PICTURE ABOVE WAS POSTED BY PAPA MIKE……PapaMike

By Tommy ChristopherSep 26th, 2020

Former Vice President and current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Bidendemolished President Donald Trump when he was asked about the upcoming debate, telling MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle that Trump is a “liar” who “isn’t that smart” and “doesn’t know a lot of facts.”

In an interview that aired Saturday morning, Ruhle asked the ex-veep about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s latest suggestion that Biden not bother debating someone who “has no fidelity to fact or truth,” wondering “Does she have a point?”

“Well she does, you know, two people of your consequence in the press have said the same thing, written articles about that,” Biden said. “Leading columnists who are not to the best of my knowledge Democrat or Republican, just leading columnists. And one of them said I shouldn’t debate him unless there’s a crawler underneath everything he says, fact-checking as we go.”

“Look, the people know the president’s a liar,” Biden continued. “I mean they know that. It’s not like it’s gonna come as a surprise to them. And so I’m prepared to go out and make my case as to why I think he’s failed, and why I think the answers I have to proceed will help the American people and the American economy and make us safe internationally.”

Biden predicted Trump’s strategy will be “just straight attack, they’re going to be mostly personal, it’s the only thing he knows how to do,” then told Ruhle that Trump “doesn’t know how to debate the facts because he’s not that smart. He doesn’t know that many facts. He doesn’t know much about foreign policy, he doesn’t know much about domestic policy, he doesn’t know much about the detail.”

He concluded by saying Trump’s debate performance will be “mostly personal attacks and lies, but I think the American people are on to him.”

CONTINUE READING AND WATCH ‘MUST SEE’ VIDEO HERE 

By Jacob Siegal @JacobSiegal

• President Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power once again this week when asked what he would do if he were to lose the 2020 election.
• Trump said “get rid of the ballots […] there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there will be a continuation.”
• Several Republican senators responded to Trump’s comments with statements of their own, including Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, and Mitt Romney.

Throughout his tenure as President of the United States, Donald Trump has repeatedly refrained from offering a clear and concise answer when asked about what he would do if he were to lose his reelection bid. The trend continued on Wednesday when a reporter asked the president during a press briefing if he would commit to “a peaceful transferral of power after the election,” to which he responded: “Well, we’re gonna have to see what happens.”

The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th,” wrote Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792.”

Other senators joined McConnell in attempting to ensure Americans that they will be able to trust the results of their election and the transition from one president to the next, should Joe Biden top Donald Trump. In a tweet of his own, Sen. Marco Rubio noted that “it may take longer than usual to know the outcome, but it will be a valid one.” With mail-in voting expected in record numbers this November due to the pandemic, it’s entirely possible that the election won’t be decided on November 3rd as all of the ballots are counted across the country.

“Fundamental to democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that, there is Belarus,” said Mitt Romney, one of few Republican senators to ever clash with Trump, in his tweet. “Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable.”

The rest of the Senate joined together on Thursday to pass a resolution in response to Trump’s comments:

Trump has been complaining about voter fraud since the 2016 election and continues to talk about it as a significant threat to the United States today. He claimed that he lost the popular vote in 2016 because “millions of people voted illegally,” though there is no evidence of rampant voter fraud anywhere in the country.

THIS NARCISSISTIC, ARROGANT, LYING, UNQUALIFIED TO BE THE HEAD OF ANYTHING IS “NOW BUYING VOTERS” …….PapaMike

Colby HallSep 24th, 2020

MUST SEE VIDEO HERE 

President Donald Trump received a harsh reception as he and First Lady Melania Trump paid their respects to recently departed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After the president emerged from the front of the Supreme Court, a crowd could be heard loudly booing and then chanting, “Vote him out!”

The president emerged while wearing a mask, a rare visage during this global pandemic, and was greeted with lustful booing by the assembled crowd, clearly upset with both the death of Ginsburg and Trump’s pledge to replace her before the election.

The Office of the Special Counsel has started investigating Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for potentially violating the Hatch Act, after she slammed Joe Biden in a Fox News interview and her agency promoted it through official channels.

The head of investigative watchdog blog Checks and Balances Project Scott Peterson said in an interview that OSC Hatch Act attorney Eric Johnson told him he had been assigned to investigate the matter.

PHOENIX (AP) — Cindy McCain endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for president Tuesday in a rebuke of President Donald Trump by the widow of the GOP’s 2008 nominee.

Trump has had a fraught relationship with members of John McCain’s family since he disparaged the Arizona senator during his 2016 campaign. But the McCains have until now stopped short of endorsing Trump’s rivals.

Cindy McCain cited the decadeslong friendship between her family and Biden’s and their bond as the parents of children serving in the military.

“He supports the troops and knows what it means for someone who has served,” McCain said in a phone interview. “Not only to love someone who has served, but understands what it means to send a child into combat. We’ve been great friends for many years, but we have a common thread in that we are Blue Star families.”

McCain’s backing could help Biden appeal to Republicans disaffected with the GOP president and give the former vice president a boost in Arizona, a crucial swing state that McCain represented in Congress for 35 years. He’s remained a revered figure since his 2018 death from complications of a brain tumor, particularly with the independent voters whom Biden is courting.

“I decided to take a stand, and hopefully other people will see the same thing. Other women particularly,” McCain said. “You may have to step out of your comfort zone a little bit, but Biden is by far the best candidate in the race.”

McCain said she hasn’t voted for a Democrat since she was 18 and followed the lead of her parents. She remains a registered Republican and has no plans to change, she said.

Biden told donors on Tuesday evening that McCain’s endorsement was coming “because of what (Trump) talks about how my son and John and others who are heroes, who served their country. You know, he said they’re ‘losers, suckers.’”

Biden was referring to comments Trump reportedly made mocking the American war dead. Trump has denied making the remarks, first reported through anonymous sources by The Atlantic, but many of the comments were later confirmed by The Associated Press.

Cindy McCain had not initially been expected to offer an explicit endorsement of Biden, but she had already gone to bat for his presidential run. She lent her voice to a video that aired during the Democratic National Convention and was focused on Biden’s close friendship with her late husband.

John McCain was assigned to be a military aide for Biden, then a senator, during an overseas trip, and their families formed an enduring friendship. Biden and his wife introduced the McCains to each other,

They later shared a grim bond over glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer that killed Biden’s son Beau three years before McCain succumbed to the same disease.

John McCain said in 2016 that he couldn’t support Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, citing Trump’s demeaning comments about women.

“It’s not pleasant for me to renounce the nominee of my party,” McCain said during a debate as he sought his sixth term in the Senate. “He won the nomination fair and square.”

A Navy pilot, John McCain was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967. He was captured, beaten and held prisoner for more than five years, refusing to be released ahead of other American servicemembers.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump said of McCain, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” McCain later angered Trump with his dramatic thumbs-down vote against repealing Obama’s health care law.

The McCains’ daughter Meghan McCain has been outspoken about the pain she feels when the president disparages her father. Biden consoled Meghan McCain on an appearance on “The View” after her father was diagnosed with the cancer that eventually took his life. She has said Biden often reaches out to her to offer support, after losing his own son Beau to the same cancer in 2015.

Trump wasn’t invited to John McCain’s funeral.

THE PICTURE BELOW WILL EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED……PapaMike

BY JUDY KURTZ – 09/22/20

Bob Woodward says historians writing about Donald Trump‘s presidency and his handling of the coronavirus will be asking, “What the F happened to America?”

The veteran journalist and “Rage” author criticized Trump’s handling of the pandemic in an interview Tuesday with CNN President Jeff Zucker as part of the network’s Citizen by CNN conference.

Asked about Trump saying he would give himself a perfect grade on his administration’s coronavirus response — Trump said on Monday that “on the job itself, we take an A+” — Woodward said, “I’m quite frankly embarrassed for him that he would say that, because all Americans know that 200,000 were killed.”

“It’s almost like denying the nose on your face,” Woodward, 77, added.

His comments come after Trump told him in an interview for the Pulitzer Prize winner’s latest book that he sought to downplay the virus in public while acknowledging its dangers in private.

Woodward said Tuesday that Trump failed to act because “he’s obsessed with reelection.”

“He’s failed to build a team, he harasses people, he attacks people who work for him. This impulse decision-making, I’ve never seen anything like it, in the presidency or any institution,” the Washington Post journalist said.

“We see now with the Supreme Court issue he’s shifted the spotlight,” Woodward said, referring to the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week at 87. “He’s absolutely delighted — this is an issue that’s very important to his base, to Evangelicals. So the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of these events in history that has changed the entire dynamic.”

Responding to Zucker’s question about whether Americans should be worried about the state of democracy, Woodward called the Trump administration’s COVID-19 handling a “monumental failure.”

“The historians I know are going to be writing about this for decades, and they’re going to say, ‘What the F happened to America in 2016, 2019 and 2020?” Woodward exclaimed.

PICTURE ABOVE WAS POSTED BY PAPA MIKE AND NOT BY THE SOURCE OF THIS ARTICLE…..PapaMike

A payroll company owned by Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, took between $150,000 and $350,000 in taxpayer-backed emergency small business loans this spring. It’s unclear what Giuliani did with the money.

The loan reveals a previously unreported, 18-year-old company owned by Giuliani. A Salon investigation offers new insight into mechanisms of the former New York mayor and federal prosecutor’s elaborate and purposefully obscure business, income and payment arrangements, which have reportedly been the subject of subpoenas from federal investigators in the Southern District of New York.

Giuliani initially told Salon he was ignorant of the purpose of this company, which has handled payroll needs across more than 18 years and lists him as CEO. Financial experts tell Salon that one of two scenarios is likely true: Either Giuliani directly employs a number of people through this unknown company, and pays them substantial salaries, or the company misrepresented its finances to the government when it applied for the loan — which would likely constitute fraud, a felony.

Independent journalist Wendy Siegelman appears to have been the first to report both the company and the loan.

According to government records, the loan, which was part of the Small Business Administration’s Payroll Protection Program coronavirus relief package, was awarded on April 28 to a company called World Capital Payroll Corp., a registered “S Corp” headquartered at 445 Park Avenue in Manhattan. Those records show that the company received between $150,000 and $350,000 in taxpayer-backed federal funds, which can be fully forgiven by the government if the company proves they were put toward payroll and related expenses. (Giuliani’s new private law firmis registered at that same address.)

REUTERS…Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Aurora Ellis

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday blocked controversial changes to the United States postal service, saying they were “a politically motivated attack” that had slowed the nation’s mail and likely would slow the delivery of ballots in the upcoming presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, said he was issuing a nationwide injunction sought by 14 states in a case against U.S. President Donald Trump, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and the U.S. Postal Service over July changes to the service.

The 14 states, led by Washington, had filed a motion for a preliminary injunction asking the court to immediately halt a “leave mail behind” policy that required postal trucks to leave at certain times, regardless of whether mail was loaded.

The states also asked for all election mail be treated as first-class mail, for the replacement of necessary sorting machines that had been removed, and for the postal service to abide by DeJoy’s commitment to suspend the changes until after the Nov. 3 election.

DeJoy, a Trump supporter, said in August that he would halt many of the cost-cutting changes he put in place until after the presidential election after Democrats accused him of trying to put his thumb on the scales to help Trump, which he has denied. A surge in mail-in ballots is expected because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The states have demonstrated that the defendants are involved in a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the postal service,” the judge said after about 2 1/2 hours of arguments that Reuters heard by phone.

“They have also demonstrated that this attack on the postal service is likely to irreparably harm the states’ ability to administer the 2020 general election.”

The judge said the preliminary injunction would essentially be issued as the states requested and he would file a written order with details, likely later on Thursday.

Russia is seeking to denigrate former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, primarily by using social media and influence operations, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Thursday.

Russia is carrying out efforts to sow discord in the U.S. – primarily to hurt Biden – because Moscow views him as part of an anti-Russian American establishment, Wray told lawmakers during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday on threats to the nation.

“Russia continues to try to influence our elections, primarily through what we call malign foreign influence,” Wray said. It’s an assessment sharply at odds with President Donald Trump, who still dismisses as a hoax the intelligence community’s finding that Russia worked to help him win the White House in 2016.

 

U.S. national security agencies haven’t yet seen Russia trying to break into election infrastructure as it did in 2016 when it hacked voting databases, Wray said.

In addition to Russia, China is among adversaries that are trying to interfere in the presidential campaign, primarily through disinformation, Wray said.

U.S. agencies previously focused on “efforts to combat malign foreign influence focused solely on the threat posed by Russia,” Wray said, but now the FBI is “widening its aperture” leading into the Nov. 3 election “to confront malign foreign operations of China, Iran, and other global adversaries.”

In prepared testimony, Wray said, “This year’s election cycle, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, provides ample opportunity for hostile foreign actors to conduct disinformation campaigns and foreign influence operations in an effort to mislead, sow discord and, ultimately, undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and values.”

Under questioning, Wray also declined to say that the anarchist movement Antifa, cited often by Trump and Attorney General William Barr, is the biggest domestic threat.

We don’t think of threats in terms of left or right,” Wray added. “We’re focused on the violence, not the ideology.”

The hearing opened with controversy, as Acting Homeland Secretary Chad Wolf declined to appear even after the Democratic-led committee subpoenaed him. Wolf has cited his pending nomination for the secretary’s position and the tradition of nominees not commenting before their Senate confirmation hearings.

In a statement on Wednesday, Ken Cuccinelli, who’s serving as Wolf’s deputy, denounced “this transparent and brazen attempt at Beltway political theater.”

Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the committee’s chairman, called Wolf’s absence “an appropriate metaphor for the Trump administration’s dereliction of duty” on homeland security issues. He noted Wolf has made public comments, including in appearances on Fox News.

Brian Murphy, who was the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence chief until he was demoted, has filed a whistle-blower complaint asserting that Trump administration officials suppressed intelligence on Russian election interference and the threat from white supremacists.

Murphy said the department’s chief of staff sent him an email directing him to stop dissemination of intelligence products about Russian disinformation efforts because it “made the president look bad,” according to the complaint filed with the DHS inspector general.

Wolf has said Murphy fabricated his allegations after he was demoted for conducting surveillance of reporters covering protests.