July 29, 2016

Appeals court refuses to toss charges against Sen. Menendez

Source: Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal appeals court has refused to dismiss corruption charges against U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

An attorney for the indicted Democrat had argued the charges should be tossed because of a constitutional clause that protects the actions of sitting lawmakers. But the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia on Friday ruled against that. The panel found the dispute is something that needs to be decided at trial.

Menendez’s lawyer argued in February that the senator’s meetings with government officials were held to discuss policy matters, not to benefit a wealthy friend. Prosecutors allege the friend, Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, plied Menendez with gifts and campaign donations in exchange for political influence.

Menendez and Melgen have pleaded not guilty to bribery and fraud charges.

###

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2016/07/29/appeals_court_refuses_to_toss_charges_against_sen_menendez/

---

The Latest: Ruling against US Sen. Menendez will be appealed

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Latest on an appeals court ruling in the corruption case against Sen. Bob Menendez (all times local):

1:20 p.m.

An attorney for U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez says he will ask the full 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a three-judge panel’s ruling allowing the corruption case against him to move forward.

Abbe Lowell says he will appeal Friday’s decision to the full circuit court and then to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Lowell argues that charges accusing the New Jersey Democrat of accepting gifts in exchange for political influence should be tossed because of a constitutional clause that protects the actions of sitting lawmakers.

-snip-

July 29, 2016

Megyn Kelly airs images of ISIS fighters while Muslim dad of slain US soldier speaks to DNC

[image][/image]

Fox News host Megyn Kelly ignored a Muslim father speaking at the Democratic National Convention whose son was killed fighting for the U.S. and instead aired photos of ISIS fighters and commercials attacking Hillary Clinton over the terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

Speaking at the DNC on Thursday, Khizr Khan explained that his son was killed by a car bomb fighting in Iraq for the U.S. Armed Forces in 2004. Kahn also held up a copy of the U.S. Constitution and challenged GOP nominee Donald Trump to read it.

But viewers of Fox News only briefly saw Khan in a split screen without audio as Brit Hume and Kelly discussed Trump. Kelly then cut to a commercial blaming Hillary for the attacks in Benghazi while Kahn was visible in a split screen. After returning from commercial, viewers saw images of ISIS and a segment warning about the Islamic state.

As Media Matters noted, Kelly did find time at the end of her program to air several minutes of Katy Perry performing at the convention.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/megyn-kelly-airs-images-of-isis-fighters-while-muslim-dad-of-slain-u-s-soldier-speaks-to-dnc/

Video @ link above

July 29, 2016

RNC official desperately accuses Clinton of plagiarizing philosopher’s non-existent quote

-snip-

After an embarrassing scandal involving the speech that Melania Trump gave at the RNC being lifted from a 2008 speech by Michelle Obama, the Republican Party was desperate to find something that could come close to plagiarism. One right-wing pundit accused Michelle Obama of plagiarism. Donald Trump Jr. also accused President Barack Obama of plagiarism because he used the phrase “That’s not the America I know.” However, if that was plagiarism, then Trump plagiarized it from President Obama who actually first used the phrase in Cleveland in 2010.

The only thing they could manage, according to The Hill, was Clinton saying “America is great because America is good.” RNC communications director Sean Spicer alleges that it’s ripped from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, which reads, “America is great because she is good.”

Sean Spicer ✔
@seanspicer

#plagarism alert @hillaryclinton at @DemConvention "America is great bc America is good," de Tocqueville "America is great bc she is good"

11:29 PM - 28 Jul 2016

If the RNC is so desperate to find uses of plagiarism they could also accuse Clinton of lifting “God bless America,” which appears on the U.S. currency, or accuse Chelsea Clinton who referred to “the sound and fury” of Trump’s dramatic convention entrance, an allusion to Shakespeare.

full article
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/rnc-official-desperately-accuses-clinton-of-plagiarizing-philosophers-non-existent-quote/

July 29, 2016

Morning Joe begs Republicans to rescind their Trump endorsements: ‘You’ve got to cut him loose’

Source: RawStory

Even though Morning Joe has spent a lot of time going back and forth on Donald Trump’s supposed virtues as a candidate, it seems that host Joe Scarborough may have finally reached a breaking point.

In the wake of Thursday night’s Democratic National Convention speeches — in which Trump was completely savaged from every angle — Scarborough told Republicans on Friday that the time has come to start rescinding their Trump endorsements.

“The center cannot hold when you have the Speaker of the House calling the Republican nominee a racist, but saying he’s still endorsing,” he said. “When you have the most powerful Republican in government, the Speaker of the House, saying ‘What he said is racist’; when you have the most powerful Republican in government, the Speaker of the House, condemning Donald Trump for his laudatory, his continued laudatory remarks on Vladimir Putin… Thank you Republican leaders in Washington, that’s who you’re endorsing.”

While it would be difficult to explain to their constituents why they’re un-endorsing Trump, Scarborough urged them to simply tell them the truth and explain that he’s unfit for office.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/morning-joe-begs-republicans-to-rescind-their-trump-endorsements-youve-got-to-cut-him-loose/

July 29, 2016

Trump: There's Been 'Very, Very Little Pressure' To Release My Tax Returns

Source: Talking Points Memo

Donald Trump on Thursday night again indicated that he has no plans to release his tax returns, saying that he won't be motivated to release them even if Hillary Clinton releases the transcripts of the speeches she gave at Wall Street banks.

During an interview on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren asked Trump if he would release his tax returns from years no longer under audit if Clinton releases her speech transcripts. "I don't think the transcripts — they don't mean very much to me. What really means something are the 33,000 emails that she deleted, that's what I think she should be giving up," Trump replied.

Van Susteren pressed Trump, asking why he is unwilling to release tax returns that are no longer under audit, even if he still refuses to publicize his most recent documents. "Most people don't care about it," Trump responded. "I’ve had very, very little pressure."

The Republican nominee argued that when Romney released his tax returns, the documents weren't very revealing.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-tax-returns-no-pressure

July 29, 2016

Ryan Bundy Says He's ‘Idiot’ Sovereign Citizen Not Subject To Federal Law

Source: Talking Points Memo

In a baffling series of court motions filed Thursday, one of the men who led a 41-day occupation earlier this year of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon declared himself a sovereign citizen free from the bounds of federal laws.

Ryan Bundy claimed that he was a “idiot of the ‘Legal Society’” in documents filed to U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown, as Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

“I, ryan c, man, am an idiot of the ‘Legal Society’; and; am an idiot (layman, outsider) of the ‘Bar Association’; and; i am incompetent; and; am not required by any law to be competent,” Bundy wrote.

Along with his brother Ammon and some two dozen others, Bundy faces felony conspiracy charges for illegally occupying the wildlife refuge in remote eastern Oregon to protest federal land ownership. Ryan Bundy is representing himself in the case.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ryan-bundy-declares-self-idiot-sovereign-citizen

July 29, 2016

Bill Cosby drops remainder of federal suit against accuser

Source: Reuters

Comedian Bill Cosby on Thursday dropped the remaining counts of a lawsuit he filed against one of the women accusing him of sexual assault, along with several others, claiming they violated the terms of a confidential settlement in another lawsuit.

The dismissal comes 10 days after U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno ruled that Cosby could not sue Andrea Constand, her mother, Gianna Constand, or her attorneys, Dolores Troiani and Bebe Kivitz, for speaking to investigators about her accusations.

Cosby filed the suit in February, accusing the Constands, the lawyers and American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, of violating the terms of a 2006 confidential settlement.

Robreno let stand Cosby's other claims, including that Constand, a former Temple University basketball coach, violated the confidentiality agreement through posts she made on Twitter about the case and in comments to the Toronto Sun newspaper.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-cosby-idUSKCN1090T7

July 29, 2016

Hillary Clinton Is Right: Donald Trump Threatens World War III - By Jonathan Alter

In her DNC speech, the nominee laid out why her opponent risks toppling the world order. Why the war-and-peace conversation is not only fair—it’s necessary.

One of the best lines in Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech came when she quoted Jackie Kennedy’s relief that “little men” weren’t in charge during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world came, as Robert McNamara once told me, “just inches” from nuclear war.

If the Republican candidate for president can be “baited with a tweet,” as Clinton so memorably put it—if that disqualifies him from handling nuclear weapons, as she said—then the risk of World War III should be an issue in the 2016 campaign. Beyond his manifestly unsuitable temperament, Donald Trump will “endanger the world as we know it,” as Sen. Cory Booker put it. If you bust up the architecture of the postwar world—as Trump is threatening to do, either intentionally or out of ignorance—the war-and-peace conversation is not only fair, but necessary.

In that sense, this election may be a bit like 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson ran an ad against Republican challenger Barry Goldwater of a little girl picking a daisy while a mushroom cloud explodes in the background. It was a harsh attack, and only ran once, but it reflected deep unease about Goldwater undermining the structure of global relationships that kept the peace. “These are the stakes,” LBJ intones, as a nuclear weapon detonates.

These are the stakes this time, too. We know from history that appeasement invites war. For all his bluster, Trump has already shown himself to be an appeaser, from his “America First” slogan to his strange unwillingness to utter even a single word of criticism for Russian President and former KGB chief Vladimir Putin, one of the only major figures in the world to escape his insults (Trump, remember, even attacked the pope).

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/29/hillary-clinton-is-right-donald-trump-threatens-world-war-iii.html

July 29, 2016

Why Hillary Wore White

How Hillary Embraced History

BY LAUREL RAYMOND JUL 28, 2016 11:44 PM

Accepting the Democratic nomination for President on Thursday, Hillary Clinton leaned into her status as the first female nominee for President from a major political party. It was a direct contrast to her 2008 campaign against President Obama, where Clinton largely avoided addressing the legacy of her candidacy — up until the end, when she famously declared there were now “18 million cracks” in the glass ceiling.

During her acceptance speech on Thursday, she faced it head-on, wearing all white in what is likely a nod to Geraldine Ferraro, who wore white when she became the first woman to accept the Vice Presidential nomination of a major party, and the suffragettes, who wore white while fighting for women’s right to vote.

[image][/image]

“We’ve reached a milestone in our nation’s march toward a more perfect union: The first time that a major party has nominated a woman for President,” Clinton declared on Thursday.

-snip-

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/28/3803257/hillary-embraces-history/

July 29, 2016

Trump team launches post-convention assault against Clinton

The billionaire angry tweets at 'Crooked Hillary' and 'Little' Michael Bloomberg and 'failed' General John Allen.

By Louis Nelson
07/29/16 10:44 AM EDT

Donald Trump and Mike Pence on Friday morning launched a tag-team takedown of Hillary Clinton’s prime-time acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, with the billionaire lashing out at not only Clinton but also her surrogates on the Philadelphia stage.

“Crooked Hillary said that I ‘couldn't handle the rough and tumble of a political campaign." Really, I just beat 16 people and am beating her!” Trump said in one tweet Friday morning.

“Crooked Hillary Clinton mentioned me 22 times in her very long and very boring speech. Many of her statements were lies and fabrications!” he said in another.

He also angry tweeted at former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (“’Little’ Michael Bloomberg, who never had the guts to run for president, knows nothing about me. His last term as Mayor was a disaster!”) — and retired four-star Gen. John Allen (“General John Allen, who I never met but spoke against me last night, failed badly in his fight against ISIS. His record = BAD #NeverHillary”) — for giving two of the most forceful condemnations of Trump this past week.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-react-clinton-dnc-2016-226427#ixzz4FooQDk1p