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BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI & CROOKED MEDIA Wednesday, August 7, 2019 |
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| —AOC to white supremacists |
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| THE GROUND SHIFTS |
| Recent gun massacres in the U.S., including white nationalist terrorist attacks in El Paso, TX, and Gilroy, CA, have begun to shift the political and cultural ground in America. Here’s how people and institutions have responded in just the past day.
The FBI confirmed it will investigate the Gilroy shooting as an act of domestic terrorism, “after discovering that the gunman had a ‘target list’ of religious institutions, federal buildings and political organizations.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Republicans for proposing half-measures to address gun violence, and said Senate Democrats will use procedural tools to ensure that votes on any half-measures are “accompanied by a vote on the House-passed universal background checks legislation.”
Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) has endorsed a “red flag” law, which would allow authorities to confiscate firearms from individuals whom courts deem dangerous, in response to this weekend’s mass shooting in Dayton, OH.
People across the country remain on edge, as evidenced by false alarms in New York City’s Times’ Square, USA Today headquarters in McLean, VA, and the Valley Fair Mall near Salt Lake City, UT, which sent people scrambling to safety.
Joe Biden delivered an impassioned speech denouncing President Trump and laying the spike in white supremacist violence at his feet.
Maybe the only person completely unaffected by recent events is Trump himself. Today, as he visited victims and their families in Dayton and El Paso, he attacked:
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| Despite a nationwide groundswell of support for stronger gun-control laws, new laws to loosen gun restrictions will go into effect in Texas next month. The laws, which Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) signed before a white nationalist massacred 22 people in El Paso over the weekend, will do the following:
Four of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history have been in Texas. |
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| August’s series of Crooked Minis, “Rigging North Carolina” is here and it’s extra special because it’s hosted by Crooked Media’s Political Director Shaniqua McClendon!! This month the series follows the story of North Carolina’s Ninth District, where a Republican political consultant stole ballots for a GOP congressional candidate in one of the biggest election fraud cases in American politics.
Shaniqua, a North Carolina native, guides us through the story before the upcoming September election that could elect a Democrat to this longtime Republican-held seat.
Listen → |
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| The Trump White House rejected Department of Homeland Security requests to make white-supremacist terrorism a higher priority in the administration’s counterterrorism strategy. This is an important story, and Kirstjen Nielsen and her former deputies should be forced to testify about these White House decisions at an impeachment hearing, instead of just leaking them on background to CNN.
ICE arrested 680 people during raids at seven food processing plants in Mississippi—the largest workplace sting in over a decade and possibly the largest ever in a single state. The workers in these plants was largely Latino immigrants.
Puerto Rico’s Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez was sworn in as the new governor today after the island’s Supreme Court determined that the process former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló used to name Pedro Pierluisi as his successor violated Puerto Rico's constitution. Vázquez became the third person to hold the governor’s title in the past week.
House Democrats have filed a lawsuit to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to comply with the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena for his testimony about President Trump’s obstruction of justice. The White House has objected to McGahn testifying, and McGahn has said he won’t comply without a court order.
A State Department official reportedly “oversaw the Washington, D.C.-area chapter of a white nationalist organization, hosted white nationalists at his home, and published white nationalist propaganda online.” Holy shit.
After a six week dispute over the Democratic nomination for Queens district attorney, progressive candidate Tiffany Cabán conceded to Melinda Katz, the party establishment’s favored candidate. Cabán, a former public defender and first-time candidate, lost by only 55 votes.
Cyntoia Brown, a child sex-trafficking victim who served 15 years of a life sentence after shooting a man in self-defense when she was 16, has been released from a Nashville prison, several months after Gov. Bill Haslam (R-TN) granted her clemency.
The chairman of fitness clubs Equinox and SoulCycle will host a Trump fundraiser in the Hamptons that costs between $5,600-$250,000 to attend, and the revelation that he is a Trump supporter has inspired a boycott.
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| The Trump administration has labeled China a “currency manipulator.” The designation is largely symbolic, but will likely deepen the trade war between the U.S. and China.
So, what is a currency manipulator? It’s a sovereign country that weakens the value of its currency to reduce the costs of, and increase demand for, its exports to other countries.
Did China manipulate its currency? In past years yes, but not today. China did recently take steps to stop strengthening its currency, causing its value to fall, and it took those steps to offset the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs.
What happens now? Probably nothing, since the value of China’s currency is aligned with the market. Real currency manipulators can be induced to revalue their currencies by the International Monetary Fund, but the IMF just determined China’s currency is appropriately valued. But it’s still a slap in the face to Chinese negotiators and bodes poorly for trade war negotiations. |
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| Orange County, CA, a longtime GOP stronghold, is now home to more registered Democrats than Republicans. In 2018, Democrats flipped four Republican congressional seats in the county, which helped pad the party’s new majority.
Democratic leaders have attributed the shift to changing demographics, aggressive recruitment efforts, and President Trump, and note the same effects are visible in other large, affluent suburbs Republicans previously counted on to offset Democratic dominance in large cities. |
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