Make the Grand Canyon Too Polluted To See the Bottom Again
BY PRIYANKA ARIBINDI, BRIAN BEUTLER & CROOKED MEDIA
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 | The New York Times published a list of questions on Monday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller reportedly told Donald Trump's lawyers he would like to ask the president. About one third of them are about contacts and cooperation between Trump’s inner circle and Russian agents. The rest are all hair questions. JK. Trump reacted to the development by pretending those questions don't exist. White House spokesman Raj Shah suggested that Trump has been cleared of collusion and that Mueller shouldn’t be allowed to investigate other crimes. Cool. From Brian: It's very hard to read Mueller’s questions and see how the Russia investigation ends without several Trump associates indicted for crimes stemming from acts of collusion. The most natural interpretation of a few of the questions is that his some of his most senior aides—including Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort—committed crimes in the course of this corrupt partnership with Russia, and Mueller has the goods. But Trump may think he can get away with gaslighting the public about this, because he's already bamboozled the press corps into conceding the almost-as-brazen lie that there's "no evidence" of collusion. Trump may also think that he can spin his way into avoiding an interview with Mueller, but if Mueller believes Trump’s testimony is pivotal to his investigation, he has the power to compel it with a grand jury subpoena. On Tuesday night the Washington Post reported Mueller floated that possibility during a tense meeting with Trump’s lawyers last month. Also, Mueller’s team wants to delay disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s sentencing another 60 days, presumably because Flynn is still cooperating with him and that cooperation is bearing fruit. If we don’t write down all the crimes in 60 days or less, the pizza is free. Read → | The Israeli prime minister and the Trump administration are trying to mislead the public into believing Iran has breached the terms of the nuclear deal, laying groundwork for the Trump administration to withdraw from it. The campaign centers on Benjamin Netanyahu’s evidence that Iran once had (and lied about) a covert nuclear weapons program, which he’s offering Trump as a rationale for breaking the agreement that eliminated Iran’s nuclear weapons program (yes, you read that right). Of course, the Obama administration and U.S. allies knew Iran hadn't been honest about its weapons program. Here, for instance, is President Obama telling the American Jewish community “we don’t trust Iran.” That is why the deal established a robust and intrusive inspections regime. The White House took things one step further Monday night by issuing a false statement claiming Iran's nuclear weapons program had been secretly reactivated. The National Security Council attributed the misstatement to a typo, but in full context that explanation isn't credible. From Tommy Vietor: After years of bashing US intelligence agencies for getting Iraq WMD wrong, Trump is now cooking up intel with the Israelis to push us closer to a conflict with Iran. A scandal hiding in plain sight. | | |
President Trump’s former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price says the GOP’s corporate tax cut law will increase health-care costs for many Americans because it repealed the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. This is true, but back when he was lying constantly on the administration’s behalf to sell Obamacare repeal, Price said exactly the opposite. Trump’s former physician Harold Bornstein says Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller and two other goons raided his office and made off with Trump’s medical records shortly after he became president. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called this apparent robbery and violation of health privacy law “standard procedure,” but please don’t make jokes about how she is dishonest and mean-spirited. It’s BULLYING. Members of the House Freedom Caucus have drafted articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as part of their continued effort to protect Trump from Mueller’s investigation. Rosenstein responded to questions today, saying: “The Department of Justice will not be extorted…..any threats are not going to affect our job." Hey look at Rod! California is leading a coalition of 18 states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration for violating the Clean Air Act by rolling back car emissions standards. Make the Grand Canyon Too Polluted To See the Bottom Again. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s $100,000 trip to Morocco was arranged in part by a lobbyist friend of his who represents the Moroccan government. Also Pruitt seems to have lied to Congress about retaliating against a whistleblower (and former Trump campaign operative) who refused to authorize first class travel for Pruitt’s aides. HOW IS HE STILL IN HIS JOB? Over the past four years, 103 Uber drivers in the U.S. have been accused of sexually assaulting their passengers. Sources close to President Trump say the National Enquirer cover story about Michael Cohen, titled "Trump's Fixer's Secrets & Lies,” suggests the president is turning on Cohen. Is Cohen going to turn on Trump? Has he turned already? Who knows? Facebook’s getting into the dating game. | | |
Welcome to season two of Pod Save the People! In the premiere, DeRay is back with the news crew, and later he talks with Brené Brown about trauma, activism, addiction, Beyoncé, and more. Listen → | | |
Kanye West thinks slavery was a choice. After sharing his “free thoughts” in a live interview with TMZ, TMZ’s Van Lathan challenged him on-air: “We have to deal with the marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice.” | From Pod Save the People news crew member Clint Smith III: The millions of enslaved Africans brought to this country under chain and whip and fear were worth more than every bank, factory, and railroad combined. There’s nothing about their bondage that was a “choice” other than the choice by white people to make black bodies the national currency. | Busy Philipps will be hosting her own late-night talk show on E!—Busy Tonight. This will make Philipps one of the few women in the predominantly male lineup of late-night television hosts. | Cocaine Deaths Are Rising At An Alarming Rate, And It’s Because Of Fentanyl "Deaths from cocaine, after holding steady for many years, increased an alarming 52% between 2015 and 2016… The stimulant is now killing approximately 13,000 people a year, on track to rival painkiller pills and heroin… Although researchers don’t fully understand why cocaine overdoses are spiking, they know that one of the biggest drivers is fentanyl.” Read → | | |
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