What Fresh Hell Is This?

June 26, 2019

Donald Trump Is LYING About The Children Held In Detention Centers

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This from FOX NEWS:


They're just little kids and the Trump Administration made them sleep in deplorable unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

Donald Trump is lying.
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June 25, 2019

My HUNDRED AND FOURTNEENTH Open Letter To Senator Pat Toomey

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I'll be dropping this letter to Senator Pat Toomey in the mail today:
Dear Senator Toomey:

It's me, again - the constituent who writes for the local Pittsburgh-based political blog, "2 Political Junkies."

We have to talk about the children in the concentration camp Clint Border Protection facility near El Paso, Texas.

You've read about the conditions there, haven't you? I know you tweeted a few days ago about how June is "National Candy Month" but I'm thinking that children being held in unsafe and unsanitary conditions as a matter of the president's immigration policy is somewhat more important than the Senate's candy bowl. I trust we can at least agree on that.

So here's my question: How do you reconcile your support of Donald Trump when one of his administration's policies is this cruel treatment of children? You already disagree with his policy on tariffs, why not his policy regarding detained children being denied soap, toothbrushes, and showers?

Please explain to your constituents how any of this is OK with you.

Thank you and I await your response.
And I will be posting whatever response I get from him or his office.


Follow-up:
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June 24, 2019

Meanwhile, Outside...

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From the climate scientists at NOAA:
The global land and ocean surface temperature departure from average for May 2019 was the fourth highest for the month of May in the 140-year NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880. The March–May temperature was second highest, and the January–May temperature was the third highest such period on record.
Specifically:
The May temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.53°F above the 20th century average of 58.6°F and was the fourth highest for May in the 1880–2019 record. The last five years (2015–2019) are the five warmest Mays on record, with May 2016 the warmest with a global land and ocean temperature at 1.67°F above average.
And from a non-scientist very high up in the Trump administration, we get this:
Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday wouldn't say if he views the global climate crisis as a threat to the United States.

Pence repeatedly dodged when asked multiple times on CNN's "State of the Union" whether the human-induced crisis is a threat to the country, telling host Jake Tapper: "Well, what I will tell you is that we'll always follow the science on that in this administration."
Specifically:
When pressed again on whether he believes the climate crisis is a threat, Pence said, "I think the answer to that is going to be based upon the science."

"Well the science says yes," Tapper said. "I'm asking you what you think."

"Well, there's many in the science that debate that," Pence said.
Define "many" please.

Especially in the context of this from NASA:
Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.
That footnote leads here. Where you can find this paragraph:
The number of papers rejecting AGW [Anthropogenic, or human-caused, Global Warming] is a miniscule proportion of the published research, with the percentage slightly decreasing over time. Among papers expressing a position on AGW, an overwhelming percentage (97.2% based on self-ratings, 97.1% based on abstract ratings) endorses the scientific consensus on AGW.
So "many" needs to be explained. 

I suppose of you surveyed a thousand climate scientists and found that only 97% said they agreed with the science, that would leave 30 dissenting scientists, And I further suppose that you could say that 30 = "many".  I mean ask a kindergarten teacher of 30 five year olds constitute "many" or "few" and you'll see what I mean.

It still ignores (willfully, of course) the 97% who agree.

It's getting warmer outside no matter what Trump and his GOP say.
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June 22, 2019

Representative Mike Doyle (PA-18) On IMPEACHMENT

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From Facebook:
It was deeply unsettling to read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. It made clear that Russia repeatedly interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the intention of electing President Trump. The Mueller report also presented substantial evidence that President Trump welcomed that interference and, as we all saw, even publicly encouraged it.

Special Counsel Mueller also presented substantial evidence that the President obstructed justice on multiple occasions during the course of the investigation. Under long standing policy by the Department of Justice the Special Counsel was not permitted to indict or prosecute the President for any potential criminal acts. However, the Special Counsel said that if he had confidence that President did not obstruct justice, he would have stated so in the report. The report clearly says that the Special Counsels office did not believe that they could exonerate the President based upon the facts they had uncovered. He concluded that it was the duty of Congress to investigate the findings of his report and to make a determination about whether to impeach the President.

Congress has been conducting investigations into the underlying facts and evidence within the Mueller Report in the face of opposition by the Administration. Congress has the authority to subpoena any information necessary to carry out its Constitutional oversight responsibilities. Nevertheless, the Administration continues to prevent witnesses from testifying and refuses to comply with subpoenas.

No American comes before the Constitution.

Consequently, I feel that Congress should initiate an impeachment inquiry.
Have you read the Mueller Report?

No? Doncha think ya oughta?
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June 21, 2019

News From Trump's CONCENTRATION CAMP SYSTEM

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From the AP:
A 2-year-old boy locked in detention wants to be held all the time. A few girls, ages 10 to 15, say they've been doing their best to feed and soothe the clingy toddler who was handed to them by a guard days ago. Lawyers warn that kids are taking care of kids, and there's inadequate food, water and sanitation for the 250 infants, children and teens at the Border Patrol station.

The bleak portrait emerged Thursday after a legal team interviewed 60 children at the facility near El Paso that has become the latest place where attorneys say young migrants are describing neglect and mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. government.
And:
Three girls told attorneys they were trying to take care of the 2-year-old boy, who had wet his pants and no diaper and was wearing a mucus-smeared shirt when the legal team encountered him.
And so on. And then there's this:
The Trump administration argued in front of a Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday that the government is not required to give soap or toothbrushes to children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border and can have them sleep on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, despite a settlement agreement that requires detainees be kept in “safe and sanitary” facilities.

All three judges appeared incredulous during the hearing in San Francisco, in which the Trump administration challenged previous legal findings that it is violating a landmark class action settlement by mistreating undocumented immigrant children at U.S. detention facilities.
Same story, different source:
The Trump administration’s defense of conditions at its shelters for immigrant minors — it argues it is not legally required to provide all of them with such items as soap, toothbrushes and sleeping accommodations — drew an incredulous response from federal appeals court judges Tuesday at a hearing in San Francisco.
Large numbers of people held in camps without trial in harsh, sometimes life-threatening conditions -  yea that's a fucking concentration camp.

How do I know?

This:

And this.

Say it after me: Trump's concentration camp system.
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June 19, 2019

The Central Park Five - THEY DIDN'T DO IT (And Trump Refuses To Admit He Was Wrong)

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And yet for the orange vulgarity things haven't changed.

From The New York Times:
President Trump said on Tuesday that he would not apologize for his harsh comments in 1989 about the Central Park Five, the five black and Latino men who as teenagers were wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of a jogger in New York City.

Mr. Trump was asked about newspaper advertisements he bought back then calling for New York State to adopt the death penalty after the attack. (The ads never explicitly called for the death penalty for the five defendants.)

“You have people on both sides of that,” he said at the White House. “They admitted their guilt.”
No Donnie, there's aren't "both sides of that."

There's just the truth:
In 2002, [Matias] Reyes confessed in prison that he had assaulted and raped Meili back in 1989, and that he had acted alone. At the time, the 17-year-old was working at a convenience store in East Harlem and living in a van on the street.

DNA evidence confirmed his participation in the rape, identifying him as the sole contributor of the semen found both in and on the victim.
And those confessions?

False and forced:
The confessions of the Central Park Five were wildly contradictory and at odds with what was thought to be the known timeline of events relating to the rape that night.

The confessions used against them at trial were coerced by NYPD detectives using a combination of lies, false promises and occasionally even physical force to frighten the young defendants into admitting to crimes they never committed.
The five went to jail for a crime they did not commit and Donald Trump refuses to say that he was wrong about it.
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June 18, 2019

My HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH Open Letter To Senator Pat Toomey

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I'll be dropping this letter to Senator Pat Toomey in the mail today:
Dear Senator Toomey:

It's me, again - the constituent who writes for the local Pittsburgh-based political blog, "2 Political Junkies."

As you probably know by now, Senator, the leader of your party said in this past week that he'd take a look at "oppo research" offered from a foreign government - something that triggered a fierce rebuke from the FEC chair (saying that it's "100% illegal" to accept anything from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election) and Fox News' Andrew Napolitano (who said that it was evidence that Trump was "prepared to commit a felony to get reelected.")

This is very serious, Senator. Don't you think?

So far, however, you've remained silent on this matter.

Why?

Don't you think it's serious when the president talks about breaking the law so blatantly?

Thank you and I await your response.
And I will be posting whatever response I get from him or his office.


Follow-up:
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