Good for Cokie:
Category: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Lie down with dogs
Front-running GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is calling it a “great honor” to receive the endorsement of a Florida pastor who mocked the parents of children killed at Sandy Hook and claimed they were “actors.”
According to Media Matters, Trump’s campaign has allied itself with Hickory Hammock Baptist Church senior pastor Carl Gallups in an attempt to influence voters in the state prior to the March 15 primary.
The Christian leader opened a Trump rally in January, praising the candidate and leading the rally-goers in an opening prayer.
In an interview with World Net Daily, Gallups called the New York businessman “the anti-Obama.”
“He loves this nation and its heritage,” Gallups explained. “He’s the anti-Obama, he’s the opposite of Obama. And he’s commander in chief material, he has that kind of presence, and he’d be tough on our enemies.”
We are so shocked
Now, this is probably an oppo dump. (Remember, Michael Isikoff was the conduit for many Clinton stories that were later debunked.) But I’m not surprised that Donald Trump would be associated with mob types:
In a bombshell new report, Yahoo reporter Michael Isikoff, who was a key figure in exposing the Monica Lewinsky-Bill Clinton scandal, writes that the daughter of a reputed New Jersey mobster says her dad had a long, cozy relationship with Trump. She told Isikoff her father, Robert LiButti, gambled heavily in Trump’s casino, rode on his helicopter and hung out on his yacht.
Trump has denied in the past and now again that he had any personal relationship, or even recognized the name, with LiButti, who was banned from Atlantic City casinos over his ties to New York mob boss John Gotti.
But LiButti was a well known figure to gaming investigators, who in 1991 investigated and then fined Trump Plaza $200,000 for accommodating LiButti’s desire not to have African Americans or women at his gambling tables.
Nine employees alleged that the casino “repeatedly removed African-Americans and women from craps tables after LiButti, one of the highest-rolling gamblers in the city’s history, loudly complained about their presence when he was playing,” Isikoff wrote in the report.
LiButti was found to have used racist and vulgar language at the craps table, and investigators concluded that Trump Plaza accommodated the high roller by removing blacks and women from his tables.
The lengths to which regimes will go
Nobel Prize winner 
with the story of how Iranian agents set up her
husband with another woman, threatened to stone him to death and then forced him to denounce her:
“Now Ebadi can see the result of her activities,” the agent told him grandly. “I warned her so many times. So many times I told her, ‘You need to shut up.’ But she never listened.”
Javad had never been involved in my cases; he was not political. “Why should I be responsible for what my wife does?” he asked them. “What kind of dirty games are you trying to play with me? Because of my wife, you harass me like this, in the name of Islam?”
The agent’s eyes darkened. He lunged toward Javad, punching him, kicking him savagely.
“Don’t you dare ever mention Islam again, do you hear me? The word ‘Islam’ is dirty in your mouth.”
The intelligence agent said I had been proud; now I would see my weakness.
When Javad saw that pleading or protesting would only provoke more beating, he asked what it was they wanted.
For the first time, the agent’s boss spoke. He explained the problem:
“If you’re still defending your wife, it means you’re her ally and collaborator. And you should be punished as such. If the truth is otherwise, you need to prove that to us.”
All he had to do in order to gain his freedom was to read a short statement in front of a camera:
“Shirin Ebadi did not deserve to receive the Nobel Prize. She was awarded the prize so that she could help topple the Islamic Republic. She is a supporter of the West, particularly America. Her work is not in the service of Iranians, but serves the interests of foreign imperialists who seek to weaken Iran.”
He knew immediately he would do it. Surely, everyone would know that he had been pressured into saying those things.
Not going to be a Marine
A recent viral video from a Donald Trump rally in Louisville, KY, showed several people angrily shoving and attacking a young black woman, Shiya Nwangum, as she calmly moves towards the exit. Despite telling the crowd “Stop touching me,” they continued their beratement. Nwangum was not seriously injured in the event, and according to an interview with WLKY afterward, she was “doing well” and was “just trying to process everything.”
Joseph Pryor is one of the men who can be seen screaming in the video, and he posted a screenshot of himself screaming at the woman as his Facebook cover photo, apparently quite proud of his hateful act. Word of his actions reached his superiors, and he was promptly released from the Marine Corps training program he was attending.The Marine Corps Recruiting Station in Louisville released this statement to announce the reasoning for their decision:“Joseph Pryor demonstrated poor judgment in his use of social media that associates him with a racially charged altercation at a political rally. Hatred toward any group of individuals is not tolerated in the Marine Corps and he is being discharged from our delayed entry program effective yesterday.”
Joseph Pryor was not yet an actual member of the Marine Corps, as the delayed entry program is a training program to prepare recruits for actual boot camp. Joseph Pryor has listed himself on his Facebook page as a “future Marine.”
There is, of course, now a fan page on Facebook.
Why Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the worst
I have no words other than, way to go, Debbie, to undercut 99.9% of the Democratic Party. DNC Chair Joins GOP Attack On Elizabeth Warren’s Agency Payday lenders have been gunning for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since the day President Barack Obama tapped Elizabeth Warren to set up the new agency. They’ve had plenty of… Continue reading “Why Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the worst”
Yes, master…
UPDATE: Had to add this.
Meanwhile, the Asbury Park Press, Bridgewater Courier News, East Brunswick Home News, Morristown Daily Record, Cherry Hill Courier Post and Vineland Daily Journal have all called for Christie’s resignation:
For starters: Now that he has abandoned his presidential campaign, will he work full time on New Jersey business? How could he endorse someone for president who disagrees with him on virtually every important issue? Was his trip to Texas to endorse Trump and his campaigning on his behalf the following day in Arkansas and Tennessee a harbinger of more out-of-state stumping for him in the future? (A question answered by his subsequent trips to Ohio and Kentucky on Trump’s behalf.) Will New Jersey continue to be billed for his security and other expenses on these trips? If so, how does he justify that? Last year, he spent 261 full or partial days out of New Jersey. Now that he is no longer running for president, what percentage of his time does he expect to spend in New Jersey on New Jersey business this year?
It has been obvious for at least two years that Christie has put personal ambition ahead of the interests of New Jersey citizens. Sadly, members of his own party have displayed no backbone in trying to rein him in. When he has said “jump,” they have responded, in unison, “how high?” And the Democratic Party’s weak leadership has failed to fill the power vacuum. Christie has taken his hands off the rudder, and no one has rushed forward to help steer the boat.
New Jersey needs someone whose full attention is devoted to making life better for New Jersey’s citizens. That won’t happen until Christie steps down or is forced out.
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) March 2, 2016
Trumpism in action
Yesterday in Texas. He’s made people like this feel socially validated.
Of course he’s not going to jail
I’ve said it before: These are the crimes for which I support the death penalty, because you destroy so much and put so many people at risk:
A former co-owner and officer of Freedom Industries on Monday became the fourth official from the company to avoid being sentenced to any jail time, despite playing a role in the January 2014 chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people in the Kanawha Valley and surrounding communities. U.S. District Judge Thomas E. Johnston sentenced William E. Tis, a former Freedom director and secretary, to three years’ probation and ordered Tis to pay a $20,000 fine. Tis had pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of causing an unlawful discharge of refuse matter, and faced a statutory maximum of one year in prison.
The charges related to Freedom’s spill of MCHM and other chemicals into the Elk River just 1.5 miles upstream from West Virginia American Water’s regional drinking water intake.
As he had with three previous Freedom defendants, Johnston said that Tis was “hardly a criminal.” The judge cited the misdemeanor nature of the charge against Tis and what he said was a lack of any previous criminal record. “I never intentionally hurt anyone in my life,” Tis told the judge at Monday’s hearing. “I am sorry this happened.”
Johnston said his sentence for Tis was also based on a motion from Acting U.S. Attorney Carol Casto’s office asking for a lighter sentence based on Tis having provided “substantial assistance” to the government’s investigation of the spill and of two top Freedom officials, Gary Southern and Dennis Farrell.
TEPCO admits they lied
I said so from the beginning. You could tell from the behavior of the TEPCO officials that it was much worse than they admitted:
The operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant hit by a tsunami in 2011 has admitted that it should have announced sooner that there was a nuclear meltdown at the site.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company denied the meltdown for two months.
The company now says the public declaration should have been done within days of the disaster.
Experts have long said the melting began within hours of the reactor being struck by the tsunami.