rawstory--2020-10-21--California lays out strict conditions for theme park reopenings

California health officials on Tuesday set out strict conditions for the reopening of theme parks such as Disneyland that were forced to shut down because of the coronavirus crisis , with the new guidelines likely extending the closures for several more weeks .
Under the eagerly anticipated protocols , large parks like Disneyland and Universal Studios will be allowed to reopen once coronavirus transmission in the county in which they operate reaches the state ’ s least restrictive “ yellow ” tier .
A smaller park will be allowed to reopen once its home county reaches the second least restrictive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Disneyland in Anaheim , currently is in the “ red ” , or second tier , while Universal Studios is in the “ purple , ” the state ’ s most restrictive tier .
Once allowed to reopen , larger theme parks can only operate at 25 percent capacity and visitors will have to make advance reservations and must wear face coverings except when eating or drinking , according to the guidelines .
Mark Ghaly , the state ’ s director of health and human services , said it was unclear when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given the fluctuating Covid-19 infection rates .
“ There is a path forward , ” he told reporters .
“ We don ’ t know when , but we know how.
” California ’ s theme parks were forced to shut down in March .
Disney in September announced it would cut 28,000 jobs , blaming California officials for refusing to ease restrictions that would allow Disneyland to reopen .
The company ’ s Florida theme park reopened in mid-July with boosted health and safety measures and reduced capacity .
Ken Potrock , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the protocols outlined Tuesday , saying they would lead to the closure of small family-owned businesses and keep the world ’ s second-most visited theme park shuttered for the foreseeable future .
“ We have proven that we can responsibly reopen , with science-based health and safety protocols strictly enforced at our theme park properties around the world , ” he said in a statement .
“ Nevertheless , the State of California continues to ignore this fact , instead mandating arbitrary guidelines that it knows are unworkable and that hold us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reopened businesses and state-operated facilities.
” Erin Guerrero , president of the California Attractions and Parks Association , also denounced the measures , saying they will devastate the industry and will essentially “ keep theme parks closed indefinitely.
” “ This plan prolongs unemployment for tens of thousands of people , hastens bankruptcy for families and small business owners adjacent to parks , and contributes to insolvency for local governments whose budgets rely on parks as an anchor economic driver , ” she said in a statement .

In response to Trump’s rants, according to Vice News, Robertson had posted to Facebook multiple screeds about the “stolen” 2020 election. Believing Trump’s lie that President Biden was an illegitimate pretender to the White House, he posted:
“IN MY DREAM I SEE JOE BIDEN'S BODY IN A DARK CORNER OF A DC PARKING GARAGE WITH HIS HEAD SEVERED AND LYING IN A HUGE PUDDLE OF BLOOD. HOORAH!!!”
When news came that President Biden was coming to Utah this week, Robertson posted:
“PERHAPS UTAH WILL BECOME FAMOUS THIS WEEK AS THE PLACE A SNIPER TOOK OUT BIDEN THE MARXIST.”
Just a few days earlier, Trump had publicly condemned “the Marxists” who he said were persecuting him.
In openly encouraging rage and violence, Trump is following a well-worn path blazed by many terrorist leaders before him.
Osama bin Laden, for example, never killed anybody. Several narratives suggest he didn’t even know the details of 9/11 until the twin towers had fallen.
Bin Laden also apparently didn’t fund the attack on 9/11 (according to the 9/11 Commission), just as Trump didn’t fund Robertson or the thousands of terrorists who attempted to murder Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi on January 6th.
As ABC News reporter John Miller, who interviewed bin Laden and covered 9/11 extensively, wrote:
“He didn't pay for the World Trade Center bombing or the plot to kill Clinton, but [he thought] they were good ideas.”
Bin Laden inspired the attack with his rhetoric, just as Trump has inspired numerous terrorist assaults here in America with his rhetoric.
ABC News did a deep dive into presidential-inspired terrorism in America. While George W. Bush and Barack Obama said a lot of things in their combined 16 years in office, some fairly controversial, the network reports:
“ABC News could not find a single criminal case filed in federal or state court where an act of violence or threat was made in the name of President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush.”
That was very much not the case with Trump, however:
“But a nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence, or allegations of assault.”
From August 15, 2015 to April 30, 2020 (the article was published in May, 2020, long before the January 6th terror attack on the Capitol), ABC News identified over fifty separate cases where acts or attempted acts of terror were carried out against people Trump had targeted.
They ranged from beatings to murders to attempted mass killings:
“The 54 cases identified by ABC News are remarkable in that a link to the president is captured in court documents and police statements, under the penalty of perjury or contempt.
“These links are not speculative – they are documented in official records. And in the majority of cases identified by ABC News, it was perpetrators themselves who invoked the president in connection with their case, not anyone else.”
In the three-plus years since, there have, no doubt, been hundreds more. And now Trump is turning up the volume, stoking the often-violent fury of the people unfortunate enough to believe his lies.
Consider the top headline at Raw Story yesterday:
“‘Just the beginning’: Ex-FBI official warns more assassins could be inspired by Trump”
No former president in American history has encouraged such violence or tried to inspire stochastic terrorism.
It has simply never happened here before.
Outside of the Confederacy, no American politician has worked so hard to tear America apart, to pit citizens against each other, to destroy our republic from within. Neither has any former president made alliance with and taken hundreds of millions of dollars from hostile foreign agents like Putin’s oligarchs and Saudi Arabia’s MBS.
No president has ever invited a mob to attack the US Capitol and terrorize lawmakers to change the outcome of an election. This terrorist act led to the death of nine people, including four police officers, and Donald Trump has not only not apologized, but he has praised the terrorists he summoned and promised to pardon them.
He plays a song he sings with them at every one of his rallies. He speaks along with the prisoners, people accused of violence that could extend as far as murder. In solidarity with “their cause.”
He has never once condemned any of the murders, attempted murders and bombings, or other acts of violence that have been committed in his name over the past seven years. Instead, we hear that there are “very fine people on both sides.”
Frank Figliuzzi, former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence at the FBI, whose work involved terrorism and understands it well, told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner last night:
“If you think you've seen this before, it's because you have. It is a common theme, this concept that somebody is controlling the globe, controlling elections, and politics. And it's all bad. They're vile, they're subhuman. And it's also something called stochastic terrorism, which is the concept that some leader figures are putting out people as less than human, dehumanizing them, they're evil, and therefore it becomes easier for people to respond to that ideology and act out violently.
He talked about how this would actually be the second wave of Trump terrorism in America, were it to happen again.
“We certainly saw it in large numbers of people, a thousand arrested already, on January 6th, we saw people willing to die, including Ashli Babbitt, who consumed these Trump conspiracy theories, wrapped up in a Trump campaign flag as she's breaching security at the Capitol. We saw it in Cincinnati where a man breached security, or tried to, at the FBI's Cincinnati field office. Ended up dying in a cornfield after hours of standoff.”
Figliuzzi seemed struck by the solemnity of a former president encouraging acts of terrorism, and where it may go:
“I’m afraid this is not in any way the end of this, but rather just the beginning, as we continue to see Trump and his cohorts making vile accusations against people that are now prosecuting Trump, whether they are prosecutors or judges. So there is more of this coming. And law enforcement's challenge, of course, is to get out in front of this before the really bad thing happens."
Trump posting a picture of himself threatening New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg with a baseball bat isn’t cute or funny: it’s a call for brutality or an assassination. It’s an incitement to terrorism.
Now, facing the possibility of time in prison for his crimes, Trump is encouraging the wannabe and weekend terrorists among his base to murder witnesses, prosecutors, and the judges overseeing his case. And to influence jurors so at least one person may lie when questioned by the judge and claim that he is not a fervent Trump follower but then vote to hang the jury.
That would teach them to challenge him. They should have known better, like all those women, he would tell you. The criminal justice system shouldn’t have tried to come after him, he proclaims. Soon there will be carnage.
Outside of the occasional mob boss prosecution, only cases of terrorism have provoked state or federal officials to engage in the extensive security precautions now needed because of Trump’s incitements.
How can our newspapers and other media not see this? Anybody who has been in or near a country in a civil war understands the role Trump is playing.
Trump has openly said he wants to release information which the government says could be used to target people who have investigated him, testified against him, and might serve on the jury that could condemn him.
He is demanding the right to release it all, in defiance of every legal norm known, to devastate the case against him by polluting the jury pool through winning the case in the media before it even gets to court. If he can do that, the court action will seem petty.
Perception is everything, and he knows it. Every dictator in history knows it: that’s how they became dictators.
This is a man with no scruples and no limits. Anything you can imagine, he can probably exceed. Consider the headline at Mediaite yesterday:
“‘My Blood Ran Cold’: Ex-Trump Official Horrified By ‘Criminal Plot’ to Have Military ‘Turn Their Guns on Civilians to Facilitate a Losing Candidate’”
He has repeatedly lied to his followers that his First Amendment free speech rights are being abused, as a setup to cause Americans to lose confidence in our form of government.
In fact, the protective order that will be the focus of this Friday’s meeting in Judge Chutkan’s courtroom is designed to make sure the jury sees the evidence against Trump before he can publicize it to pollute the jury pool and intimidate witnesses who may testify against him.
Such protective orders are routine, but Trump wants to be tried in the court of public opinion, which he knows how to manipulate, rather than in a court of law, where he knows he will probably lose. He believes if he can get in the White House he can pardon himself, a classic dictator’s move. Terrorists like this kind of thing, too.
The mainstream American media has always been a few steps behind Trump in his march toward an attempted fascist takeover of America.
It took them years to use the simple word “lies” to describe his lies. They were reluctant to use the word “terrorism” in connection with January 6th (although The New York Times published an op-ed concluding that it was, in fact, a terrorist attack).
Now, even in the face of naked attacks on the rule of law, our court system, the FBI, and President Biden and VP Harris — they are reluctant to bluntly identify what are clearly incitements of a terrorist reaction to Trump’s prosecutions like we saw yesterday in Idaho.
Had similar characterizations of our police, courts, and intelligence agencies come from the president of Iran, for example, every media outlet in America would be identifying it as an explicit call to either tear the country apart or justify and activate terrorist violence.
Rachel Maddow recently noted that history won’t be asking how it was possible that a former president of the United States could be prosecuted for his crimes; instead, history will ask how such a criminal could have ever become president in the first place.
The answer, as we all know, was laid out by Robert Mueller’s investigation (the unredacted version of which Merrick Garland is still keeping confidential, even though it was written specifically to be released publicly).
Vladimir Putin made sure Paul Manafort was installed as Trump’s campaign manager after Viktor Yanukovych, the Putin puppet Manafort had installed in Ukraine, was thrown out.
Manafort, who didn’t even ask for a paycheck for running Trump’s campaign but did all the work for free, then fed confidential internal polling data to Russian intelligence showing where “persuasion” could help Trump or hurt Clinton.
That persuasion came to America by way of 29 million social media posts, viewed or liked 126 million times, from Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency — the Kremlin — specifically targeting American voters Manafort had identified in a half-dozen or so states.
In Pennsylvania, Trump won by 44,292 votes. In Wisconsin it was 22,748 votes, and in Michigan a mere 10,704 votes. Had Prigozhin not been successful in targeting those 77,744 voters for Putin and Trump, Hillary Clinton would — by any reasonable estimate — have become president in 2016.
Putin’s terror campaign is now targeting Ukraine, the country Trump withheld weapons from and tried to blackmail into helping him steal the 2020 election.
Putin’s man Trump’s terror campaign is now targeting us, at least those of us who are not straight white Trump supporters, as he has done virtually every day since he came down the escalator in Trump Tower and began his hateful rant about “Mexican rapists and murderers.”
How long will our court and criminal justice system tolerate this ongoing assault, this open campaign to promote stochastic terror?
How long will our media recoil from calling him a terrorist as more and more Americans are terrorized, beaten, and murdered by people invoking his name the way Mohamed Atta invoked bin Laden’s?
How long will the GOP continue to tolerate a man who encourages terrorism — even against members of his own party — among their ranks?
It’s possible that we “ain’t seen nothing yet” and Trump will activate far more widespread terror activity and violence before he goes down.
It could be a disaster like none of us have ever lived through, but that I have personally seen in several countries that descended into war.
I helped develop a refugee center in Uganda in the middle of the war with Idi Amin. And I was in South Sudan, on the border with Darfur, as the villages were being burned by the Janjaweed just 15 miles from me. And a few other uncomfortable places in the years I did international relief work.
When people turn against each other in the same country, from what I’ve seen, it is the most brutal kind of warfare.
It’s also possible that this fever will soon break, and America will begin to return to some semblance of normalcy as a whole new set of crises provoked by climate change beset our land and redirect our attention.
Or that Trump may simply self-destruct.
As they say in the news business, stay tuned.


rawstory--2020-10-21--Mitch McConnell admits he’s been working to sabotage COVID relief talks behind the scenes to priorit

Mitch McConnell admits he’s been working to sabotage COVID relief talks behind the scenes to prioritize rushing Barrett confirmation

Senate Majority Mitch McConnell told his Republican colleagues Tuesday that he has privately been urging the Trump White House not to strike a coronavirus relief deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the November 3 election , warning that an agreement could interfere with the chamber ’ s plan to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court early next week .
McConnell ’ s remarks , first reported by the Washington Post , came during a closed-door Senate GOP lunch just ahead of a Tuesday evening deadline for a relief deal set by Pelosi and agreed to by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and went without a deal , the House Speaker told Democratic lawmakers late Tuesday that the two sides “ have been making some progress ” and continued to voice optimism that “ we can reach an agreement before the election.
” “ Let ’ s be very clear about this : Mitch McConnell and Republicans are continuing to block essential relief to Americans across our country.
” —Rep .
Pramila Jayapal But with the election less than two weeks away , the window to hash out the details of the legislative package—which currently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ benefits , another round of stimulus checks , and aid to state and local governments—and push it through both chambers of Congress is shrinking rapidly .
Pelosi acknowledged that reality on Tuesday , telling reporters that legislation would have to be written by the end of this week for it to have any chance of reaching President Donald Trump ’ s desk before Election Day .
Even if the White House and Pelosi come to an agreement , it remains unclear whether enough GOP senators would be willing to vote for a big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consequences of blocking additional relief .
Assuming a united Democratic caucus , any legislation would need at least 13 Republican votes to clear the Senate .
While McConnell ’ s stated excuse for standing in the way of relief is his commitment to confirming Barrett as quickly as possible , that justification may be intended to obscure the fact that many Senate Republicans are simply opposed to additional coronavirus aid , whether or not the package would disrupt the right-wing judge ’ s path to the Supreme Court .
Others have warned in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potential Trump loss next month , McConnell is laying the groundwork to force crippling austerity under a Biden administration .
“ Let ’ s be very clear about this : Mitch McConnell and Republicans are continuing to block essential relief to Americans across our country , ” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal ( D-Wash. ) , co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus .
“ If Trump wants to ‘ go big or go home , ’ he better see if he can control his own party.
” The wrangling on Capitol Hill comes amid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of millions of Americans as the coronavirus continues to spread and the economic collapse brought on by the pandemic—as well as lawmakers ’ refusal to take sufficient action in response—shows no sign of letting up , with layoffs at their highest level since August and hunger still on the rise .
According to data from the Census Bureau , 22 million U.S. adults reported that their household struggled to afford enough food last month .
“ Whatever savings low-income people managed to build up with CARES Act relief will be gone well before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic surge deeply complicates matters , ” David Dayen of The American Prospect warned Tuesday .
“ Many of the few still-extant relief supports expire at the end of the year… It ’ s disgusting to now have a man-made depression on top of the pandemic-made one.
” With a comprehensive relief package in doubt in large part due to his own obstruction , McConnell on Tuesday held a procedural vote on a plan to extend an additional $ 260 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program .
Dismissing the vote as a political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ block the legislation .
“ The bill that Mitch McConnell put on the floor today leaves behind our struggling families , small businesses , minority-owned businesses , restaurants , doctors and nurses , and public health experts , ” Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( D-Mass . )
tweeted late Tuesday .
“ That ’ s why Senate Democrats voted no.
” Kyle Herrig , president of watchdog group Accountable.US , said in a statement that “ the American people need help and need it now.
” “ Only voting to extend a program that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to help without fixing any of the flaws that allowed it to fail is completely nonsensical , ” Herrig added .

Senate Majority Mitch McConnell told his Republican colleagues Tuesday that he has privately been urging the Trump White House not to strike a coronavirus relief deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the November 3 election, warning that an agreement could interfere with the chamber's plan to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court early next week.
McConnell's remarks, first reported by the Washington Post, came during a closed-door Senate GOP lunch just ahead of a Tuesday evening deadline for a relief deal set by Pelosi and agreed to by the Trump administration. While the deadline came and went without a deal, the House Speaker told Democratic lawmakers late Tuesday that the two sides "have been making some progress" and continued to voice optimism that "we can reach an agreement before the election."
"Let's be very clear about this: Mitch McConnell and Republicans are continuing to block essential relief to Americans across our country."
—Rep. Pramila Jayapal
But with the election less than two weeks away, the window to hash out the details of the legislative package—which currently includes a desperately needed boost in unemployment benefits, another round of stimulus checks, and aid to state and local governments—and push it through both chambers of Congress is shrinking rapidly. Pelosi acknowledged that reality on Tuesday, telling reporters that legislation would have to be written by the end of this week for it to have any chance of reaching President Donald Trump's desk before Election Day.
Even if the White House and Pelosi come to an agreement, it remains unclear whether enough GOP senators would be willing to vote for a big spending package, despite the catastrophic economic consequences of blocking additional relief. Assuming a united Democratic caucus, any legislation would need at least 13 Republican votes to clear the Senate.
While McConnell's stated excuse for standing in the way of relief is his commitment to confirming Barrett as quickly as possible, that justification may be intended to obscure the fact that many Senate Republicans are simply opposed to additional coronavirus aid, whether or not the package would disrupt the right-wing judge's path to the Supreme Court. Others have warned in recent days that in preparation for a potential Trump loss next month, McConnell is laying the groundwork to force crippling austerity under a Biden administration.
"Let's be very clear about this: Mitch McConnell and Republicans are continuing to block essential relief to Americans across our country," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "If Trump wants to 'go big or go home,' he better see if he can control his own party."
The wrangling on Capitol Hill comes amid a backdrop of deepening misery for tens of millions of Americans as the coronavirus continues to spread and the economic collapse brought on by the pandemic—as well as lawmakers' refusal to take sufficient action in response—shows no sign of letting up, with layoffs at their highest level since August and hunger still on the rise.
According to data from the Census Bureau, 22 million U.S. adults reported that their household struggled to afford enough food last month.
"Whatever savings low-income people managed to build up with CARES Act relief will be gone well before any other help arrives, and another pandemic surge deeply complicates matters," David Dayen of The American Prospect warned Tuesday. "Many of the few still-extant relief supports expire at the end of the year... It's disgusting to now have a man-made depression on top of the pandemic-made one."
With a comprehensive relief package in doubt in large part due to his own obstruction, McConnell on Tuesday held a procedural vote on a plan to extend an additional $260 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program.
Dismissing the vote as a political stunt, most Senate Democrats voted to block the legislation.
"The bill that Mitch McConnell put on the floor today leaves behind our struggling families, small businesses, minority-owned businesses, restaurants, doctors and nurses, and public health experts," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted late Tuesday. "That's why Senate Democrats voted no."
Kyle Herrig, president of watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement that "the American people need help and need it now."
"Only voting to extend a program that failed the very people it was intended to help without fixing any of the flaws that allowed it to fail is completely nonsensical," Herrig added.


rawstory--2020-10-21--Sam Elliott narrated a powerful new Joe Biden ad — and it aired during Game 1 of the World Series

Actor Sam Elliott narrated a new ad for Joe Biden that aired during Game 1 of the World Series .
@ @ @ @ @ , ” Elliott said .
“ No Democratic rivers , no Republican mountains , just @ @ @ @ @ that ’ s possible on it — with a fresh start.
” “ Cures we @ @ @ @ @ can shape , work to reward , dignity to protect , ” Elliott continues , @ @ @ @ @ plays quietly on a piano in the background .
“ There is so much we @ @ @ @ @ to take on problems and not each other , ” the narrator continues .
“ @ @ @ @ @ brings out our best.
” “ Joe Biden doesn ’ t need everyone in the @ @ @ @ @ just too agree we all love this country , and go from there , ” @ @ @

The caller began rattling off questions about "the guy who's from New York," asking vague questions about something that Signorile suggested was likely a conspiracy theory with no supporting facts.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
There was a debate about whether Trump was being charged with "insurrection" – in fact, his many charges include "defrauding the United States," but not insurrection.
John then began rattling off comments about conspiracies in Philadelphia during the 2020 election.
Signorile explained that Donald Trump was unsuccessful in each case where he went to court over the election. In most cases, the courts ruled he was relying on unsubstantiated facts and hearsay.
"Let's make believe, in John from Staten Island World, that he was someone who was somehow facing an injustice. Does that give him a right to engage in illegal means to overturn the government?" Signorile asked.
John from Staten Island accused Signorile of using "innuendo," and went on to cite what Donald Trump told people.
Signorile went on to say that the way the American system works is that those who have disagreements use the law to fight their case, they don't side-step the law and do whatever they want. That, he said, is why Trump is being accused of the crimes he is at the federal and state level.
"He is every stereotype of place, the only borough of New York City that voted for Trump — and where there was a rally over the weekend to stop migrant asylum-seekers from being sheltered there, even though just about everyone living there, a place dominated by Italian-Americans, descended from immigrants," Signorile, who said he was from the borough, wrote after the call.
"(And let me tell you that not everyone there is like this!)"
Listen to the exchanges in the audio here.


rawstory--2020-10-21--New filings reveal Trump’s campaign and the GOP are in dire financial trouble

On Tuesday , The New York Times reported that new filings show President Donald Trump ’ s campaign — and the Republican Party itself — are teetering on the brink of financial oblivion .
“ New filings with the Federal Election Commission showed the extent of Mr. Trump ’ s cash troubles , which are severe enough that he diverted time from key battleground states and flew to California on Sunday for a fund-raiser with just over two weeks until Election Day , ” reported Shane Goldmacher and Rachel Shorey .
“ The president ended September with just over half @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the beginning of the month.
” “ While Mr. Trump ’ s campaign and its shared committees with the Republican National Committee have raised $ 1.5 billion since the start of 2019 , the disclosures late Tuesday showed that his main re-election committee — the account that must pay for many of the race ’ s most important costs , including most television ads — had only a small slice remaining , ” continued the report .
“ All told , Mr. Trump ’ s campaign and its shared committees with the R.N.C @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , compared with the $ 432 million that Mr. Biden ’ s campaign and its joint accounts with the Democratic National Committee had in the bank .
Some joint account funds are most likely eligible to be transferred to the main campaign committee.
” At the beginning of the year , Trump and the GOP had nearly $ 200 million more cash on hand than Joe Biden and the Democrats .
The cash crunch is leading the Trump campaign to scale back advertising , including in critical battleground states where some polls show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Iowa , as well as states he had hoped to flip after they narrowly voted for Clinton in 2016 , like Minnesota and New Hampshire .
“ Mr .
Trump ’ s campaign has been seeking to trim costs for more than two months , since Bill Stepien replaced Brad Parscale as campaign manager , ” said the report .
“ Under Mr. Parscale , the campaign spent heavily as it invested in constructing a huge database of email addresses and phone numbers to reach supporters and ask for money .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a large uptick in contributions have not materialized .
”

"He's saying that he wants to fight this case in Georgia," said Polantz. "But Rudy Giuliani actually has a lot of other things on his plate right now: namely, he appears to be out of cash. He hasn't been able to share details in court. He's trying to not do that because it would embarrass him and draw attention to his misfortunes, but we were able to pick through some court filings that do outline in lawsuits that he's facing related to his work for Donald Trump after the 2020 election, just how much his bills have piled up right now."
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
"Right now, he has $181,000 in current bills," said Polantz. "That includes a judgment from a court last week saying he had to pay a phone bill for his company from 2020, that he has to pay legal fees for two Georgia election workers who are suing him. That's what the sanction would be, an $89,000 sanction. That's not even what happens if he were to lose that case."
As if that weren't enough, Polantz made clear she was just getting started in listing the former New York mayor's financial woes.
"On top of that, he has a lot of bills for just keeping ahold of the records that he had in his various cell phones and other electronic equipment," she said. "He has that all in a company. It costs money to do searches for those records every time he's getting sued, and it costs money just to hold them with that company. So he has access to his electronic records. It's a lot of legal bills, but on top of that, he has debts. One of the debts that has become public in the court proceedings is he had a $320,000 debt to this company hosting his electronic records. Donald Trump's PAC has paid that off ... but this is not even capturing the scope of the money Rudy Giuliani is just being bogged down with in order to fend off just lawsuits related to the 2020 election and other court proceedings."
"If he's actually out of cash, does he just have two options, pro bono representation or public defender?" asked Harlow.
"Those would be some options. The other options would be to get some cash based on the assets he has. One of the things he has done recently is put a three-bedroom Manhattan apartment up for sale for $6.5 million. It's only been listed for a couple days. As far as I can tell, it doesn't have a bid or a sale on it yet, but he's listing that property of his in Manhattan. We're talking about bills he has right now for lawsuits going on that are not even at the end. If he gets judgments against him for things where he is already conceding he was making false statements about the 2020 election, those bills could skyrocket. That doesn't even factor into how much it costs to defend yourself in criminal court."
Watch the video below or at the link here.


rawstory--2020-10-23--Lou Dobbs lashes out at Lindsey Graham — and says South Carolina shouldn’t reelect him

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Medical experts pushed back against Texas lawmakers’ assertions that puberty blockers and hormone therapies are experimental and put young transgender patients at risk as they testified Tuesday in a hearing that seeks to block a new law banning such medical treatment for kids.
Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, a doctor who treats adolescents and has been providing gender-affirming care for 17 years, said the body of medical research demonstrates these treatments have a high success rate in improving mental health outcomes of trans youth. But in her clinical work, the evidence is more obvious.
“Recently, I had one of my patients tell me, ‘If you had not allowed me, and helped shepherd me through these interventions, I don’t think I would be here,’” said Olson-Kennedy, the medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
She added that hundreds of her patients have expressed the same sentiment in her nearly two decades treating roughly 1,100 young patients.
Texas families and doctors are suing the state to block Senate Bill 14 from going into effect Sept. 1. That new law would ban transgender youth from taking puberty blockers, receiving hormone therapies and having surgery, the latter of which is rarely performed on minors. Such medical interventions are used to treat gender dysphoria, a medical term for the distress someone experiences when their gender identity doesn’t match their body. The plaintiffs assert that the new law violates their parental rights and interferes with their ability to practice medicine.
Legal groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center requested that Travis County District Court Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel issue an injunction against the law.
In her opening statement of the two-day hearing, Assistant Attorney General Heather Dyer rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that SB 14 discriminates based on sex because, she said, people with gender dysphoria are not a protected class.
A central argument of lawmakers supporting SB 14 during the legislative session was that puberty blockers and hormone therapies put young patients at risk for fertility loss and a reduction of bone density. On Tuesday, defense attorneys for the state repeated these claims.
“SB 14 was designed to protect minors from scientifically unsound treatments,” Dyer said.
The medical experts called on by the plaintiffs rejected those claims Tuesday, arguing that the scientific literature supports the use of hormones or puberty blockers as a means to improve the mental health of transgender youth and reduces the dysphoria these young people feel.
“I would not consider estrogen or testosterone the end of the story for fertility,” said Dr. Daniel Shumer, a pediatric endocrinologist at the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.
Pediatric endocrinology is the field of medicine that specializes in transgender adolescent health care.
Representing the state, Assistant Attorney General Johnathan Stone asked Shumer about the number of his patients who stopped receiving gender-affirming treatment. A group of people who refer to themselves as detransitioners have been vocal opponents of gender-affirming care for youth in legislative hearings throughout the country. During this year’s regular Texas legislative session, Republican lawmakers called on several people who had detransitioned to testify in support of SB 14.
Shumer said of his roughly 400 patients, 10 had stopped taking puberty blockers, a reversible treatment that delays the onset of puberty, and two had stopped taking hormones.
Olson-Kennedy noted that there are a variety of reasons people detransition — including a lack of acceptance of their new identity or a loss of health care access — but overall, the number of people who do take this step is very small.
The state’s only witness on Tuesday was evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, who has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and ecology from the University of California Santa Barbara. Wright testified that humans can only be “observed and recorded” as either the male or female sex. While individuals can modify their secondary sex characteristics, like body hair and breast development, Wright said people cannot change their sex.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs noted that Wright was not an expert in gender dysphoria and had not published original research on the topic of biological sex. Wright, who is vocal on his social media platforms about his opposition to gender-affirming care for minors, was asked if he thought transgender individuals were delusional. Of the idea that people can change their sex from what was assigned at birth, he said, “that specific belief is a delusional belief.”
Dr. Aron Janssen, a psychiatrist at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, testified to the evidence that psychotherapy alone cannot alleviate gender dysphoria, asserting that puberty blockers or hormone therapy is medically necessary. By restricting access to these treatments, young patients will have worse outcomes, Janssen said.
“There’s an intense improvement we see amongst these kids,” Janssen said of his clinical experience.
Parents of trans youth and Texas health care workers testified about the impact SB 14 would have on their families and patients. One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Dr. David Paul, a pediatric endocrinologist who works at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, said SB 14 would strip him of the ability to provide the standard of care for his transgender patients.
“They are probably the most positive outcomes of all the patients I see,” Paul said of patients who receive gender-affirming care. If his patients couldn’t access this type of care, Paul said he worries their physical and mental health will deteriorate. He added he has already lost one of his patients to suicide.
One parent of a transgender child, identified by the pseudonym Mary Moe, said she and her daughter have moved out of the state in the wake of SB 14.
“I would like to return to Texas, but Texas has become very ugly to me and my family,” Moe said.
Texas lawmakers’ efforts to restrict gender-affirming care in Texas followed nearly identical campaigns from other Republican-led state legislatures. Across the country, 19 other states have passed similar legislation. Prohibiting doctors from providing gender-affirming care to trans youth is widely popular among Republican voters — over 85% of registered GOP voters in Texas supported these restrictions to some degree, according to an April poll by the Texas Politics Project.
But the wave of new legislation invited a series of lawsuits across the country seeking to block the laws from going into effect. Those suits have largely proved successful in federal courts.
In June, a federal judge ruled that Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for minors is unconstitutional because it violates the due-process and equal-protection rights of transgender children and their families. Federal judges in Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee have also blocked those states’ laws from going into effect. An appeals court intervened to allow Tennessee to implement its ban, and the Kentucky federal judge lifted the injunction he issued, allowing the law to go into effect.
This lawsuit is filed in state court and claims SB 14 violates parental-right protections laid out in the Texas Constitution.
Disclosure: The ACLU of Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.


rawstory--2020-10-28--US early voting surpasses 70 million, continuing historic pace

More than 70 million Americans have cast ballots in the U.S. presidential election , more than half the total turnout of the 2016 election with one week to go until Election Day , according to a Tuesday tally from the U.S .
Elections Project .
The tally , which shows a record-breaking pace that could lead to the highest voter turnout in percentage terms in more than a century , is the latest sign of intense interest in the contest between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden .
It also highlights voters ’ desire to reduce their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic regathers strength heading into winter .
Democrats hold a significant advantage in early voting due to their embrace of mail balloting , which Republicans have historically cast in large numbers but have shunned amid repeated and unfounded attacks by Trump , who says the system is prone to widespread fraud .
Overall , Democrats hold roughly a two-to-one advantage in early voting numbers .
However , Republicans in recent weeks have narrowed the gap in early , in-person voting , data shows .
The high level of early voting has led Michael @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who administers the U.S .
Elections Project , to predict a record U.S. voter turnout of about 150 million , representing 65 % of those eligible to vote , the highest rate since 1908 .
U.S. voters have already cast far more early votes during this presidential campaign than they did in all of 2016 when they passed the 47 million mark earlier this month , data shows .

At present, Trump stands accused of 91 charges in four felony cases, testing his political death-defying ability.
“He is a tank. He is a boulder. I don't think there is literally anything that can happen to this man that would make him lose because he has such a chokehold on the Republican Party,” said Amani Wells-Onyioha, operations director at Democratic political firm Sole Strategies.
Others consider him vulnerable.
RELATED ARTICLE: Prison playbook: How Trump could run his campaign – and the nation – from behind bars
“There's a very real possibility that he gets convicted of one of these and is looking at prison time,” said Nicholas Creel, assistant professor of business law at Georgia College and State University. “When we get to the hypothetical point of him needing to take office, we've got to figure out now, is he actually above the law. The Supreme Court will have to step in.
“There is a very, very real possibility that a Supreme Court majority — probably a five-four ruling — could say you still have to face the music, Mr. President, and if we enter political paralysis, that's because we have chosen that you would be the president in prison,” Creel continued.
Here are 11 other scenarios where Trump fails for a second straight time to get back to the White House — without losing the 2024 general election.
Trump loses the Republican primary on votes
Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institution, author of “Primary Politics: Everything you need to know about how America nominates its presidential candidates,” says Trump does not have an insurmountable lead in the primaries — even if he’s enjoying a massive lead today over the likes of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott and about a dozen other contenders.
“The polls right now are just sort of bologna,” she said. “If there are any polls you should pay attention to, pay attention to the early-state polls, which show a closer race. The national polls are totally meaningless.”
That, she said, is because the primaries are different than any other kind election in the United States.
“It is a sequence, not one election,” she said. “So, yeah, if the election were held today and we had a national primary, Trump would win. But what happens is something very different.”
Kamarck said the essential question is who comes in second in Iowa and what happens to Trump after that.
“If he shows some weakness and if there is another candidate who people decide to coalesce around, that’s the game,” she said. “[Trump] could very well lose.”
One big reason why Tim Scott poses a credible threat to Donald Trump Presidential candidate and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). Getty Images
John Geer, dean of the college of arts and science and professor of political science and public policy and education at Vanderbilt University, said it's hard to imagine Trump not getting the nomination, especially if he wins Iowa and New Hampshire. But the indictments could start to take a toll on him.
“If he gets 30, 40 percent of the vote, he'll probably finish first in most primaries, and the way the Republicans allocate delegates means that he'll get the lion's share of delegates, so he'll lock things up pretty early,” Geer said. “He's going to be in pretty good standing, but we’re way ways away from that, and it'll be interesting to watch because this is beginning to pile on in a way that's just not good for him.”
Trump loses the GOP nomination in a floor fight
Kamarck noted that in 2016, “Never Trump” Republicans angled for a Republican National Convention floor fight.
But, she said, the second-place candidate, Ted Cruz, wasn’t strong enough to make that a viable effort and force multiple ballots
It could be different in 2024, she said.
If Trump goes into the convention with fewer than 50 percent of delegates, Kamarck said, “There’s nothing that keeps that second-place person from taking the third-, fourth- and fifth-place delegates and saying, ’Come with me and let’s win this nomination.’”
James Long, professor of political science at the University of Washington, said Trump supporters might have to ask themselves some tough questions amid the various indictments.
“Everyone saying they’re going to support Trump is going to have to face the reality that this is going to get worse and worse for him, and they’re going to have to think about whether or not he’s a credible winner in the election,” Long said. “And they’re going to have to decide if they care more about him as a person, or they care more about winning. At some point, you have to cut and run and go with somebody you think can win.”
While some of Trump’s rivals have started breaking with the imperled president, other Republican challengers for the GOP nomination have shied away from speaking out against Trump.
“They're hoping if Trump does get convicted of one or more crimes, that even if he's nominated, he could be removed by the Republican National Committee,” said Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University. “I'm not saying that will happen, but they could be thinking about that, and then any one of them could become the nominee.”
Geer imagined Trump’s revenge.
“A scenario is that if he doesn't get the nomination, he would withhold the support for the nominee and ensure the Democrats win,” Geer said.
Trump flees the country
As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote, Trump “is one of the most recognized figures in the world. He would have to go to Mars to live incognito. It is facially absurd.”
As outlandish as it may sound, Trump could theoretically find refuge from legal threats in a country that’s not so friendly to the United States — but potentially friendly to Trump.
ALSO READ: Trump maintains trademarks with Russia, China and numerous other U.S. enemies and frenemies
Think Russia. China. Saudi Arabia. Even — dare one say it — North Korea. Unlike most people in legal peril, Trump has massive amounts of money and the physical means — specifically, his own “Trump Force One” Boeing 757 — to get to a place beyond the reach of special counsel Jack Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis or the U.S. justice system, writ large.
And in addition to the Russias and Chinas of the world, there are dozens of other nations that don’t have extradition treaties with the United States, which makes it extremely difficult for the U.S. law enforcement officials to spirit a wanted man into custody and back to American soil.
Of course, such a drastic move by Trump would all but guarantee that he could never again return to the United States as a free man.
But Trump has well-established business ties in numerous foreign countries and could ostensibly live like a fugitive king in a welcoming nation.
President Donald Trump at his plane (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
And in October 2020, days before the election he wouldn’t win, Trump himself floated the idea of becoming an ex-pat: “Could you imagine if I lose? I’m not going to feel so good. Maybe I’ll have to leave the country, I don’t know.”
Said Wells-Onyioha: “If he doesn't want to face charges, I can see him attempting to flee. Trump genuinely feels like the rules don't apply to him, so I think that there's nothing that he won't do. I don't think he wants to face any accountability or any repercussions for any of the things that he's done thus far, so I can see him trying to flee.”
In actuality, it’s much more likely that Trump’s legal team will just try to delay the court proceedings as long as possible, Geer said.
“I doubt that, but he can tie the legal system up for a long time, so that’s what I suspect he'll end up doing,” Geer said.
Trump falls gravely ill or dies of natural causes
When we discuss age and the presidency, it’s usually about President Joe Biden, the nation’s first octogenarian commander-in-chief.
But Trump, 77, is not a young man, either.
The average age of death for a man who’s served as president of the United States is about 72 years old, according to Statista, and only 12 out of the 45 have lived to celebrate their 80th birthday.
So while the topic itself is grim, even uncouth, the odds of Trump falling gravely ill or dying before Election Day 2024 are not insignificant.
What would happen next upon either scenario would largely be a function of the point in time Trump stopped running.
If Trump was unable to continue running for president in 2023 or early 2024 — prior to the Republican presidential primaries beginning or shortly thereafter — the longroster of other candidates would simply continue competing for the nomination without him.
If Trump couldn’t continue after winning enough primary votes to become the presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, the nation would almost certainly have to gird for a brokered Republican National Convention, which is scheduled for mid-July in Milwaukee, Wis.
And if Trump officially secured the GOP nomination, but couldn’t stand for election in November 2024, a select group of Republican Party bigwigs would likely convene to choose a replacement — whether that was Trump’s vice presidential running mate, or someone else.
Then-President Donald Trump in the State Dining Room on January 14, 2019, where the 2018 NCAA Football National Champions, the Clemson Tigers, were welcomed with food from Domino’s, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
Little is known about the current status of Trump’s health beyond what can be casually observed — that the 6’ 3” teetotaling former president is either clinically overweight or obese, has a taste for foods that aren’t the healthiest and isn’t exactly an exercisejunkie.
A summary of results of Trump’s final presidential physicals, released in June 2020, indicated the then-president weighed 244 pounds, had a normal blood pressure reading and a resting heart rate of 63 beats per minute.
But the summary did not include full details of Trump’s check-up, and Trump has not released any such information since leaving the White House more than two-and-a-half years ago.
Trump dies from assassination
Even more grim is the specter of assassination, an ever-present specter for presidents and presidential candidates alike.
Four presidents — John F. Kennedy, William McKinley, James Garfield and Abraham Lincoln — died after being shot.
Ronald Reagan, in 1981, could have been the fifth assassinated president but for the quick reactions of law enforcement and medical personnel.
This month, while attempting to serve a warrant, FBI agents shot and killed a Utah man who had allegedly made “credible” threats against Biden.
High-profile presidential candidates also come under threat. The most notable modern example is that of Robert F. Kennedy, who died in 1968 after being shot at a campaign event. (Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is now running against Biden in the Democratic primary, and has publicly stated that he believes his father’s convicted killer isn’t the man who committed the crime.)
Trump, like every past president and many presidential candidates, receives U.S. Secret Service protection and will ostensibly be entitled to such protection even if he’s convicted of a crime and sent to prison or home detention.
Trump takes a plea and agrees to quits the race before Election Day
Scott Galloway made this prediction recently on the popular podcast Pivot, which he hosts with journalist Kara Swisher:
Trump, Galloway said, "has a very nice life, and his life can be going back to golf and sycophants and having sex with porn stars. … Or he can live under the threat of prison. The [political] momentum he has is real leverage and power. And I think he’s going to cash that leverage and power in for a plea deal that includes no jail time.”
Now that Trump is facing state charges in Georgia and New York, he wouldn’t be able to escape by pardoning himself as president — something he could attempt to do for the federal-level charges he faces. Therefore, Trump’s calculus may change.
Creel noted Spiro Agnew’s resignation from the vice presidency in 1973 after facing the threat of jail for his corruption while governor of Maryland.
ALSO READ: Why does Trump continue to surprise some liberals?
“One of the parts of the agreement was [to] resign, get out of politics forever, and we will not pursue this,” he said. “So with a more rational defendant, that would absolutely be something that's on the table. That's something Jack Smith would be bringing to Trump, but for one, we're not dealing with a particularly rational individual. Two, this scenario is significantly different in that we have state-level charges also facing him. And so because they can't really immunize him against that at the state level, the incentive to take that sort of a deal is greatly diminished.”
Wells-Onyioha said Trump maybe – maybe – would come to the realization that prison, and the potential life-long loss of his freedom, is a real and unpalatable possibility.
“I can see them coming up with some sort of like plea agreement, where in exchange for dropping out of the race, they will let him be on probation or something like that,” she said. “I can see that happening. But even so, I'm not even sure if he would take that deal.”
Trump is removed via the 25th Amendment
The Constitution’s 25th Amendment spells out the succession plan if a president dies or is removed from office, which means the vice president takes over.
If the vice president and his cabinet determine that the president is unable to discharge his duties as president — say, being in prison — Congress will have 48 hours to convene and 21 days to decide if the president is fit to hold office. It can remove him by a two-thirds vote.
“You can even see his cabinet exercising the 25th Amendment, saying, look, you're incapacitated. You're not capable because you're needing to go to prison or are in prison. You're not capable of fulfilling the oath of office, therefore, we're invoking [the] 25th Amendment and removing you from office that way, and so you would see whoever his vice president elect is [at] that point stepping up,” Creel said.
If Trump wins the 2024 election, the Supreme Court will ultimately need to decide if a sitting president is immune from state-level prosecution in Georgia and New York, and the Court might rule against his ability to serve as president.
US Supreme Court (supreme.justia.com) US Supreme Court (supreme.justia.com)
“Functionally this would mean Trump is the legitimate president but would still be forced to carry out a sentence in a state prison,” Creel said. “In that scenario, it’s difficult to see how he wouldn’t be either impeached and convicted or otherwise removed via the 25th Amendment due to his ‘incapacity.’”
But with a third of the Supreme Court being Trump appointees, Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way and former mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., said he could see the Court ruling in Trump’s favor and allowing him to serve any legal consequences at a later time.
“Uncharted legal territory with stakes this high means questions like that usually get kicked up to the Supreme Court. Given that, Donald Trump appointed three members of the Supreme Court on a six-person ultra conservative majority, I think the most likely scenario is that he's allowed to stand for office, and if he wins, he could avoid or at least delay paying his debt to society,” Myrick said.
Trump is impeached for a third time, then convicted and disqualified from serving as president
If the Supreme Court does say “nobody's above the law, and that includes the president” and lets the criminal justice system do its work, Creel said, Trump could still be disqualified from the presidency via the political system.
“We have a blueprint for how to do that. Impeachment. Conviction. Removal. That's how you could do it, and so you can see him taking office and having that avenue, where he's president for a day and then they just kind of have this perfunctory removal,” Creel said.
Trump was twice impeached while in office, but was acquitted on all counts by the Senate in both cases.
Congress could technically impeach Trump now with the goal of simply disqualifying him from running for elected office. Recall that Trump’s second impeachment trial took place several weeks after he left the White House.
But with Republicans currently controlling the House, where any impeachment proceeding would begin, such a scenario is exceedingly remote.
Trump has the 14th Amendment applied to him
The Constitution's 14th Amendment also poses a potential roadblock to Trump’s ability to serve out a presidency, some conservative Constitutional scholars say, as quoted by the New York Times.
The amendment, in part, bans anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States from holding any civil, military or elected office without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate.
Trump’s second federal indictment involves four felony counts in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Trump’s alleged effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6,” William Baude, a professor of law at the University of Chicago, told the Times.
The 14th Amendment originally intended to prevent Confederate officials from gaining power after the Civil War, but how the disqualification clause would be applied is unclear to legal experts, especially since it’s never been used in the case of a president before, FindLaw, a Reuters company, reported.
Certain states could disqualify Trump from the ballot, making an Electoral College victory impossible
If Trump isn’t disqualified from running for president at the federal level, states could still disqualify him on the same grounds, Creel said.
Two advocacy groups, The Free Speech For People and Mi Familia Vota Education Fund, have written letters to election officials in California, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania pushing for the states to bar Trump from appearing on their ballots, citing the 14th Amendment, Newsweek reported.
ALSO READ: Fresh off Trump performance, silenced children’s choir to sing at U.S. Capitol
“Individual states do have through their own electoral mechanisms, individuals with the authority to remove him from the ballot,” Creel said. “That could potentially happen, which would ultimately, it would still go to the Supreme Court, but it would very potentially deny him the ability to get on those ballots, and therefore disqualify him.”
But with most trial dates to be determined, Geer says Trump likely won’t get disqualified from the state ballot while the cases are still pending.
“Innocent `til proven guilty is the mantra of the country and that applies to the former president, and that'll keep him from facing those kinds of things unless suddenly he was to be convicted, which he'll be drawing that process out as long as he can,” Geer said.
Biden pardons Trump with the understanding that he’ll quit the race
James Long, professor of political science at the University of Washington, said it could be another Republican who makes a deal to pardon Trump.
“Chris Christie probably wouldn’t do this, but maybe some of the others would,” Long said. “If they’re all on a debate stage, a journalist should say, ‘Are you willing, now, to say whether you would pardon Donald Trump on federal charges?’
“I could see him doing a back-room deal with somebody like DeSantis where he says, ‘Look, I’ll drop out of the race and support you and if you win, you have to promise to pardon me, and he’ll throw the full weight of MAGA behind that agreement.”
An even more exotic and unlikely scenario is Biden pardoning Trump with the understanding that Trump will quit the presidential race.
Biden, whose comments about Trump’s legal troubles have been minimal of late, has never spoken of such an idea.
A most imperfect historical parallel would be President Gerald Ford’s pardoning of President Richard Nixon after Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal. But there’s no evidence Ford’s pardon involved either an overt or secret quid pro quo, according to the National Constitution Center, and came only after Nixon had officially stepped down.
Also: Could Trump serve as president while set to serve time?
In short: yes.
There’s precedent that presidents don’t have full legal immunity — look at the 1997 Supreme Court ruling in Clinton v. Jones, Creel says — but Trump could be still allowed to serve any prison time post-presidency if convicted and sentenced for any of the 91 charges.
That would require the Supreme Court ruling that Trump couldn’t have his presidential duties interfered with by state level charges.
“We have to just set them aside to the point where he could realistically, in that scenario if that's what the Supreme Court says, be told January 20, at 12:01 p.m., 2028, report for incarceration in the state of Georgia,” Creel said. “That's an actual realistic possibility that could go his way.”


rawstory--2020-10-28--Trump cabinet official’s press secretary stuns internet by slamming ‘rotten stench’ of Obama adminis

Trump cabinet official’s press secretary stuns internet by slamming ‘rotten stench’ of Obama administration

Many on social media were stunned Tuesday evening after reading a tweet from the verified account Department of the Interior ’ s press secretary .
It started when Interior Secretary David Bernhardt posted a tweet promoting President Donald Trump , which some say called overly political and others suggested appeared to violate the Hatch Act .
Among those who complained was Tim Fullerton , who worked in the Interior Dept .
during the Obama administration .
Here ’ s what he tweeted : Stunningly , Secretary Bernhardt ’ s press secretary ’ s Twitter account attacked Fullerton , saying , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ethics attorneys and thankfully no longer overseen by you.
” He went on to attack what he says is the Obama administration ’ s “ rotten stench ” and “ blatant failure.
” According to his bio on Twitter Ben Goldey is Secretary Bernhardt ’ s Press Secretary .
Goldey did not respond to a request for comment .
The Trump administration has had more ethics scandals than any administration in modern U.S.history .
A 2018 report determined it is the “ most unethical in modern history.
” Here ’ s what some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should it be deleted :

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday morning, Donald Trump biographer and Bloomberg Opinion executive editor Timothy O'Brien said the former president is entering new legal territory as he faces federal charges in a D.C. courtroom and has no idea how to conduct himself.
Speaking with fill-in host Charles F. Coleman Jr., O'Brien stated that the former president's "garbage argument" about his ability to talk about his trial is not going to fly in United States District Court for D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan's courtroom.
Noting that the former president has previously never been "fully held accountable because he has this mythic invincibility," he added, "But the reality is, he's never been subject to an intense criminal proceeding with devoted and dedicated prosecutors, pounding the fact pattern, and his own defenses in an indefatigable way and that's happening right now."
Adding, "I think he's not used to playing in that court," he later explained, "I think Judge Chutkan is saying, you can make a First Amendment right argument, but your First Amendment privileges, your right to free speech, they don't extend into subverting the judicial process and they don't extend into intimidating potential witnesses or tampering with the jury."
RELATED: Trump lawyer dropped 'loser' argument after DC Judge Chutkan rolled her eyes and put 'her face in her hands': Guardian reporter
"Because no one is immune from being held to the same standards in a court of law as everyone else -- so yes, he can make this argument, his lawyers have made it in every case has come up recently in both federal indictments, to say that this is the government trampling on his rights of free speech," he continued. "It's a garbage argument, it's a gossamer argument. Legally, I don't think it's gonna get him anywhere."
He later added, "He is really playing with fire. I think Judge Chutkan has said, 'If you choose to talk about evidence that you see, or if you choose to talk about anything that's become public in an evidentiary way in this trial, I will hold you to account."
"She's given him a first warning," he added. "I expect others to come, he's not an easily to silence person as we all know."
Watch below or at the link.


rawstory--2020-10-29--Shocking photos and videos detail horrific scene after two-day ice storm in Oklahoma, Kansas and Tex

Shocking photos and videos detail horrific scene after two-day ice storm in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas

Oklahoma , Kansas and Texas have been dealing with a brutal attack from three different ice and sleet systems for two days .
It has left communities looking like war zones with trees and debris littering the streets and as of Wednesday ’ s third wave , over 368,000 people are without power in Oklahoma .
Power lines were filmed popping , starting fires with blue flashes of electricity .
Oklahoma took the brunt of the hit from the storm , plunging the state from a colorful Autumn into trees , flowers and multi-colored leaves completely encased in ice .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ Survivor Tree , ” a tree that remained standing despite the horrific bombing on the Alpha P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19 , 1995 .
The tree has lasted through the bombing as well as 25 years of storms , tornadoes , hurricane-force winds , snowstorms and ice .
But 2020 ’ s ice storm took down a large branch on the north side of the tree , sending it tipping and possibly uprooting itself .
Teams are working hard to try and save it , but it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The bombing memorial staff said that they will continue to monitor it 24/7 through the storms .
Seedlings have been taken of the tree throughout the years so that even if the tree is destroyed , its descendants can take over in memory .
Meteorologists have said it ’ s the earliest ice storm on record and it may become the costliest when everything is finally repaired and cleaned up .

"One thing that's unusual here compared to the other three cases which is already a remarkable thing that we're talking about, four criminal cases again the former president for crimes he committed allegedly before, during and after his presidency, is that [Fulton County district attorney] Fani Willis actually got arrest warrants for each of these people so she could actually dictate the terms of when everyone needs to surrender," Weissmann said. "She didn't issue a summons. A summons says you need to come, but there's a whole negotiation about when that will be. Here she said you need to turn yourselves in by next Friday, and if you don't, obviously, she has the power to go ahead and enforce the arrest warrant. That obviously won't be necessary."
DON'T MISS: Trump ally mocked reporter's purported ignorance of Georgia law — now she's been indicted
"I think the big issue and the reason Georgia may be different in a way that helps her and potentially helps Jack Smith is that if you are anyone who is just indicted other than Donald Trump, your incentive to cooperate just went way up and the reason is, you really can't bank on a pardon, even if Donald Trump wins the presidency," Weissmann added. "In many ways that's almost your worst nightmare because you still will have a case. Donald Trump will have arguments about why the case should be delayed while he is president, but you will be left holding the bag, facing trial and huge legal fees and, obviously, the potential of going to jail if you are convicted, and if Donald Trump doesn't become president, then you are also going to be on trial and facing those same risks, so the ability to not get pardoned, which, you know, might help Donald Trump if he wins doesn't help any of those other 18 people who now have the normal incentives to cooperate when you're facing significant charges."
Watch the video below or at this link.


rawstory--2020-10-30--Locals teed off about new Trump golf course in Scotland

On the roof of his house overlooking the sea in northeast Scotland , David Milne stands below a Mexican flag and stares down at a palatial golf clubhouse owned by Donald Trump .
Milne has been a major opponent of the development ever since the US president began building the Trump International Golf Links near the village of Balmedie in 2006 .
But he is now scratching his head in disbelief that the local Aberdeenshire Council has given the go ahead for a second course beside the sand dunes just a few miles away .
“ There ’ s no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he told AFP .
“ The first course that ’ s here is losing money .
It ’ s never turned a profit since it opened its doors .
It ’ s done nothing but damage to this area .
“ So , why do you want to build a second one and destroy more landscape ?
” Milne said the surrounding countryside and its coastal paths used to be visited by throngs of tourists and bird-watchers .
But tramping through the dunes off the windswept beach is nearly impossible now , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wire fencing .
Loss-making Trump International Golf Links is one of three golf resorts the outspoken US tycoon-turned-politician and his family own in Europe .
One is in Ireland while the two others — Turnberry and Trump International — are in Scotland , the ancestral home of his mother , Mary , who came from the northwest Isle of Lewis .
Trump bought the 1,400 acres ( 567 hectares ) of land north of the city of Aberdeen in 2006 , and in characteristic style pledged to build “ the world ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to create 6,000 jobs and invest £1 billion ( $ 1.3 billion , 1.1 billion euros ) .
The links opened in 2012 but in October last year , Trump International Golf Club Scotland reported a loss of £1.07 million for 2018 after a £1.25 million loss in 2017 .
The two courses employed around 650 temporary and permanent staff in 2018 .
Milne says Trump offered him $ 260,000 , jewelry and a golf club membership for his house , which is built on roughly one-fifth of an acre of land bordering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In retaliation , a row of trees was planted in front of his house .
Then a fence was built and Trump sent him the $ 3,500 bill , he added .
“ The Mexican flag first went up when I first heard Donald Trump talking about the wall on the Mexican border and making the Mexicans pay for it , ” he said .
“ That struck a chord with me because he ’ s already tried that , right here at this site.
” On a sand dune where construction for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the go ahead , local Democratic and Green Group councillor Paul Johnston is as baffled as Milne .
“ The success of the other one has to be proven first and it ’ s not exactly a success , ” said Johnston , who opposed the plans on environmental grounds .
“ Far from it .
It makes a loss every year .
A lot of people around here probably do feel misled by the whole fiasco.
” Not everyone is opposed , however .
Stewart Spence , the 70-year-old owner of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half-hour drive from Balmedie , said Trump ’ s investment has paid dividends locally .
“ The amount of business it has brought into the area obviously is enormous , ” he said .
“ The spin-off has been for restaurants , chauffeur drivers and everything else .
People will come and stay two or three nights .
“ They might eat one night at my hotel and the other nights they go out to eat in restaurants.
” Flagging interest Trump visited Scotland before his shock 2016 presidential election win , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Prestwick Airport by a spoof Mariachi band , “ Juan Direction ” .
The musicians were also armed with a wheelbarrow full of bricks for his border wall .
Trump ’ s chaotic four years as the president has taken its toll on his political opponents in the United States , where he is seeking a second term of office at elections next week .
In Scotland , Milne knows how they feel .
He said he has been promised a lifetime supply of Mexican flags from friends he gained there by refusing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flag up as a token of respect and solidarity with the Mexican people , ” he said , his voice cracking with emotion .
“ I said the flag would fly as long as Donald Trump is president .
Should he lose the election , the flag will come down .
“ That is not a reflection on the Mexican people .
It ’ s just no longer required .
They won .
”

On the roof of his house overlooking the sea in northeast Scotland, David Milne stands below a Mexican flag and stares down at a palatial golf clubhouse owned by Donald Trump.
Milne has been a major opponent of the development ever since the US president began building the Trump International Golf Links near the village of Balmedie in 2006.
But he is now scratching his head in disbelief that the local Aberdeenshire Council has given the go ahead for a second course beside the sand dunes just a few miles away.
"There's no justification for this golf course," he told AFP.
"The first course that's here is losing money. It's never turned a profit since it opened its doors. It's done nothing but damage to this area.
"So, why do you want to build a second one and destroy more landscape?"
Milne said the surrounding countryside and its coastal paths used to be visited by throngs of tourists and bird-watchers.
But tramping through the dunes off the windswept beach is nearly impossible now, as the course has been blocked off with wire fencing.
Loss-making
Trump International Golf Links is one of three golf resorts the outspoken US tycoon-turned-politician and his family own in Europe.
One is in Ireland while the two others -- Turnberry and Trump International -- are in Scotland, the ancestral home of his mother, Mary, who came from the northwest Isle of Lewis.
Trump bought the 1,400 acres (567 hectares) of land north of the city of Aberdeen in 2006, and in characteristic style pledged to build "the world's best golf course".
He promised to create 6,000 jobs and invest £1 billion ($1.3 billion, 1.1 billion euros).
The links opened in 2012 but in October last year, Trump International Golf Club Scotland reported a loss of £1.07 million for 2018 after a £1.25 million loss in 2017.
The two courses employed around 650 temporary and permanent staff in 2018.
Milne says Trump offered him $260,000, jewelry and a golf club membership for his house, which is built on roughly one-fifth of an acre of land bordering the course.
But he refused. In retaliation, a row of trees was planted in front of his house. Then a fence was built and Trump sent him the $3,500 bill, he added.
"The Mexican flag first went up when I first heard Donald Trump talking about the wall on the Mexican border and making the Mexicans pay for it," he said.
"That struck a chord with me because he's already tried that, right here at this site."
On a sand dune where construction for the new Trump course has been given the go ahead, local Democratic and Green Group councillor Paul Johnston is as baffled as Milne.
"The success of the other one has to be proven first and it's not exactly a success," said Johnston, who opposed the plans on environmental grounds.
"Far from it. It makes a loss every year. A lot of people around here probably do feel misled by the whole fiasco."
Not everyone is opposed, however.
Stewart Spence, the 70-year-old owner of the five-star Marcliffe Hotel in Aberdeen, a half-hour drive from Balmedie, said Trump's investment has paid dividends locally.
"The amount of business it has brought into the area obviously is enormous," he said.
"The spin-off has been for restaurants, chauffeur drivers and everything else. People will come and stay two or three nights.
"They might eat one night at my hotel and the other nights they go out to eat in restaurants."
Flagging interest
Trump visited Scotland before his shock 2016 presidential election win, and was serenaded on his arrival at Glasgow Prestwick Airport by a spoof Mariachi band, "Juan Direction".
The musicians were also armed with a wheelbarrow full of bricks for his border wall.
Trump's chaotic four years as the president has taken its toll on his political opponents in the United States, where he is seeking a second term of office at elections next week.
In Scotland, Milne knows how they feel.
He said he has been promised a lifetime supply of Mexican flags from friends he gained there by refusing to budge.
"I put the flag up as a token of respect and solidarity with the Mexican people," he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
"I said the flag would fly as long as Donald Trump is president. Should he lose the election, the flag will come down.
"That is not a reflection on the Mexican people. It's just no longer required. They won."