Thursday 8/31
In the wake of what has happened in Charlottesville, VA, along with other attacks from neo-nazis and white supremacists, it’s time to start calling a spade a spade and label these extremists as terrorists. Thanks to Mark Goldberg for bringing this to our attention. We need to contact our local representatives to support a resolution that would classify these neo-nazis and white supremacists as domestic terrorists. The state of IL has passed and OH will soon be passing this type of resolution. MN needs to step up and do the same. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had this to say, “The Department of Justice also remains vigilant about the threat of domestic terrorism,” he said. “Violent domestic extremists have plotted attacks on government buildings, businesses, and houses of worship. They have planned and carried out assassinations of police officers, judges, doctors and civil rights leaders. They have acquired biological and chemical weapons, illegal firearms, and explosives. They have carried out killing sprees that terrorize local communities.”
In the near future the Senate will be voting for the confirmation of the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division. Trump has nominated Brian Benczkowski, a former attorney that worked for Russia’s Alpha Bank. Alpha Bank had a server in Russia that was communicating with a server in Trump Tower during the campaign, and Brian Benczkowski was hired by Alpha Bank to oversee the investigation or “cleanup” of the communications between the two servers. Nothing to see here! This individual would oversee everything from fraud, money laundering, computer fraud, narcotics, child exploitation, organized crime, etc. Shall I go on? To put this in perspective, Robert Mueller was the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division before he became head of the FBI. Brian Benczkowski is only being nominated for this position so that Trump can get away with whatever he wants. Our senators need to hear that Brian Benczkowski is the worst person for this position.
The Secret Service is about broke because Trump is racking up costs going away every weekend to golf at one of his properties. Rep. Adam Schiff plans to “introduce an amendment to an appropriations bill meant to fund the government for fiscal 2018.” Basically the Secret Service wouldn’t have to pay any of Trump’s businesses. You can read about it here.
Does anyone else think it’s completely ridiculous that this wall business is still being discussed considering we have a major natural disaster happening and could use that money to help rebuild our country? It looks like House Republicans are looking to cut $1 billion from disaster accounts to put that money towards the wall. People have lost everything. Not to mention that Mexico has offered to help Houston, and had helped after Katrina, but, the wall. “The pending reduction to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief account is part of a massive spending bill that the House is scheduled to consider next week when lawmakers return from their August recess. The $876 million cut, which is included in the 1,305-page measure’s homeland security section, pays for roughly half the cost of Trump’s down payment on the U.S.-Mexico border wall that the president repeatedly promised Mexico would finance.” Call and raise a huge stink about this!
The White House has taken down many pages on their website that do not agree with the current administration’s views when it comes to facts and research. The latest to be removed is colleges and universities that are under investigation for mishandling sexual assault. From the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 1 in 5 women and 1 in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college. Taking down this website means there is no accountability for these universities. We need to speak out.
Don’t Forget your Republican party job evaluation.
Do you have a Republican elected official working for you (state or federal)? Today is your chance to evaluate their job performance!
Rogan’s List: If you are looking for a way to lend financial support to the people struggling with the effects of Hurricane Harvey in Texas (in addition to supporting the Red Cross), NBC has put together a list of charities working in the region: https://www.nbcnews.com/…/
Franken-202-224-5641
Klobuchar-202-224-3244
House of Representative switchboard: (202) 224-3121
MN Legislators: https://www.leg.state.mn.us/
Resistbot: https://resistbot.io/
Governor Dayton- https://mn.gov/governor/
Events for Labor Day weekend. Check out what’s happening in your neck of the woods.
