State spent $234K on Trump trip to Turnberry

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/455222-state-spent-234k-on-trump-trip-to-turnberry

 

Trump administration appoints opponent of public land to oversee 250 million acres of government-owned wilderness
Jon Sharman,The Independent 3 hours ago

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A man who advocates selling off US public land for mining has been appointed by the Trump administration to oversee some 250 million acres of government-owned wilderness.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed the order making William Pendley the acting head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The office manages a huge swathe of mostly wild federal land and the natural resources it contains, in the western US.

Mr Pendley welcomed Trump administration plans to open more federal land to mining, fossil fuel development and other private use, in tweets earlier this year.

He has called the oil and gas extraction technique known as fracking ”an energy, economic, AND environmental miracle!”

A former official in the interior department under Ronald Reagan, Mr Pendley has long backed ranchers and business owners in standoffs with the federal government over grazing and other uses of public lands.

The Wyoming native has accused environmental campaigners and the government of “tyranny” and “waging war on the west.”

He argued in 2016 that the “founding fathers intended all lands owned by the federal government to be sold”.

Conservationist Phil Hanceford, of The Wilderness Society, claimed Mr Pendley’s new role at BLM “strongly suggests the administration is positioning itself to liquidate our shared public lands”.

A spokeswoman for the interior department denied the allegation.

She said that the Trump administration had “been clear that we are not interested in transferring public lands”.

Jon Tester, the senator for Montana – the home state of former Trump interior secretary Ryan Zinke – said in a statement: “William Pendley has built a career advocating for the sale of public lands to the highest bidder. His leadership of the agency tasked with protecting the very entities he’d like to sell is a grave threat to the future of public lands.”

BLM manages one of every 10 acres in the US and 30 per cent of the country’s minerals

 

Prosecutors interviewed Hope Hicks in hush money probe — and have a ton of evidence: report

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/pr...oney-probe-and-have-a-ton-of-evidence-report/

 

Trump took the swamp and turned it into an ever growing blob.


Students for Trump Founder Pleads Guilty to $46,000 Wire Fraud Scam

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/students-for-trump-founder-pleads-guilty-to-46000-wire-fraud-scam/

 

Huh. So the only reason this is news is cause it says TRUMP.

In the middle of the story its noted that the Trump campaign sent Lambert et al a cease and desist order to stop claiming they were part of the campaign.

So, Trump in name only.

 

Don't trust it.
Unbiased, objective journalism is dead.

 

Texas Is Illegally Throwing Out Mail-In Ballots, Lawsuit Says


George Richardson mailed in his ballot to vote in Texas in 2018, but after Election Day officials in Brazos County told him it wasn’t counted. When Richardson asked why, the told him they concluded the signature on his ballot wasn’t really his, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Texas on Wednesday.

Something similar happened to Rosalie Weisfeld. She’s voted regularly over the last 30 years, and did so with an absentee ballot in the 2018 election in McAllen, Texas, because she was going to be out of town on Election Day. She was only told afterward that her ballot wasn’t counted ― officials said they determined her signature didn’t match one they had on file.

Richardson and Weisfeld were among at least 1,800 Texans who had their ballots rejected because of signature issues, according to the suit. The two ― along with multiple disability and advocacy groups ― are parties in the suit, arguing that the Texas process for disqualifying ballots over the signature issue violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of law and due process, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

As part of their review of mail-in ballots, local election officials can set up a committee to review the signatures on them. The committee members, in turn, compare the signature on a mail-in ballot with the one on the ballot application to try to ensure it came from the same person. These officials also can compare the signature on the ballot with at least two signatures on file from the prior six years.

If the ballot is rejected, local officials don’t have to notify the voter until 10 days after Election Day that their vote wasn’t counted.

In their complaint, lawyers for the plaintiffs noted that the Texas election code outlines no process those officials, who aren’t handwriting experts, are supposed to follow in comparing signatures.

The state relies “on untrained officials to ‘eye-ball’ a signature, leaving the sacred right to vote up to chance,” said Hani Mirza, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project who is helping represent the plaintiffs. “It’s time that we modernize this process and ensure that not one single Texan has their ballot thrown out for arbitrary reasons.”

The suit says Texas is violating the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law, by not implementing a uniform, statewide standard for verifying the signatures. It also contends that voters are being denied the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of due process because they do not have a chance to verify their signatures before a ballot is rejected.

The signature verification process violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, the suit argues, because voters with disabilities may not be able to make previous signatures match.

Using a mail-in ballot in Texas is restricted. Only people who are at least 65 years old, or are out of their county during early voting periods and on Election Day, or have a disability, or are in jail but eligible to vote can use such ballots.

The plaintiffs want a federal judge to either block officials from rejecting a mail-in ballot because signatures are ruled not to match or to require the officials to give voters a chance to fix their ballots before the votes are rejected.

Last year, a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked a similar process there, ruling that “the absence of functional standards is problematic.”

In Florida, a measure signed into law this year establishes processes for comparing mismatched signatures and giving voters extra time to “cure” ballots in question. The fix came after a federal judge, in the wake of the 2018 election, ordered the state to give voters more time to validate questionable ballots.

Related Coverage

 

Now shooter can't speak to Texas, but in both Arizona and Colorado the actual ballot is returned in a sealed envelope the voter signs, which in turn is put in another envelope the voter signs.

Which means confirming the signature does not require opening the ballot. Also, rejected ballots are not shredded, but are kept until election results are validated and voters notified that their vote was not counted.

Now, it may be that Texas does it differently, but its hard to believe that signature verifiers are even able to distinguish if a ballot is from someone with a disability, or how how they voted.

 

The reason its Trump is because he has turned the swamp into The Blob where corruption is the tule.

And because he incorporated the scam group into his campaign.

 

attaboy

 

Umpire? did he post on this thread?

 

@Sexlover95
Well, Shooter thinks we do need despicables and their party.

It's like this; do you know why God made stupid people?
So the rest of us would know how smart we are.

Think about it; we can compare deplorble politics and goals and agendas and what not to despicables politics and goals and agendas and realize just how much better off we are with deplorable policies in place.
Plus, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

 

State Department confirms alleged leader of white-nationalist group is an employee, won't say if he'll be fired

• A State Department employee led a white-nationalist group in Washington, DC, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center report.
• The department confirmed to INSIDER that the man is an employee but would not say whether the allegations affected his status.
• "This individual is employed by the Department of State as a foreign affairs officer assigned to the Bureau of Energy Resources in Washington, DC," a State Department spokesperson told INSIDER.
• The official was placed on leave as of Thursday, according to a Politico report.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A current State Department official served as the leader of a white-nationalist organization in Washington, DC, according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released on Wednesday.

The official, identified as Matthew Gebert, "hosted white nationalists at his home and published white nationalist propaganda online," the report said.

A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday told INSIDER that Gebert is a foreign-affairs officer assigned to the Bureau of Energy Resources in Washington, DC.

When asked whether the allegations in the SPLC report would affect Gebert's employment status, the department spokesperson told INSIDER, "The Department of State cannot comment on personnel issues but is committed to providing an inclusive workplace."

Gebert was placed on leave as of Thursday, according to a Politico report.

Gebert joined the department in 2013, according to the SPLC report, during the Obama administration. Based on his position as a foreign-affairs officer, he's a civil servant and not a political appointee.

According to the SPLC report, Gebert operated online under the pseudonym "Coach Finstock."

"Through that alias, he expressed a desire to build a country for whites only," the report said.



Read more: Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed white supremacy is 'not a real problem in America.' This CNN host couldn't even.

In a white-nationalist podcast in May 2018, which is cited in the SPLC report, Coach Finstock said, "[Whites] need a country of our own with nukes, and we will retake this thing lickety-split ... That's all that we need. We need a country founded for white people with a nuclear deterrent. And you watch how the world trembles."

The report said that under his pseudonym, Gebert helped lead a chapter of an organization led by one of the men who coordinated the deadly white-nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.

The chapter, referred to in the report as "DC Helicopter Pilots," is part of the white supremacist Michael "Enoch" Peinovich's organization, The Right Stuff network.

Gebert, in a neo-Nazi podcast, talked about personally attending the Charlottesville march, where he wore a hat and sunglasses to avoid being identified, the SPLC report said. According to the SPLC report, Gebert in a podcast "expressed no apparent regret about what transpired" at the rally, where a counterprotester named Heather Heyer was killed after a neo-Nazi plowed a car into her and other people.

The SPLC report comes amid renewed scrutiny over white nationalism. Following the El Paso, Texas, shooting, in which a gunman who espoused white-nationalist sentimentkilled at least 22 people, critics have said the White House's rhetoric and policies influenced the rise of hate crimes.

The FBI, which received criticism for its handling of domestic-terrorism concerns after the El Paso shooting, reported that since October, the majority of roughly 100 domestic-terrorism-related arrests involving a racial motive were "motivated by some version of what you might call 'white supremacist violence.'"

"We take domestic terrorism or hate crime, regardless of ideology, extremely seriously," FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a congressional hearing in July. "We are aggressively pursuing it, using both counterterrorism resources and criminal investigative resources, and partnering closely with our state and local partners."

The FBI Agents Association on Tuesday urged Congress to declare domestic terrorism a federal crime. "Acts of violence intended to intimidate civilian populations or to influence or affect government policy should be prosecuted as domestic terrorism regardless of the ideology behind them," the group said.

President Donald Trump on Monday condemned white supremacy and said the El Paso shooter was "consumed by racist hate."

Two days later, Trump told reporters he was concerned about "any group of hate ... whether it's white supremacy" or "any other kind of supremacy."




Now to be fair the loser racist pussy was hired while Obama was in office but I do need to ask the obvious question that others have asked. How long before he becomes the new head of the State Department?

 

Attagirl

 

Maddow reveals Trump may allow ‘bloodbath’ in Hong Kong — because of a condo deal

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/ma...oodbath-in-hong-kong-because-of-a-condo-deal/

 

REVEALED: US taxpayers paid Trump hotel thousands to fund Don Jr’s Canadian hunting trip

*The latest estimates are $111 million to pay for just Trump's golfing and vacations.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/re...usands-to-fund-don-jrs-canadian-hunting-trip/

 

I thought Trump was draining the swamp .