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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
April 18, 2023
Posted on Mon, Apr 17th, 2023 by Jason Easley
John Fetterman Kills McCarthy’s Plan To Cut SNAP With 2 Sentences
Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling plan includes cutting food assistance (SNAP benefits) for millions of needy Americans, but Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said that it is not going to happen.
Politico reported:
Sen. Fetterman will chair a subcommittee hearing in the Senate on Wednesday, and he responded in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA with just two sentences, “Cut SNAP for families and kids while pushing tax cuts for billionaires? Not on my watch.”
It isn’t just Democrats who are opposed to McCarthy’s plan. Senate Republicans also have no interest in cutting food assistance to low-income people as part of a debt ceiling package.
Chuck Schumer and the White House have both said that they will not be negotiating budget cuts as part of the debt ceiling. Kevin McCarthy currently claims that he has 218 votes to pass his debt ceiling bill, but there is a great deal of skepticism about the Speaker’s claim.
Senate Democrats have made it clear that McCarthy’s plan to cut SNAP is just like his future as Speaker of the House. It’s dead on arrival.
John Fetterman Kills McCarthy's Plan To Cut SNAP With 2 Sentences
https://www.politicususa.com/2023/04/17/john-fetterman-kills-mccarthys-plan-to-cut-snap-with-2-sentences.htmlPosted on Mon, Apr 17th, 2023 by Jason Easley
John Fetterman Kills McCarthy’s Plan To Cut SNAP With 2 Sentences
Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling plan includes cutting food assistance (SNAP benefits) for millions of needy Americans, but Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said that it is not going to happen.
Politico reported:
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s new debt limit negotiating proposal set to be unveiled Monday morning will include broad moves to restrict food assistance for millions of low-income Americans. His GOP colleagues in the Senate aren’t optimistic any of those measures will survive.
McCarthy’s initial list calls for expanding the age bracket for people who must meet work requirements in order to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Food Assistance Program or SNAP, while closing what Republicans say are “loopholes” in existing restrictions, according to two people who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
McCarthy’s initial list calls for expanding the age bracket for people who must meet work requirements in order to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Food Assistance Program or SNAP, while closing what Republicans say are “loopholes” in existing restrictions, according to two people who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
Sen. Fetterman will chair a subcommittee hearing in the Senate on Wednesday, and he responded in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA with just two sentences, “Cut SNAP for families and kids while pushing tax cuts for billionaires? Not on my watch.”
It isn’t just Democrats who are opposed to McCarthy’s plan. Senate Republicans also have no interest in cutting food assistance to low-income people as part of a debt ceiling package.
Chuck Schumer and the White House have both said that they will not be negotiating budget cuts as part of the debt ceiling. Kevin McCarthy currently claims that he has 218 votes to pass his debt ceiling bill, but there is a great deal of skepticism about the Speaker’s claim.
Senate Democrats have made it clear that McCarthy’s plan to cut SNAP is just like his future as Speaker of the House. It’s dead on arrival.
April 14, 2023
Trump Answers Questions For 7 Hours In New York AG Fraud Suit
The lawsuit claims the ex-president and his family misled banks and business associates by giving them false information about his net worth and the value of assets.
Michael R. Sisak
AP logo
Apr 13, 2023, 05:32 AM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump answered questions for nearly seven hours Thursday during his second deposition in a legal battle with New York’s attorney general over his company’s business practices, reversing an earlier decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and remain silent.
The Republican met all day with lawyers for Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump last year. Her lawsuit claims Trump and his family misled banks and business associates by giving them false information about his net worth and the value of assets such as hotels and golf courses.
Shortly after Trump entered the Manhattan skyscraper that houses James’ offices, his attorney, Alina Habba, said he was “not only willing but also eager to testify.”
After the deposition was finished, a lawyer for Trump’s businesses, Christopher Kise, said the former president had spent nearly seven hours “describing in detail his extraordinary business success.”
Keep talking...
more...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-deposition-ny-ag-fraud-suit_n_6437c942e4b0ed74f2a0a02e
Trump Answers Questions For 7 Hours In New York AG Fraud Suit
Trump Answers Questions For 7 Hours In New York AG Fraud Suit
The lawsuit claims the ex-president and his family misled banks and business associates by giving them false information about his net worth and the value of assets.
Michael R. Sisak
AP logo
Apr 13, 2023, 05:32 AM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump answered questions for nearly seven hours Thursday during his second deposition in a legal battle with New York’s attorney general over his company’s business practices, reversing an earlier decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and remain silent.
The Republican met all day with lawyers for Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump last year. Her lawsuit claims Trump and his family misled banks and business associates by giving them false information about his net worth and the value of assets such as hotels and golf courses.
Shortly after Trump entered the Manhattan skyscraper that houses James’ offices, his attorney, Alina Habba, said he was “not only willing but also eager to testify.”
After the deposition was finished, a lawyer for Trump’s businesses, Christopher Kise, said the former president had spent nearly seven hours “describing in detail his extraordinary business success.”
Keep talking...
more...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-deposition-ny-ag-fraud-suit_n_6437c942e4b0ed74f2a0a02e
April 14, 2023
Heckuva job Maga
Published by digby on April 13, 2023
I wonder why this is?
https://twitter.com/stuartpstevens/status/1646545118361690113
They won’t stop. They are living in an alternate universe. Right now they are focusing like a laser on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Manhattan District Attorney.
digby: Heckuva job Maga
https://digbysblog.net/2023/04/13/heckuva-job-maga/Heckuva job Maga
Published by digby on April 13, 2023
I wonder why this is?
https://twitter.com/stuartpstevens/status/1646545118361690113
They won’t stop. They are living in an alternate universe. Right now they are focusing like a laser on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Manhattan District Attorney.
April 13, 2023
PBS Joins NPR In Quitting Twitter
April 13, 2023 at 6:22 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 5 Comments
PBS Joins NPR In Quitting Twitter
https://politicalwire.com/2023/04/13/pbs-joins-npr-in-quitting-twitter/PBS Joins NPR In Quitting Twitter
April 13, 2023 at 6:22 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 5 Comments
“The Public Broadcasting Service has followed National Public Radio in quitting Twitter after the social media network labeled both organizations as government-backed media,” Bloomberg reports.
April 13, 2023
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646362012815851520
Trump Sneaks Into Town Overnight to Face New York AG Letitia James
Lowlife? How not to win friends...such a moron. 
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-sneaks-into-new-york-overnight-to-new-york-ag-face-letitia-james-in-fraud-case?ref=home
Trump Sneaks Into Town Overnight to Face New York AG Letitia James
ROUND TWO
Matt Young
Night Editor
Published Apr. 13, 2023 4:43AM ET
Donald Trump flew into New York and arrived in Manhattan early Thursday morning ahead of a deposition in front of New York attorney general Letitia James. Trump did not stop as he stepped into Trump Tower but was seen waving briefly as he hurriedly walked inside. He took to Truth Social shortly afterwards, confirming his arrival while taking the opportunity to slam James as “racist” and “TRUMP HATING.” “I built a GREAT & prosperous company, employed thousands of people, built magnificent structures all over the World, but particularly in New York, & now have to prove it to this LOWLIFE,” Trump fumed, while taking aim at the judge in case. James filed the civil lawsuit in New York state court last September against Trump and his three adult children—Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric—alleging rampant business and tax fraud.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646362012815851520
April 12, 2023
American women, let this be your wake-up call: it won’t end with mifepristone
Moira Donegan
It doesn’t matter if you think abortion will be legal where you live – the anti-abortion movement wants a national ban
Tue 11 Apr 2023 06.04 EDT
Last modified on Tue 11 Apr 2023 06.48 EDT
snip//
Beyond its revival of a Victorian morality law, Kacsmaryk’s injunction is a dramatic escalation in anti-abortion jurisprudence, embracing fringe and extremist positions on abortion, pregnancy and women’s rights, adopting theories of judicial authority and legal standing that range form the tenuous to the bizarre, relying on discredited studies and anti-abortion junk science as statements of fact, and using exclusively the inflammatory, inaccurate and sensationalizing rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement. Throughout, the opinion refers to all pregnant women as “mothers”. Fetuses and embryos are described as “unborn humans”, or “unborn children”.
Kacsmaryk has never been shy about his personal views. For years, he sat on the board of an anti-abortion center, where his sister gave birth at 17; before his appointment to the bench by Trump, he worked at a rightwing legal shop that brought anti-abortion legislation. His injunction order embraces theories long held by only the most extreme fringes of the anti-abortion movement.
He makes empirically untrue claims about the supposed harms of mifepristone specifically, and abortion in general, to women, and he equates reproductive rights to eugenics. He gestures at dark conspiracy theories in his account of the original approval of mifepristone in 2000. And he signals and embrace of fetal personhood, a concept which, if enshrined in law, would ban all abortion nationwide, outlaw many kinds of birth control, curtail women’s access to medical treatments for everything from pre-eclampsia to depression to cancer, and vastly increase the government’s ability to monitor, surveil and punish a long list of activities in the daily lives of pregnant and reproductive-age women.
The order, in short, has none of the traditional judicial pretexts of impartiality or indifference to the policy outcome; it is not a document concerned with the law, but with enforcing an ideology. It reads like the rantings of an extremist activist, because it is.
But because Kacsmaryk is a judge, now those rantings have the force of law. If allowed to stand, Kacsmaryk’s order would deeply curtail access to abortion nationwide. Women in blue states and red states alike would find themselves degraded and humiliated by the law, taken out of control of their own lives, treated by the state as something less worthy than citizens and less competent than adults. But this was always how it was going to go: ever since the supreme court overturned Roe.
more...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/11/american-women-wake-up-call-mifepristone-kacsmaryk-abortion
American women, let this be your wake-up call: it won't end with mifepristone
American women, let this be your wake-up call: it won’t end with mifepristone
Moira Donegan
It doesn’t matter if you think abortion will be legal where you live – the anti-abortion movement wants a national ban
Tue 11 Apr 2023 06.04 EDT
Last modified on Tue 11 Apr 2023 06.48 EDT
snip//
Beyond its revival of a Victorian morality law, Kacsmaryk’s injunction is a dramatic escalation in anti-abortion jurisprudence, embracing fringe and extremist positions on abortion, pregnancy and women’s rights, adopting theories of judicial authority and legal standing that range form the tenuous to the bizarre, relying on discredited studies and anti-abortion junk science as statements of fact, and using exclusively the inflammatory, inaccurate and sensationalizing rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement. Throughout, the opinion refers to all pregnant women as “mothers”. Fetuses and embryos are described as “unborn humans”, or “unborn children”.
Kacsmaryk has never been shy about his personal views. For years, he sat on the board of an anti-abortion center, where his sister gave birth at 17; before his appointment to the bench by Trump, he worked at a rightwing legal shop that brought anti-abortion legislation. His injunction order embraces theories long held by only the most extreme fringes of the anti-abortion movement.
He makes empirically untrue claims about the supposed harms of mifepristone specifically, and abortion in general, to women, and he equates reproductive rights to eugenics. He gestures at dark conspiracy theories in his account of the original approval of mifepristone in 2000. And he signals and embrace of fetal personhood, a concept which, if enshrined in law, would ban all abortion nationwide, outlaw many kinds of birth control, curtail women’s access to medical treatments for everything from pre-eclampsia to depression to cancer, and vastly increase the government’s ability to monitor, surveil and punish a long list of activities in the daily lives of pregnant and reproductive-age women.
The order, in short, has none of the traditional judicial pretexts of impartiality or indifference to the policy outcome; it is not a document concerned with the law, but with enforcing an ideology. It reads like the rantings of an extremist activist, because it is.
But because Kacsmaryk is a judge, now those rantings have the force of law. If allowed to stand, Kacsmaryk’s order would deeply curtail access to abortion nationwide. Women in blue states and red states alike would find themselves degraded and humiliated by the law, taken out of control of their own lives, treated by the state as something less worthy than citizens and less competent than adults. But this was always how it was going to go: ever since the supreme court overturned Roe.
more...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/11/american-women-wake-up-call-mifepristone-kacsmaryk-abortion
April 9, 2023
DOJ seeks nearly 16-year sentence for Jan. 6 rioter who pinned officer in door frame
by Julia Shapero - 04/08/23 8:47 PM ET
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking a nearly 16-year prison sentence for a Jan. 6 rioter who pinned an officer in a door frame amid the attack on the Capitol in 2021.
snip//
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall noted in a sentencing memorandum filed on Friday that McCaughey’s actions were particularly “egregious and protracted,” compared to that of the other rioters he stood trial with.
DOJ seeks nearly 16-year sentence for Jan. 6 rioter who pinned officer in door frame
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3940900-doj-seeks-nearly-16-year-sentence-for-jan-6-rioter-who-pinned-officer-in-door-frame/DOJ seeks nearly 16-year sentence for Jan. 6 rioter who pinned officer in door frame
by Julia Shapero - 04/08/23 8:47 PM ET
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking a nearly 16-year prison sentence for a Jan. 6 rioter who pinned an officer in a door frame amid the attack on the Capitol in 2021.
snip//
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall noted in a sentencing memorandum filed on Friday that McCaughey’s actions were particularly “egregious and protracted,” compared to that of the other rioters he stood trial with.
“The actions taken by this defendant were heinous, and his sentence should reflect that,” Paschall wrote.
“The defendant’s actions on January 6 show an absolute disregard for the rule of law coupled with a willingness to incite and engage in violence,” she added in Friday’s filing. “The nature and circumstances of this defendant’s crimes weigh heavily towards a significant term of incarceration.”
“The defendant’s actions on January 6 show an absolute disregard for the rule of law coupled with a willingness to incite and engage in violence,” she added in Friday’s filing. “The nature and circumstances of this defendant’s crimes weigh heavily towards a significant term of incarceration.”
April 6, 2023
Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire
It appears rules don't apply to him? 
Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire
by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski April 6, 5 a.m. EDT
For over 20 years, Clarence Thomas has been treated to luxury vacations by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow. He goes on cruises in far-flung locales on Crow’s yacht, flies on his private jet, and keeps company with Crow’s powerful friends at his private resort. The extent of Crow’s largesse has never been revealed. Until now.
In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.
If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.
Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, front left, with Harlan Crow, back right, and others in Flores, Indonesia, in July 2019. Credit: via Instagram
For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.
more...
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow
April 4, 2023
White House lines up split screen between Biden touting jobs and Trump's perp walk
Kerry Eleveld for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday April 04, 2023 · 9:30 AM EDT
Share this article
While many Democrats are either publicly or privately relishing the spectacle of Donald Trump surrendering to authorities in New York on Tuesday, no one is likely more jazzed about it than the Biden White House.
Trump's perp walk is giving President Joe Biden a chance to remind voters that while one of the two major-party 2020 candidates is getting fingerprinted, the other is tending to the nation's business.
That's exactly why Biden was in Fridley, Minnesota, on Monday talking jobs.
While Biden's stop during his Investing in America tour certainly won't outshine Trump's perp walk in national headlines, it most certainly did make news locally in outlets such as the Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio, and the Minneapolis Fox affiliate, KMSP.
Before Biden's visit, Cummins announced it would be adding 100 jobs in Fridley along with making a $1 billion investment in its engine manufacturing plants in Indiana, North Carolina, and New York.
So while you're watching Trump's perp walk on Tuesday in New York, just imagine how much fun the Biden White House is having.
White House lines up split screen between Biden touting jobs and Trump's perp walk
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/4/2161971/-White-House-lines-up-split-screen-between-Biden-touting-jobs-and-Trump-s-perp-walkWhite House lines up split screen between Biden touting jobs and Trump's perp walk
Kerry Eleveld for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday April 04, 2023 · 9:30 AM EDT
Share this article
While many Democrats are either publicly or privately relishing the spectacle of Donald Trump surrendering to authorities in New York on Tuesday, no one is likely more jazzed about it than the Biden White House.
Trump's perp walk is giving President Joe Biden a chance to remind voters that while one of the two major-party 2020 candidates is getting fingerprinted, the other is tending to the nation's business.
That's exactly why Biden was in Fridley, Minnesota, on Monday talking jobs.
"Federal investment attracts private investment. It creates jobs and industries, and it demonstrates we're all in this together,” Biden said Monday during his visit to the Cummins manufacturing plant. "I'm here to talk about what we're doing to invest in America, invest in Minnesota, and the progress we've made in building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up."
While Biden's stop during his Investing in America tour certainly won't outshine Trump's perp walk in national headlines, it most certainly did make news locally in outlets such as the Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio, and the Minneapolis Fox affiliate, KMSP.
Before Biden's visit, Cummins announced it would be adding 100 jobs in Fridley along with making a $1 billion investment in its engine manufacturing plants in Indiana, North Carolina, and New York.
So while you're watching Trump's perp walk on Tuesday in New York, just imagine how much fun the Biden White House is having.
April 4, 2023
Trump Aides Mull Putting Mugshot on Campaign Merch
$$$$...they never disappoint.
https://politicalwire.com/2023/04/03/trump-aides-mull-putting-mugshot-on-campaign-merch/
Trump Aides Mull Putting Mugshot on Campaign Merch
April 3, 2023 at 8:28 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
“Donald Trump, the ex-president, is about to make history as the first former POTUS to be criminally charged. But Donald Trump, the 2024 presidential candidate, isn’t about to let the buzz around his booking go to waste — and he may include using his mugshot in a large campaign marketing blitz,” Rolling Stone reports.
“In recent days, some of Trump’s close aides and advisers have pushed the ex-president to turn his mugshot into fuel for a fundraising drive, or as a potent new symbol on 2024 campaign merchandise.”
“In recent days, some of Trump’s close aides and advisers have pushed the ex-president to turn his mugshot into fuel for a fundraising drive, or as a potent new symbol on 2024 campaign merchandise.”
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