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johnsonma23

Pro-Donald Trump super PAC shutters - CNNPolitics.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics history US policy

shared by johnsonma23 on 23 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • The main super PAC supporting Donald Trump's presidential bid is ending its operations,
  • The Make America Great Again PAC is shutting down amid a flurry of scrutiny centered on the group and its ties to the Trump campaign,
  • Trump's campaign has repeatedly insisted that it never sanctioned the establishment or operations of any super PAC, including Make America Great Again.
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  • Washington Post revealed ties between Ciletti and the Trump campaign -- notably that Ciletti reportedly met with Trump's soon-to-be campaign officials in the lead-up to Trump's official campaign launch in June
  • rump has denied any involvement or knowledge of the super PAC and in his stump speech, the mogul often highlights a claim that he rejected a $5 million donation from a lobbyist
malonema1

Puerto Rico to audit power contract for Montana firm - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-us-canada-41738955

US PuertoRico

shared by malonema1 on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Storm-ravaged Puerto Rico has promised a full audit of a $300m (£227m) deal won by a small electrical firm with Trump administration connections.A US House of Representatives committee is also scrutinising the contract.The chief executive of Whitefish Energy Holdings in Montana knows US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, while one of its investors has donated to Donald Trump.
  • Puerto Rico, a US territory whose 3.4 million residents are US citizens, was struck by two hurricanes in September - Irma and, later, the more-destructive Maria. The second storm all but wiped out the island's power grid.
  • The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) placed the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in charge of "the immediate power restoration effort".When asked by BBC News about the contract, USACE spokeswoman Catalina Carrasco said on Monday "the US Army Corps of Engineers does not have any involvement with the contract between the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and Whitefish". She referred further questions to Prepa.
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  • A review of federal election data showed that a founding partner in HBC Investments, one of the two Texas firms that backs Whitefish Energy Holdings - had donated $2,700 to Mr Trump's presidential campaign, as well as $20,000 to a group that supported the White House bid. According to election data, the investor also gave $30,700 to the Republican National Committee in 2016 - after Mr Trump became the party's presumptive nominee.
  • When will power be restored?About 18% of customers have electricity as of Tuesday, according to the Pentagon.The Puerto Rican governor's goal is to have 30% restored by 30 October, 50% by 15 November and 95% a month later.
Javier E

I tried to live according to Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life. Here's what happened ... - 0 views

nationalpost.com/...s-for-life-heres-what-happened

peterson rules women culture

shared by Javier E on 21 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • Sandra created the meet-up group over a year ago. She saw it more as a book club, for studying books that have shaped Peterson’s thinking, though it’s morphed into more of a self-help group since then. She’s interested in Peterson’s intellect, the way he weaves different ideas together. She calls herself a diehard liberal, but a contrarian.
  • “Fundamentally, it’s responsibility is what’s he’s selling,” said Xander Miller, the group’s other de facto leader. “Individual responsibility.” These days, one of the others chimed in, you can “get a trophy just for showing up.”
  • Since discovering Jordan Peterson, he’s taken to carrying a large notebook with him at all times, in which he lists everything he needs to do on a given day, including shaving and brushing his teeth. He makes lists of everyone he speaks to, as well, and puts checkmarks beside the names of those with whom he has meaningful interactions. “Before, I wasn’t taking control, and I wasn’t making decisions,” he said. “I’m becoming more the master of my own life.”
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  • Chris Yandt, 53, is a regular attendee. Chris spent seven-and-a-half years working at Loblaws and is now looking for something better. “I think I’ve lived most of my life by default,” he said. “It’s better to wake up eventually than not at all.”
  • Maybe the appeal is less about Jordan Peterson himself, I thought, and more about finding someone who can guide you in your time of need. For those seeking structure or a set of principles to live by, Peterson can deliver.
  • And yet there was something almost reverential in the way the men talked about him — especially Eric Dagenais, an earnest young man who listened to the others so intently that he confessed to being exhausted by the end of the meeting. Eric, 34, has recently decided that he wants to be a father, but he’d like his future wife to stay at home to raise the children. He’s been working hard, hoping to get to a six-figure salary sometime soon.
  • They talked about religion a lot, the three men, though they weren’t all conventionally religious. They feel something is being lost as Western society becomes more secular: a moral compass, perhaps. “We threw out a very important baby with all that bathwater,” Xander said.
  • Enter Father Peterson and his 12 commandments, I thought. Yet I was enthralled by them, this community of disciples. They get together just to talk about ideas and improve themselves, and Peterson made that possible for them. I have nothing like that in my life — how many of us do, really? For the first time, I thought maybe I was starting to get it.
  • Sandra doesn’t call herself a Jordan Peterson fan. She didn’t find his book particularly insightful, but she donates to his Patreon account — in fact, once people started publishing “hit pieces” against him she doubled her donations. She likes that Peterson says things that other people don’t.
  • If there’s a genius to Jordan Peterson, it’s his willingness to shout from the rooftops the things that a lot of us would rather not say. I can respect that
  • I asked him for the most important message he’s taken from Jordan Peterson. “Men are lost,” he told me, and Peterson offers them a useful role, an avenue for “positive masculinity.”
  • He wanted to know why I was so hung up on all of the gender stuff. I stammered out an answer, because the truth is I’m not totally sure. Why should I mind, really, if men have a father figure telling them to sort themselves out? If they feel lost, then I guess they are.
  • They say Peterson’s audience is largely male, and I believe that, but that doesn’t mean he has no message for women. It’s there, between the lines. If men need to man up, where does that leave us? Not back in the kitchen, necessarily, but maybe not around the boardroom table
Javier E

College Admissions Scandal: FBI Targets Wealthy Parents - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...584695

college admissions fraud scandal culture testing

shared by Javier E on 12 Mar 19 - No Cached
  • Charges are also being brought against 13 college coaches, including Yale’s head women’s soccer coach, who allegedly accepted a $400,000 bribe to admit a student as one of his recruits even though the student had never played competitive soccer.
  • “Every year, alumni contribute to their alma matters with the expectation of special treatment for their children,”
  • “This more genteel form of bribery is considered perfectly legal. Not only that, the donors get a tax break to boot, undercutting the fundamental legal principle that a charitable donation should not enrich the donor.”
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  • A famous example involves Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor whose father, then a wealthy real-estate developer, in 1998 pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University. Kushner—who, the investigative reporter Daniel Golden notes in his 2006 book The Price of Admission, was described by administrators at his high school as a mediocre student—was admitted to the school shortly after that
  • fraud and bribery’s lawful cousins—legacy preferences, athletic recruitment, and other admissions practices that lower the bar for progeny of the rich and famous—are ubiquitous.
  • Today, legacy students account for an estimated 14 percent of Harvard’s undergraduate population, and applicants who enjoy such alumni connections are accepted at five times the rate of their non-legacy peers (a nearly 34 percent acceptance rate, versus just under 6 percent for those lacking those coveted alumni connections)
  • as 40 percent of Harvard’s white students are legacies or recruited athletes.
  • At elite colleges, athletic recruitment is arguably another form of affirmative action for the wealthy. As my colleague Saahil Desai has written, Harvard’s admissions office, for instance, gives a major boost to athletes with middling academic qualifications. Athletes who score a four (out of six) on the academic scale Harvard uses to score applicants were accepted at a rate of about 70 percent, Desai reported; the admit rate for nonathletes with the same score, on the other hand, was 0.076 percent.
  • the U.S. attorney perhaps unintentionally emphasized this irony when he said: “We’re not talking about donating a building … We’re talking about fraud.”
  • His comment highlighted the mundanity of admissions favors for upper-crust children—when executed legally
krystalxu

Theresa May condemned for 'business as usual' after Conservatives accept £100... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...-chernukhin-tory-a8375636.html

business politics history trump

shared by krystalxu on 31 May 18 - No Cached
  • The Labour Party has accused Theresa May of breaking her promises and continuing “business as usual” with Russia after the Conservative Party accepted another £100,000 donation from the wife of a former minister in Vladimir Putin’s government
nrashkind

Knicks Owner James Dolan Tests Positive for the Coronavirus | Bleacher Report | Latest ... - 0 views

bleacherreport.com/...tests-positive-for-coronavirus

shared by nrashkind on 29 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • The New York Knicks announced Saturday that owner James Dolan has tested positive for COVID-19.
  • Dolan, 64, is now in self-isolation
  • Earlier on Saturday, the Dolan Family Foundation agreed to donate $1 million to Madison Square Garden's event staff who are unable to work because of the spread of the virus.
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  • The United States has the second-most cases with 85,228.
  • At least 10 NBA players have had confirmed COVID-19 cases, per USA Today, including Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz, Detroit Pistons big man Christian Wood, Boston Celtics point guard Marcus Smart, four Brooklyn Nets players (including Kevin Durant) and two unnamed Los Angeles Lakers.
  • In addition, three members of the Philadelphia 76ers organization and one in the Denver Nuggets organization have tested positive.
  • ESPN NBA color commentator Doris Burke has also tested positive.
  • Gobert was the first person in the Association to receive an official diagnosis, which in turn led the NBA to suspend play March 11.
Javier E

The Bezos Earth Fund Indicates a National Failing - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...606847

billionaire dysfunction state crisis politics Policy history privatization

shared by Javier E on 21 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Jeff Bezos announced the creation of the Bezos Earth Fund, which will disperse $10 billion in the name of combatting climate change. The fund is a triumph of philanthropy—and a perfect emblem of a national failing.
  • In a healthy democracy, the world’s richest man wouldn’t be able to painlessly make a $10 billion donation. His fortune would be mitigated by the tax collector; antitrust laws would constrain the growth of his business. Instead of relying on a tycoon to bankroll the national response to an existential crisis, there would be a national response.
  • in an age of political dysfunction, Bezos has begun to subsume the powers of the state. Where the government once funded the ambitious exploration of space, Bezos is leading that project, spending a billion dollars each year to build rockets and rovers. His company, Amazon, is spearheading an experimental effort to fix American health care; it will also spend $700 million to retrain workers in the shadow of automation and displacement.
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  • Bezos is providing the vital infrastructure of state. When Amazon locates its second headquarters on the Potomac, staring across the river at the capital, it will provide a perfect geographic encapsulation of the new balance of power.
  • there is no meaningful public oversight of Bezos’s power. His investments and donations—not to mention the dominance of his sprawling firm and his ownership of one of the nation’s most important newspapers—give him an outsize role in shaping the human future.
  • There’s no clear sense of the projects it will bankroll, even though a contribution of that scale will inevitably set the agenda of academics and nongovernmental organizations.
  • Bezos’s personal biases—his penchant for technological solutions, his skepticism of government regulation—will likely shape how the Bezos Earth Fund disperses cash. And that will, in turn, shape how activists and researchers craft their grant proposals, how they attempt to please a funder who can float their operations.
  • Even if Amazon aims to slash its own emissions, it’s creating an economy that seems likely to undermine its stated goal of carbon neutrality. A reasonable debate about planetary future would at least question the wisdom of the same-day delivery of plastic tchotchkes made in China.
  • Then there are the policies that permit companies, like Amazon, to pay virtually nothing in taxes—revenue that would ideally fund, say, a Green New Deal. It hardly seems likely that the Bezos Earth Foundation will seek to erode the very basis of the fortune that funds it.
  • A skeptical response to the Bezos Earth Fund doesn’t preclude the hope that it will do real good. Michael Bloomberg’s climate philanthropy has played an important role in shutting down coal-fired power plants.
  • In these years of polarization and dysfunction, the public keeps turning to saviors who present themselves as outsiders and promise transformation. Trump, of course, billed himself as this sort of salvific figure. But instead of curing voters of this yearning, he seems to have exacerbated it. The current temptation comes in the form of billionaires who exude competence
  • That the public seems indifferent to the dangers of a growing plutocracy is perhaps the greatest national failing of them all.
ethanshilling

$1 Million Raised After Attack on Asian Woman Will Go to Fight Racism, Family Says - Th... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...co-elderly-woman-attacked.html

US racism

shared by ethanshilling on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • After a Chinese grandmother was attacked by a white man in broad daylight in San Francisco last week, she fought back.The woman, Xiao Zhen Xie, 75, was punched while walking down Market Street on March 17. She responded by hitting her assailant with a board. A suspect was arrested, and Ms. Xie was left with several injuries, including two black eyes.
  • Ms. Xie’s grandson, John Chen, used GoFundMe to raise money for medical treatment and therapy for his grandmother. The public response to his fund-raiser far exceeded the family’s goal: By Thursday, about $1 million had been raised.
  • Over the past year, the Bay Area has seen a spate of violent attacks and robberies against Asian-Americans, as well as pandemic-related racism.
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  • The report was released on the same day that eight people, six of them Asian, were fatally shot at three Atlanta-area massage parlors.
  • The attack against Ms. Xie was one of several that have been captured, at least in part, on vide
  • Her assailant, whom the police identified as Steven Jenkins, 39, first attacked an 83-year-old Vietnamese man, Ngoc Pham, who had been grocery shopping on March 17.
  • Video footage from the immediate aftermath of the assault shows Ms. Xie holding an ice pack to her face and telling officers and bystanders about her attacker. “One big punch came down on me,” she said in Cantonese, wailing in distress.
  • “It’s been difficult on the Asian-American community — of course I understand,” Mr. McBurney said Thursday.
  • Mr. McBurney added that he would provide more details about Mr. Jenkins, and about what happened on March 17, in the near future.
  • As days passed, the donations grew. On Tuesday, Mr. Chen wrote that his grandmother was finally able to open her swollen left eye and that she was in better spirits than before.
  • It is unclear how the funds will be spent. Ms. Xie and Mr. Chen could not be reached on Thursday, and GoFundMe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Javier E

Corporations Are Not Friends, People - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...618561

corporations GOP Politics alllane]]]ce policy trump history

shared by Javier E on 12 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • Corporations are people, my friend,” Romney replied. He was jeered in the crowd, and jeered even more by Democrats afterward. “I don’t care how many times you try to explain it,” Barack Obama said on the stump. “Corporations aren’t people. People are people.”
  • In arguing that companies should absolutely continue to donate money to politicians, but also that they should stay out of politics,
  • What these politicians are expressing is the fury of people who thought they had a deal, and have learned that they don’t, at least not on the old terms. The old arrangement was simple: The fiscally conservative wing of the Republican Party would push for lighter regulation, lower corporate taxes, and lower taxes on the high earners who ran corporations. In return, the corporations would cut generous checks to Republicans and remain circumspectly quiet about the culture-war issues that the social-conservative wing of the party cared about.
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  • McConnell embraced the tortured position that money, and only money, is speech—and that actual speech is not speech.  
  • The Kentuckian argued that money was speech, and limitations on donations—even requirements to disclose—infringed on free speech.
  • life—the peaceful transfer of power comes to mind—it is a casualty of the Trump era. In the early half of his presidency, Donald Trump pursued some projects that solidified the traditional bond between the GOP and business, such as slashing taxes, but also others that divided the old allies, including protectionist policies on trade and personally intervening to bully companies.
  • Last year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, usually a stalwart supporter of Republicans, endorsed some Democrats, and it forcefully condemned Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
  • Meanwhile, a decades-long consensus that publicly held that companies should, above all, do whatever they could to maximize short-term shareholder value began to soften. In 2019, the Business Roundtable, a leading trade association, released new guidance that said corporations should “push for an economy that serves all Americans,” in Chairman Jamie Dimon’s words, by investing in communities and employees, dealing ethically with suppliers, and considering longer-term returns.
  • Now with voting laws at the center of national politics, corporations are speaking out. MLB moved the All-Star Game, Coca-Cola and Delta blasted the Georgia law, and other executives have objected to the law and other bills under consideration elsewhere. To critics, this is riskily divisive. Echoing a famous Michael Jordan line, McConnell complained that Republicans drink Coke and fly too.
  • But these companies are responsive to many groups, and just because their stances don’t directly affect revenue and profits, that doesn’t mean these aren’t business decisions. Corporations are balancing the demands of shareholders, customers, and employees, as well as the positions of their own executives,
  • Companies may also calculate that the long-term costs of being on the wrong side of social-justice issues, or the wrong side of an ascendant liberal, diverse population, outweigh the short-term risks of Republican backlash and boycotts.
  • In short, what McConnell calls “blackmail” is just free enterprise at work. These companies may or may not be acting in their long-term best interests—corporations make mistaken bets about the future all the time—but they are acting rationally.
  • The minority leader is realizing that the deal Republicans had with big corporations wasn’t personal; it was just business. A tax break can buy you a lot of things, but it doesn’t buy love.
  • In taking these stances on big social issues, these corporations are acting in a majoritarian manner. But no one should conclude that they are progressive. Even as big business enters into a temporary alliance with Democrats on voting rights, many of its captains are fighting back against the plan President Joe Biden announced Wednesday to raise corporate tax rates.
  • American government would probably be healthier if more politicians asked—for whatever reason—why they are so willing to accept corporations’ arguments on taxes, regulation, and antitrust. Corporations may be people, my friends. But corporations are not friends, people.
cartergramiak

Donations Surge for Republicans Who Challenged Election Results - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...fund-raising-capitol-riot.html

politics Culture US biden election trump GOP

shared by cartergramiak on 19 Apr 21 - No Cached
  • Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who led the challenges to President Biden’s victory in their chamber, each brought in more than $3 million in campaign donations in the three months that followed the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
  • Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia who called the rampage a “1776 moment” and was later stripped of committee assignments for espousing bigoted conspiracy theories and endorsing political violence, raised $3.2 million — more than the individual campaign of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, and nearly every other member of House leadership.
  • Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, a freshman who urged his supporters to “lightly threaten” Republican lawmakers to goad them into challenging the election results, pulled in more than $1 million. Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado — who like Ms. Greene compared Jan. 6 to the American Revolution — took in nearly $750,000.
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  • Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, took in $1.5 million, and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who has started an organization to lead the Republican Party away from fealty to Mr. Trump, raised more than $1.1 million.
  • Campaign filings show nearly a dozen lawmakers have made payments of $20,000 or more to security companies in the past three months, including Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who voted to convict Mr. Trump; Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who gave a harrowing account of the riot; and Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California and one of the impeachment managers against Mr. Trump.
rerobinson03

Louis DeJoy Investigated Over Possible Campaign Finance Violations - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...is-dejoy-campaign-finance.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 04 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The investigation focuses on campaign contributions made by people employed by New Breed Logistics, the company in North Carolina that Mr. DeJoy led from 1983 to 2014, before he was appointed postmaster general a little over a year ago during the administration of President Donald J. Trump. Mr. DeJoy was a leading donor to Mr. Trump in the 2016 campaign.
  • Mr. DeJoy has received a grand-jury subpoena for information connected to the investigation, according to a person familiar with the inquiry who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose details related to the grand jury.
  • One day in October 2014, for example, 20 midlevel and senior officials at the company donated a total of $37,600 to the campaign of Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, who was running to unseat a Democratic incumbent. Each official wrote a check for either $2,600, the maximum allowable donation, or $1,000.
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  • There is a five-year statute of limitations for criminal violations of federal campaign finance law, meaning Mr. DeJoy could only be prosecuted for violations of that sort that took place in 2016 or later.
katherineharron

Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene team up to battle political opposition - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

greene

shared by katherineharron on 01 May 21 - No Cached
  • Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida have a lot in common
  • They've now formed a joint fundraising committee and are making plans to travel the country together on what they are calling an "America First" tour.
  • "There are millions of Americans who need to know they still have advocates in Washington D.C., and the America First movement is consistently growing and fighting," Gaetz said in a statement announcing the tour.
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  • Earlier this month, when Greene flirted with the idea of forming an "America First" caucus, a leaked flier promoting the caucus received sharp criticism for using inflammatory rhetoric. While many Republicans -- even some from the far-right Freedom Caucus -- were quick to distance themselves from the document and the caucus itself, Gaetz proudly proclaimed he was ready to sign up.
  • Greene has returned the favor. When news broke of a federal investigation into Gaetz, which includes allegations of sex trafficking and prostitution, many Democrats and even fellow GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois called for him to resign. But Greene defended her Florida colleague.
  • "I have proudly defended Matt Gaetz from the beginning because I know he has done nothing wrong and I recognized this playbook right from the start,"
  • Now the two are solidifying that alliance through the joint fundraising committee -- which generally allows politicians to secure a single, larger check from a donor and then split the money among several committees -- and their "America First" tour, which is set to kick off next Friday with an event at the Villages, a retirement community that is in neither of their congressional districts.
  • As the pressure on each grows, they have formed an unsurprising bond, often seen talking to each other on the floor of the House of Representatives, and they back each other up when others in the GOP aren't rushing to their defense.
  • "I think these people get too much attention. I don't really want to elevate or amplify their voices. They're not the Republican Party that I am excited to be a leader within," one Republican lawmaker, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely, told CNN. "For me, it'd be better if these guys just go away."
  • "This is part of the Republican Party's internal struggle about, you know, is this the party of Trump or is this the party of conservative values? And you know, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are many things, but you know, conservative Republicans they are not," the lawmaker said.
  • Greene has also become a fundraising force, despite being kicked off her congressional committees. The Democratic-controlled House voted to remove her in February in the wake of recently unearthed incendiary and violent past statements from the congresswoman that triggered widespread backlash. But the freshman raised an unprecedented $3.2 million in the first quarter of 2021, which largely came from an online spigot of small-dollar donations from people across the country.
  • Some Democrats have called on Gaetz to be removed from his committees as well because of his legal troubles.
  • Some Republicans fear that the more the pair are under attack, the stronger their base of support becomes. A separate GOP member of Congress argued that removing Greene from her committees left her only one option: waging a public relations war."I tell the Democrats, who ask me what we are going to do about MTG, that this situation is one of their own creation," the Republican lawmaker told CNN.
  • "It's obviously a bad look for the party. This is not who we are. This is not how we get the majority back. It's a distraction that's only going to hurt our efforts to talk about our agenda and talk about policy," said a GOP congressional aide.
anonymous

Democrats launch Senate battle for expanded voting rights - 0 views

apnews.com/...de82aee5edbdabde43f48d7fc60e09

shared by anonymous on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Democrats renewed their efforts Wednesday to muscle through the largest overhaul of U.S. elections in a generation, setting up a fight with Republicans that could bring partisan tensions to a climax in the evenly split Senate and become a defining issue for President Joe Biden.
  • The Senate bill, similar to a version passed by the House earlier this month, could shape election outcomes for years to come, striking down hurdles to voting, requiring more disclosure from political donors, restricting partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts and bolstering election security and ethics laws.
  • The debate over who has the right to vote, and how elections are conducted, could play out for months, if not years.
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  • Unless they united around changing Senate rules, which now require 60 votes for most bills to advance, their chance to enshrine expansive voting protections could quickly slip away.
  • Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., making a rare appearance at a hearing, said Wednesday it took “mighty movements and decades of fraught political conflict” to achieve the basic dignities of current election laws and “any American who thinks that the fight for a full and fair democracy is over, is sadly and sorely mistaken.”
  • “In the end, that insurrection was about an angry mob working to undermine our democracy,” Klobuchar said. “And it reminds all of us how very fragile our democracy truly is, and how it is on all of us to not just protect that democracy, but to ensure that it thrives.”
  • the Senate legislation would create automatic voter registration nationwide, allow former felons to vote, and limit the ways states can remove registered voters from their rolls. It would expand voting by mail, promote early voting and give states money to track absentee ballots. Millions of people took advantage of those practices during the pandemic last year — and after some Republican states tried to restrict them in favor of voting in person.
  • The bill would increase oversight for election vendors and boost support for state voting system upgrades after Russia attempted to breach some of those systems in the 2016 election. It would overhaul federal oversight of campaign finance and encourage small donations to campaigns, while requiring more disclosure of political donations.
  • Testifying at the hearing, former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under President Barack Obama, said the legislation would help fight politicians who want to maintain an “unjust status quo.”
  • “The events of the past few months have brought into stark focus what has been true for too long: There is a large and powerful faction in this country intent on retaining power and who will bend or break the rules of our democracy in order to do so,” Holder said.
  • Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a longtime opponent of restrictive campaign finance laws, also made a rare hearing appearance, sitting across the dais from Schumer. He said the bill is full of “silly new mandates” that would create “an invitation to chaos” for states that would have to put them in place.
  • Lacking the 60 votes needed for passage, Democrats have discussed options like lowering the threshold to break a filibuster, or potentially breaking the bill into pieces. For now, Democrats have suggested they will start with bringing up potentially popular proposals like the voting rights measure and expanded gun background checks and let them fail, forcing Republicans to go on the record in opposition.
  • Republicans called West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner to testify in opposition to the bill. He said the legislation would force his state and others to follow “arbitrary guidelines, most of which are impossible or unattainable under the deadlines.” He urged the senators to “leave election administration up to the states.”
hannahcarter11

Third bank cuts ties with Trump after Capitol riot | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...-with-trump-after-capitol-riot

trump bank capitol insurrection

shared by hannahcarter11 on 13 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • A third bank declared its plans to cut ties with President TrumpDonald TrumpGrowing number of GOP lawmakers say they support impeachment YouTube temporarily bars uploading of new content on Trump's channel House passes measure calling on Pence to remove Trump MORE and the Trump Organization on Tuesday in the aftermath of the raid on the Capitol last week.
  • Florida-based Professional Bank, which once provided Trump with an $11 million mortgage, announced that it won’t conduct future business with the president or his organization.
  • The Florida bank represents the third bank to end its relationship with Trump and the Trump Organization after a pro-Trump mob breached and vandalized the Capitol building last week in an attempt to disrupt Congress’s certification of President-elect Joe BidenJoe BidenGrowing number of GOP lawmakers say they support impeachment House passes measure calling on Pence to remove Trump Disney, Walmart say they will block donations to lawmakers who objected to Electoral College results MORE’s Electoral College win.
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  • The New York-based Signature Bank announced that it would close down Trump’s personal accounts that have about $5.3 million due to the “displeasure and shock” management experienced following the Capitol riots. 
  • Earlier this week, Bloomberg News reported that Deutsche Bank would not conduct future business with Trump or his company besides monitoring the payment of existing loans amounting to more than $300 million. 
  • The deadly riots resulted in at least five deaths, including a Capitol Police officer and a woman shot by a plain clothes Capitol Police officer.
  • The New York bank also called on the president to resign and said it would not make future agreements with lawmakers who contested the Electoral College results after the riots.
  • “We witnessed the President of the United States encouraging the rioters and refraining from calling in the National Guard to protect the Congress in its performance of duty,” the statement continued.
  • Eric TrumpEric TrumpLet's make Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 the day Trumpism died Ivanka Trump urges 'patriots' storming Capitol to 'stop immediately' in now-deleted tweet Eric Trump warns of primary challenges for Republicans who don't object to election results MORE, one of the president’s sons put in charge of day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization, told The Associated Press that banks and other companies ending their relationship with the business after the riots exemplifies a liberal “cancel culture.”
  • “If you disagree with them, if they don’t like you, they try and cancel you.”
  • Several companies, in addition to the banks, have distanced themselves from the president after last week’s events, including Shopify, which took down trumpstore.com, and PGA of America, which moved a 2022 championship away from Trump property.
  • New York City declared on Wednesday that it would end contracts with the Trump Organization to run attractions in the city’s park, with Mayor Bill de BlasioBill de BlasioRepublican Staten Island candidate apologizes for Hitler reference New York City considering ending business contracts with Trump Columnist Ross Barkan discusses the slow vaccination process in the state of New York MORE (D) saying, “New York City doesn’t do business with insurrectionists.”
katherineharron

Trump donor Stephen Schwarzman plans private fundraiser with Mitt Romney - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

election

shared by katherineharron on 22 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Stephen Schwarzman, an informal adviser and donor to President Donald Trump, is hosting a fundraiser with Sen. Mitt Romney in support of several Republicans colleagues seeking reelection, according to two people with knowledge of the event.
  • Helping Romney bolster his standing in the party as he attempts to cement his position as a self-described "renegade Republican" during an impeachment inquiry is notable because of Schwarzman's support for Trump. Since the 2016 election, Schwarzman has donated a total of about $850,000 to Trump's inauguration and political action committees, based on records compiled by CNN and the Center for Responsive Politics.
  • Romney also took a shot at Trump's character in an interview with The Atlantic where he criticized Trump for "berating another person, or calling them names, or demeaning a class of people, not telling the truth."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "That's simply not true. As I point out, the idea that any one senator, even me — even Mitch McConnell — is not going to convince other senators to reach a different conclusion than they would reach on their own," said Romney in the interview.
  • Schwarzman has also contributed to Romney's various political campaigns over the years. Since 1993, Schwarzman, along with his wife Christine, have contributed around $94,200 to Romney's federal campaigns or Romney linked groups, according to Center for Responsive Politics. Most recently, the couple each donated the maximum to Romney's Senate bid in 2018.
  • Schwarzman reportedly visited the White House this summer at Kushner's request, who convened a dinner to discuss his father-in-law's campaign fundraising strategy.
anonymous

Here Are the 10 National Monuments the Interior Department Wants to Shrink or Modify - ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rs-ears-changes-monuments.html

shared by anonymous on 14 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • This monument should be made smaller by removing land that could be farmed for timber, according to Mr. Zinke’s recommendations.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 14 Nov 19
       
      Taking down monuments that would harm animals lives
  • President George W. Bush set aside the monument in 2009, calling it “an important part of the most widespread collection of marine- and terrestrial-life protected areas on the planet under a single country’s jurisdiction.”
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 14 Nov 19
       
      Past presidents agree on not touching the monument
  • Roxanne Quimby, a co-founder of Burt’s Bees cosmetics, donated land worth about $60 million to the federal government, as well as an endowment of $20 million for operations and maintenance. Ms. Quimby’s family pledged to raise an additional $20 million to aid the park.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 14 Nov 19
       
      Famous people who have donated to the cause
katherineharron

James Murdoch lashes out against Fox and Rupert Murdoch's other news outlets for climat... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 15 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • Rupert Murdoch's son and his wife are lashing out against his father's sprawling media empire for how it covers the climate crisis, especially in light of the fires raging in the family's native Australia.
  • In comments first made to the Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the couple said "Kathryn and James' views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known."
  • The criticism aimed at Rupert Murdoch's news outlets is also coming from within the company. Last week Emily Townsend, a commercial financier manager for News Corp in Australia, sent an all-staff email accusing News Corp of a "misinformation campaign" in relation to the fires to "divert attention away from the real issue," climate change, according to the Guardian.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The Australian, one of News Corp's papers and a target of critics who say it's been downplaying the link between climate change and the fires, defended itself in an editorial over the weekend, writing "in our coverage, The Australian's journalists report facts about how to tackle bushfires and about how to deal with the impact of climate change. Second, we host debates reflecting the political division that exists in Australia about how to address climate change without destroying our economy."
  • deniers around, I can assure you."And on Monday, the company announced it was donating $5 million AUD (approximately $3.45 million USD) to the Australian bushfire relief, in addition to the $4 million AUD (around $2.76 million USD) that both Rupert and his older son Lachlan Murdoch have donated to relief efforts.
nrashkind

YouTuber who tried to soak up a pool with 100,000 paper towels criticized for wasting 1... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by nrashkind on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • This time it's Tyler Oliveira, and he's facing backlash over a video titled, "Can 1,000,000 Paper Towels Absorb A Swimming Pool?"
  • Just as the title suggests, the video shows Oliveira, who has more than 590,000 subscribers, attempting to soak up a swimming pool with an enormous amount of paper towels.
  • After a few hours of this, he realized his plan wasn't working.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The water had lowered just an inch, if that.
  • The backlash came quickly. "Talk about pollution and waste," one viewer commented. "Terrible video idea, waste of resources! For what? A couple of views, think about the environment !!" another viewer said.
  • Days after the video was posted, Oliveira apologized
  • "To be honest, this video was a really bad idea," he told his viewers. "I was caught up in the idea of making a banger and I didn't really consider the net consequence on the world around me... I deserve the criticism on this one!"
  • Oliveira said he donated $1,000 to the Australian Red Cross organization and asked his viewers to donate as well. He noted that all proceeds will go to the emergency teams that are fighting the "bushfires we're currently seeing across NSW."
mariedhorne

The 2020 election for the White House and Congress poised to hit record-shattering $14 ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

president pre-election money

shared by mariedhorne on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The cost of this year's federal elections will hit close to $14 billion, shattering records and doubling the amount of money spent to influence presidential and congressional contests four years ago, according to an estimate released Wednesday.
  • And the 2020 election also has seen a dramatic reversal in the financial fortunes of the two men vying for the White House
  • Donations to the Biden campaign alone through mid-October -- the most recent public filings -- already have topped $930 million.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "Ten years ago, a billion-dollar presidential candidate would have been difficult to imagine. This cycle, we're likely to see two," the center's executive director Sheila Krumholz said in a statement.
  • Bloomberg and California hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer -- Democratic candidates and groups spent $5.5 billion in this cycle; Republicans, $3.8 billion. That marks an unprecedented financial advantage for Democrats.Small-dollar donors account for 22% of the money raised this cycle, up from 15% in the last presidential election cycle.
  • race in South Carolina, out-of-state money accounted for 93% of Harrison's money and about 87% of the campaign funds collected by Graham.Women donors have stepped up their giving, accounting for 44% of contributions, a new high. And women donors have donated $1.3 billion to Democrats, compared to roughly $570 million to Republicans.
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