babylonsister
babylonsister's JournalTelevangelists, Dallas megachurch that hosted Pence approved for millions in pandemic aid
Waiting patiently to see how many show up positive from that megachurch gagglefuck.
July 6, 2020 / 11:19 PM / Updated an hour ago
Televangelists, Dallas megachurch that hosted Pence approved for millions in pandemic aid
Chris Prentice
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Dallas megachurch whose pastor has been a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump was approved for a forgivable loan worth $2 million to $5 million, according to long-awaited government data released on Monday.
Vice President Mike Pence spoke at a rally last month at the First Baptist Church of Dallas, whose pastor, Robert Jeffress, has been on Trump’s evangelical advisory board.
It was among the tens of thousands of religious organizations that received a total of $7.3 billion in pandemic aid from the Small Business Administration.
The list of religious organizations approved for about 88,400 small business loans also included Joyce Meyer Ministries Inc, a Missouri church which in 2007-2011 was investigated by the Senate over its finances. That church was approved for $5 million to $10 million - the largest sum an individual entity could apply for.
more...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ppp-religious-idUSKBN2480CB
RNC Spokesperson Denounces 'All People Are Created Equal' as 'Radical Left Socialism'
RNC Spokesperson Denounces ‘All People Are Created Equal’ as ‘Radical Left Socialism’
Published on July 6, 2020 at 02:12 PM ET
By David Edwards – Raw Story
Republican National Committee spokesperson Liz Harrington on Sunday denounced the idea that “all people are created equal.”
During an appearance on Fox News, Harrington blasted an op-ed in which presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden declared “all people are created equal and should be treated equally throughout their lives.”
Harrington claimed that the idea is an assault on the Declaration of Independence, which says that all “men” are created equal.
“His party is trying to rewrite history and tear it all down,” she continued. “And it’s very fitting that Joe Biden, in this op-ed, has the audacity to literally rewrite the greatest foundational document in this history of mankind, the Declaration of Independence.”
“His woke staffers changed it to — not ‘all men are created equal’ — all people are created equal,” the RNC spokesperson said, “and all people are guaranteed equality throughout life.”
According to Harrington, “That is not a constitutional republic.”
“That’s the same radical left socialism that has taken over his party,” she added. “That is really not just eroding our foundation, but rewriting it and out to destroy it.”
Watch the video below from Fox News.
https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/07/rnc-spokesperson-denounces-all-people-are-created-equal-as-radical-left-socialism/
Hundreds of health groups petition against Trump
Hundreds of health groups petition against Trump
The leaders of public health authorities and activist groups come together to defend the CDC and demand an end to political interference.
By ADAM CANCRYN
07/07/2020 05:00 AM EDT
Frustrated by President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus response, major public health organizations are mounting a widespread defense of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over worries the administration is sidelining its own experts and undermining trust in public health officials across the country.
The nearly 350 public health organizations, advocacy groups and local health departments are urging Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar — who has fallen in lockstep with the White House on key markers of the coronavirus response — to play a more prominent role in shielding the CDC from political interference.
The missive comes amid growing alarm within the public health community over the damage done by Trump’s dismissals of the pandemic threat, including his refusal to endorse basic measures like mask-wearing and his insistence that the coronavirus will vanish even as cases continue to surge. At the same time, the administration has largely relegated the CDC to the background, clamped down on health officials’ public appearances and overruled key guidance for safely reopening parts of the economy.
The letter signifies the deepening divide between top federal officials leading the coronavirus response and the local officials on the front lines — a split that state and local officials told POLITICO has reached new depths nearly six months into the crisis.
more...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/07/hundreds-health-groups-petition-trump-350154
Melania Trump's former friend and adviser set to publish 'explosive' tell-all book
I want to know what she did with that $26M?
https://theweek.com/speedreads/923979/melania-trumps-former-friend-adviser-set-publish-explosive-tellall-book
Melania Trump's former friend and adviser set to publish 'explosive' tell-all book
12:11 a.m.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
President Trump can breathe a sigh of relief — the latest tell-all book from a member of his orbit isn't about him, but rather first lady Melania Trump.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser to Melania Trump, is writing a memoir that will detail their 15-year relationship, from beginning to implosion. Melania and Me is due to hit shelves on Sept. 1, Vanity Fair's Emily Jane Fox reports, and will be published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster — the same company behind former National Security Adviser John Bolton's The Room Where it Happened and the upcoming Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, written by the president's niece, Mary Trump.
Wolkoff, a former special events director at Vogue, helped plan the 2017 inauguration, and soon after became a senior adviser to the first lady. Her time in the White House was short-lived; she was ousted in February 2018 after it was revealed that the Trump inaugural committee paid her firm $26 million to assist with the inauguration.
Wolkoff told The New York Times in 2019 that she had been "thrown under the bus." Time has evidently not healed all wounds, as people with knowledge of Melania and Me told The Daily Beast it is "largely negative," "explosive," and "heavily trashes the first lady." Catherine Garcia
Texas Sheriffs Refuse to Enforce Mask Order
We're never going to shake this virus with this level of ignorance.
https://politicalwire.com/2020/07/07/texas-sheriffs-refuse-to-enforce-mask-order/
Texas Sheriffs Refuse to Enforce Mask Order
July 7, 2020 at 7:29 am EDT By Taegan Goddard
Dahlia Lithwick: Is John Roberts Moving to the Left?
Is John Roberts Moving to the Left?
Or is he just playing the long game?
By Dahlia Lithwick
July 06, 2020
3:45 PM
On the most recent episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick welcomed the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin and NYU School of Law professor Melissa Murray to discuss last week’s big abortion decision, June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, in which Chief Justice John Roberts chose to strike down Louisiana’s restrictive abortion law. Murray and Toobin debate what this means for Roberts’ jurisprudence and whether he’s moving to the left. Read a portion of their conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, below.
You’re right that you can’t separate this from his defection on DACA and his defection on Title VII. It’s clear that this is not the chief justice that we saw even this time last year.
more...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/john-roberts-june-medical-abortion-moving-left.html
ICE Tells Foreign Students to Leave the Country if Their Schools Are Going Online-Only
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/07/ice-tells-foreign-students-to-leave-the-country-if-their-schools-are-going-online-only/1 hour ago
ICE Tells Foreign Students to Leave the Country if Their Schools Are Going Online-Only
Unless they can find a way to transfer to a new school before the fall.
Noah Lanard
The Trump administration is giving a draconian choice to foreign students at schools that plan to offer only online courses this fall: Quickly transfer to a school with in-person classes or leave the country.
The new policy announced on Monday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement comes as colleges debate how to safely reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Some schools are resuming in-person courses; others are adopting hybrid models that combine in-person and online courses; and some are going fully online.
With classes set to begin in September, it’s not clear how students would be able to transfer to a new university in time to stay in the United States. That may be the point.
After failing to get Congress to cut legal immigration, the White House has succeeded in using the pandemic as an excuse to shut off nearly all ways for people to come to the United States. Now it’s extending that crackdown to some students who are already in the country.
Surprise: Trump's "Drain the Swamp" Promise Was a Load of Hot Garbage
Trump Administration
Surprise: Trump’s “Drain the Swamp” Promise Was a Load of Hot Garbage
Two new reports find that Trump-connected lobbyists are thriving under his administration.
By Charlotte Klein
July 6, 2020
Lobbyists who have thrived under Donald Trump’s administration continue to do so in the throes of a pandemic, according to a new report from watchdog group Public Citizen. At least 40 lobbyists with ties to Trump—through his campaign, his inaugural committee, his transition team, or his administration—have either lobbied or registered to lobby on COVID-related issues, helping clients secure more than $10.5 billion in federal coronavirus aid in total. “The crisis offered an especially lucrative opportunity for those lobbyists who enjoy close ties to President Donald Trump and his administration—and they seized it,” noted Mike Tanglis and Taylor Lincoln, who wrote the report.
Ironically, Trump himself issued an executive order early-on in his administration that theoretically prevents former administration officials from lobbying the agency or office where they worked for a period of five years. It’s also supposed to prohibit political appointees from lobbying the administration while Trump is in office—all part of his “drain the swamp” campaign promise. Shockingly, that’s not quite how things have played out. Per the AP, at least five former members of the Trump administration are potentially in violation of the rule, including the wife of ex-White House counsel Don McGahn:
Trump-connected lobbyists are reportedly popular in helping businesses win the designation of “essential” or “critical,” a title that “can allow businesses to continue operating despite the pandemic and may give them some defense against lawsuits for unreasonably endangering workers or the public,” per the AP. LaundryLux, a supplier of commercial laundry machines, looked to lobbyist Brian Ballard in March, after the Department of Homeland Security did not include laundry services as an essential business to operate during the coronavirus crisis. Eight days after his firm, Ballard Partners, was hired, the DHS issued follow-up guidance deeming laundry services essential. Ballard was part of Trump’s presidential transition and is the finance chair for the Republican National Committee; he has reportedly bundled more than $1 million for Trump’s fundraising committees.
Lobbyists thriving under the Trump administration want to keep it that way, which is why they’re invested in getting Trump reelected. The New York Times reported that at least eight lobbyists and operatives with ties to lobbying firms are assisting Trump’s campaign “in various paid and unpaid capacities, like fund-raising and strategy.” According to congressional and Justice Department filings analyzed by the Times, “those eight have been paid a total of nearly $120 million through their firms to influence the United States government from the beginning of 2017, as Mr. Trump prepared to take office, to the end of March.” Ballard, along with Texas operative Jeff Miller, are two of the top three earners of the group—neither had lobbied at the federal level until Trump’s election, and, according to Public Citizen, Ballard Partners now has the most clients of all federal lobbying firms.
more...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/surprise-trumps-drain-the-swamp-promise-was-a-load-of-hot-garbage
Calls for GOP Governors to resign for their handling of Covid-19
https://thegamut.blog/2020/07/06/calls-for-resignations-of-republican-governors/Calls for GOP Governors to resign for their handling of Covid-19
Matthew Silvan 41 mins ago 3 min read
snip//
One Texas doctor reports that young patients are dying, and hospital beds are quickly running out.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1279924971146485760
Abbott’s failure to listen to health experts cost lives in Texas, and #AbbottResign trended on Twitter. However, in Ector County, Republican leaders met to censure the Governor on the 4th of July. They claim the Governor used constitutional overreach in his executive orders by enforcing mask-wearing.
So, Gov. Abbott is facing calls to resign both for enforcing mask-wearing and for failing to act.
In Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey, also Republican, reopened businesses in early May. Now, the state of 7 million people is reporting around as many new cases each day as the whole European Union, with some 446 million people.
Meanwhile, in Florida, the total coronavirus cases are over 200K as the Sunshine State added 40K new cases in four days. Once again, a Republican Governor, Ron DeSantis, rushed to reopen the state.
Rubin calls for the resignation of these Republican governors whose “recklessness and incompetence” imperils all Americans. Of course, they are following Trump’s lead in rejecting science. (and common sense)
Today, Trump continues to blame the numbers of cases on testing, throwing in his usual racist rhetoric for his base. If anybody should resign first, it’s Trump for endangering Americans in more ways than one.
Country Music Hall of Fame member Charlie Daniels dies at 83
https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/07/06/charlie-daniels-country-music-dies/5384087002/Country Music Hall of Fame member Charlie Daniels dies at 83
Dave Paulson
Matthew Leimkuehler
Nashville Tennessean
Charlie Daniels, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame best known for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," died Monday morning after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. He was 83.
Daniels' death was confirmed by his publicist, Don Murry Grubbs. He is survived by his wife, Hazel, and son Charlie Daniels Jr.
By the time the Charlie Daniels Band topped the charts with “Devil” in 1979, the instrumentalist, singer and songwriter had long established a remarkable, multifaceted career in Music City. As a session musician, he played on three of Bob Dylan’s albums — including the revolutionary “Nashville Skyline” — as well as recordings for Ringo Starr and Leonard Cohen.
In 1974, he launched the first “Volunteer Jam,” a regun all-star concert that has continued for nearly 50 years. Daniels joined the Grand Ole Opry in 2008, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
This is a developing story.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: NY
Home country: US
Current location: Florida
Member since: Mon Sep 6, 2004, 09:54 PM
Number of posts: 171,092
