife and daughter to boot.  He too gave me a shot, one I should have taken more advantage of, but he proved to me that being black on the internet is a good thing.

Steve M:  The man behind the legendary blog No More Mister Nice Blog, it was Steve who saw in my somebody who wasn't terrible at this gig, and gave me the opportunity to guest write for his place on a number of occasions.

Betty Cracker:  The anti-Florida Man herself, I've known Betty since her jolly days at Rumproast and now Balloon Juice, and she's always been outstanding to read, sticking it to Florida politics the way I do with Ohio and Kentucky.

Ian Boudreau: My favorite misanthropic freelance games writer, Ian is a die-hard Crusader Kings II fan, cat owner, former ground pounder and reminds me most of the time not to be too much of an ass on Twitter.  He's a good guy overall, even if that really is his haircut.

There are a lot of other people I know and want to thank too: the delightfully foul-mouthed Minna Hong, librarian goddess Emily Hauser, Chicago sports master Dave von Ebers, the best bloggers in Michigan, Chris Savage and LOLGOP, giant art and science nerd and author Tom Levenson, MRE-fan Soonergrunt, and most of all?

You, the readers of ZVTS and sticking with me for ten years.

Thanks for that.  Seriously.  I never thought I'd be writing this piece.  Or at all.

From the bottom of my heart, I want you all to know how much I appreciate all of you.