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Nearly all applicants for US visas will have to submit their social media details under newly adopted rules.
The State Department regulations say people will have to submit social media names and five years' worth of email addresses and phone numbers.
When proposed last year, authorities estimated the proposal would affect 14.7 million people annually.
Certain diplomatic and official visa applicants will be exempt from the stringent new measures.
However, people travelling to the US to work or to study will have to hand over their information.
"We are constantly working to find mechanisms to improve our screening processes to protect US citizens, while supporting legitimate travel to the United States," the department reportedly said.

Previously, only applicants who needed additional vetting - such as people who had been to parts of the world controlled by terrorist groups - would need to hand over this data.
But now applicants will have to give up their account names on a list of social media platforms, and also volunteer the details of their accounts on any sites not listed.
Anyone who lies about their social media use could face "serious immigration consequences", according to an official who spoke to The Hill.

The Trump administration first proposed the rules in March 2018.
At the time, the American Civil Liberties Union - a civil rights group - said there is "no evidence that such social media monitoring is effective or fair", and said it would cause people to self-censor themselves online.
US President Donald Trump made cracking down on immigration a key plank of his election campaign in 2016.
He called for "extreme vetting" of immigrants before and during his time in office.
On Friday Mr Trump vowed to impose gradually rising tariffs on Mexico unless the country curbed illegal immigration at the US southern border.
 

MASTERBAKER

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BREAKING: Fox News Judge Andrew Napolitano just UNLEASHED on Trump and called for his indictment. He could NOT have been clearer.


 

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Richard Nixon's Diet Was Extremely 70s, Even Less Appealing than Trump's

Richard Nixon would have been 106 today, and probably still eating cottage cheese with ketchup.

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  • eats ketchup with steak—but let’s take today to reflect on the culinary preferences of a past president, one who apparently ate ketchup with cottage cheese for breakfast (I’m not sure which of those is more messed up). With America’s current state of political turmoil leaving our brains more and more warped by each day’s horrors, we often don’t take time to reflect on the fact that plenty of other presidents were, in fact, Not Great either—and Trump certainly isn’t the first commander-in-chief with a questionable diet.

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    Consider that the fairly innocuous James Garfield apparently loved squirrel soup, while enthusiast of racist policy Andrew Jackson liked a dish called “leather britches” (that actually sounds better than its name suggests). But for now we’ll consider Richard Nixon, who was born on this day in 1913.

    Before 45, Nixon was 37, eater of the ketchup curds. While Watergate remains Nixon’s ultimate legacy, let the former President also be remembered for his food habits—some of which are weird, others intriguing, and all of them a distinct look at an era of cottage cheese, meatloaf, and California dreaming.

    A typical day in the Nixon White House, according to the Nixon Library, started with fresh fruit, wheat germ, coffee, and yes, cottage cheese topped with ketchup or black pepper. Wheat germ has fallen out of favor compared to more contemporary “healthy” grains like hemp and flaxseeds, but in previous decades, its high fiber content made it the OG buzzy breakfast topping.

    Horrors of ketchup aside, cottage cheese was considered an absolute staple in the 1970s. While Henry Haller, former White House executive chef and author ofThe White House Family Cookbook, personally doubted the ketchup topping, he wrote that the “‘recipe’ became rather popular with the dieting American Public.” For the past many years, cottage cheese’s place in the dairy aisle has been overshadowed by yogurt and sour cream, but its popularity is on the up and up again, so you can imitate those confusing, pseudo-savory Nixon breakfasts to your heart’s content.

    The Nixons are said to have loved cottage cheese so much that, on the night of Nixon’s inauguration, a member of the White House kitchen crew had to drive around in search of cottage cheese to satisfy the president’s requested dinner of four steaks and a bowl of cottage cheese.

    For lunch, according to The White House Family Cookbook, Nixon opted for cold foods like cucumber mousse, cold poached salmon, and gazpacho. That habit of chilled, meaty foods was very au courant, as the 1970s were a time when gelatin-encased meats called aspics and jiggly fish mousse really got their shine. There was also, apparently, a creation called “spicy pepperoni salad.” Sadly, there aren’t any Nixon-specific recipes for pepperoni salad floating around the internet, but that may be a dish best left to the imagination.

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    Dinner, for the Nixons, cycled between options like the ever-popular lasagna and spaghetti; boiled corned beef and cabbage; and, once a month, Mrs. Nixon’s meatloaf. Haller says the President’s love of meatloaf was overblown in the media, but once his meatloaf habit was public knowledge, the White House received so many requests for the recipe that it was eventually circulated. The recipe looks… pretty standard, but if there’s anything we can conclude about the 1970s, it’s that people loved cottage cheese and meats shaped in molds.

    Dinner is said to have ended with fruits flown in from California and Florida. The Nixon family favorite of “baked grapefruit” seems sort of like a waste of those far-flung fruits, but alas, a different era, one when any and all fruits were cooked to death. The Nixons were from California, so their continued affection for citrus was only natural. Plus, this was right around the time that California cuisine was really finding its footing—Nixon was President from 1969 until his resignation in 1974, and the pioneering restaurant of the genre, Chez Panisse, opened in 1971.

    Sometimes food history makes you want to eat the foods of the past; other times, it makes you glad that cooled, gelled meats and cottage cheese are no longer menu staples. That said, if you want a remembrance worthy of the first American President to ever resign, go ahead—glug out a little ketchup on your curds.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator

Trump launches re-election campaign in Orlando

https://theweek.com/5things/847760/trump-launches-reelection-campaign-orlando
President Trump is speaking to thousands of supporters at a rally in Orlando, the official launch of his re-election campaign.

He began his speech by touting what he views are his best accomplishments, including boosting military spending, and moved on to complain about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and his campaign.

Trump was joined onstage by first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and members of his family and 2016 campaign. Trump is struggling in the polls, both public and leaked internal ones, and his approval rating has hovered around 40 percent all term.

Source: The Associated Press, The Washington Post
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Trump predicted to lose reelection in model that forecasted Democratic takeover of House

AABF35L.img

© UPI Photo Trump predicted to lose reelection in model that forecasted Democratic takeover of House

The prediction model that accurately predicted Democratic gains in the House four months before the 2018 midterm elections says President Trump will lose his reelection bid.


The latest "Negative Partisanship" model by Rachel Bitecofer, the assistant director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, released Monday, predicts Trump will lose the Electoral College 278-197.

Bitecofer highlighted Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as states the incumbent will have difficulty winning this time around.

"The complacent electorate of 2016, who were
convinced Trump would never be president,
has been replaced with the terrified electorate
of 2020, who are convinced he’s the Terminator

and can’t be stopped," she said. "Under my model,
that distinction is not only important, it is
everything."

She also pointed to his low approval rating among independents as an impediment to a second term.

Bitecofer's model predicted a 42 seat House Democratic pickup in 2018; and
the Democrats won 40. Many other models did not predict such a large victory.
She acknowledged the Democratic candidate has not been chosen yet, but argued it is not incredibly important who the nominee is.

"Does the Democrat’s nominee matter? Sure, to an extent. If the ticket has a woman, a person of color or a Latino, or a female who is also a person of color, Democratic Party turnout will surge more in really important places," Bitecofer wrote. "If the nominee is Biden he’d be well-advised to consider Democratic voter turnout his number one consideration when drawing his running mate to avoid the critical mistake made by Hillary Clinton in 2016."

"The complacent electorate of 2016, who were convinced Trump would never be president, has been replaced with the terrified electorate of 2020, who are convinced he’s the Terminator and can’t be stopped," she said. "Under my model, that distinction is not only important, it is everything."

She also pointed to his low approval rating among independents as an impediment to a second term.

Bitecofer's model predicted a 42 seat House Democratic pickup in 2018, and the Democrats won 40. Many other models did not predict such a large victory.

She acknowledged the Democratic candidate has not been chosen yet, but argued it is not incredibly important who the nominee is.

"Does the Democrat’s nominee matter? Sure, to an extent. If the ticket has a woman, a person of color or a Latino, or a female who is also a person of color, Democratic Party turnout will surge more in really important places," Bitecofer wrote. "If the nominee is Biden he’d be well-advised to consider Democratic voter turnout his number one consideration when drawing his running mate to avoid the critical mistake made by Hillary Clinton in 2016."

"But the Democrats are not complacent like they were in 2016 and I doubt there is any amount of polling or favorable forecasts that will make them so. That fear will play a crucial role in their 2020 victory. We will not see a divided Democratic Party in 2020," she wrote.



https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...ection-in-model-that-forecast-dem-takeover-of


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MASTERBAKER

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Super Moderator
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“This is a photo of Ghislaine Maxwell, the “madame” who investigators say supplied young girls to Jeffrey Epstein. You know who the guy in the pic is. Epstein's arrest is a big thing. The charges are federal, not state, and that means Epstein is likely to face a mandatory minimum of at least 10 years in prison - or possibly more. It also means that Trump could pardon him - but pardoning a sex-trafficking billionaire pedo wouldn't look very good, would it?

But you can bet that his base would still support him if he did.”

- Linda Vega
 

MASTERBAKER

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Super Moderator
Four score and seven years ago a bunch of people are wishing they had voted for Hillary!!!

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muckraker10021

Superstar *****
BGOL Investor
......"Does the Democrat’s nominee matter? Sure, to an extent. If the ticket has a woman, a person of color or a Latino, or a female who is also a person of color, Democratic Party turnout will surge more in really important places," Bitecofer wrote. "If the nominee is Biden he’d be well-advised to consider Democratic voter turnout his number one consideration when drawing his running mate to avoid the critical mistake made by Hillary Clinton in 2016."......

.

You Beat the RepubliKlans by energizing non-fascist, non-racist voters who are not terrified by multiculturalism and are not nostalgic for a "make a amerikka great again" 1950's apartheid AmeriKKKa.
Barack Obama showed the 'Democratic Party' how to win national elections; unfortunately the corporate controlled shot-calling Democratic leaders do not want to replicate Team Obama's formula of energizing millions of voters who normally stay home & don't vote. The corporate controlled shot-calling Democratic leaders are still clinging to the losing strategy of going for the votes of the "centrist" 'Reagan democrats voters'— the cacs who voted for Trump— 80% of those people will vote for Trump again.

In 2016 the Black & youth & progressive vote was down by more than 10 million voters, those are the millions of voters that the Democratic shot-callers seem to have no interest in because they are 'too progressive'. What fucking idiots!
Remember:

Barack Obama in 2008 when the U.S. population was smaller got 69,498,516 votes 52.9%

Such Huge voter turnout overwhelms the republiklan voter suppression efforts. Democratic shot-callers seem determined to shit on their base voters and elusively seek the votes of MAGA Trump voters in search of defeat.

Obama_Oct_2012_Crowd_Reelection_Wisconson.jpg

Obama Election rally, Madison WI. Look at that fucking crowd!


Hillary lost POTUS election in Wisconsin to Trump in 2016 by 23,000 votes. Obama has more than 23,000 people in the front part of that rally!
 

MASTERBAKER

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BRAVO, MEGAN!!! "Your message is excluding people. You're excluding me. You're excluding people that look like me. You're excluding people of color. You're excluding... Americans that maybe support you."

Follow Occupy Democrats for more.

 

MASTERBAKER

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Trump’s latest morning of tweets was off the rails, even by his standards
Insults, lies, gaslighting, authoritarian threats — all before the coffee even hit.

By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Jul 11, 2019, 11:00am EDTSHARE
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Trump on Wednesday.
Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Two and a half years into the Donald Trump presidency, Americans are used to Trump posting off-the-rails tweets. But Thursday morning still stood out.

Trump body-shamed Sen. Elizabeth Warren while using a slur to demean her, mistakenly tagged a random retired teacher who is not of fan of his while insulting her fellow 2020 contender Pete Buttigieg, expressed confusion about when his presidential campaign began, joked about illegally staying in power beyond a second term, brazenly gaslighted about his indebtedness to banks, and said he thinks he’ll win in Minnesota in 2020 simply because a city council there decided to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance before meetings.

All of this happened before 8 am.

Each of these tweets, by themselves, would’ve been highly abnormal public statements coming from any other president. For Trump, they are not. Still, the volume with which he posted them on Thursday morning was remarkable.

Here’s a breakdown of Trump’s odd tweets on Thursday, in the order in which he posted them.

Trump is confused about when his campaign began
While hyping the sham social media summit that’s set to take place at the White House on Thursday, Trump tried to take shots at “The Fake News,” which he claimed has “lost tremendous credibility since that day in November, 2016, that I came down the escalator with the person who was to become your future First Lady.”

....The Fake News is not as important, or as powerful, as Social Media. They have lost tremendous credibility since that day in November, 2016, that I came down the escalator with the person who was to become your future First Lady. When I ultimately leave office in six......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2019
There’s just one problem: The escalator incident Trump referred to actually happened happened in Trump Tower 17 months before November 2016, in June 2015, just before the speech in which he launched his presidential campaign. While Trump’s election night victory speech also took place in Trump Tower, there was no footage of him coming down an escalator on that night. He appears to have mixed it up.

Remembering when your presidential campaign began seems like a pretty odd thing to get confused about. But Trump was just getting started.

Trump “jokes” about staying in office for for 14 more years
Trump segued from a tweet expressing confusion about when his campaign began to one in which he joked about staying in office for as many as 14 more years.

....years, or maybe 10 or 14 (just kidding), they will quickly go out of business for lack of credibility, or approval, from the public. That’s why they will all be Endorsing me at some point, one way or the other. Could you imagine having Sleepy Joe Biden, or @AlfredENeuman99,..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2019
This is far from the first time Trump has indicated that he’s interested in staying in office for more than two terms. He’s said he does so to troll the media, but given his open admiration for dictators abroad and repeated efforts to undermine the rule of law at home, his jokes about becoming president for life really aren’t funny.

Trump mistakenly tags a retired teacher who isn’t a fan of his
In the same tweet in which he joked about illegally extending his term in office, Trump, while trying to demean South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg for purportedly resembling cartoon character Alfred E. Neuman, mistakenly tagged an account belonging to a retired teacher who, based on his recent retweets, is clearly is not a fan of the president.





Aaron Rupar

✔@atrupar

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1149292344656748544

Trump mistakenly tagged a random retired teacher who hates him. This is the guy who has the nuke codes.


1,457

8:20 AM - Jul 11, 2019

444 people are talking about this

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This isn’t the first time Trump has mistakenly tagged the wrong account on Twitter — he did so as recently as two weeks ago. But that he continues to make easily avoidable mistakes like this is a sign of how little vetting his tweets get before they’re posted for the world to see, as well as a broader recklessness.

Trump body-shames Elizabeth Warren while using a racial slur
After insulting Buttigieg, Trump demeaned Elizabeth Warren by describing her as “a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas.”

...or a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas (1000/24th), as your President, rather than what you have now, so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius! Sorry to say that even Social Media would be driven out of business along with, and finally, the Fake News Media!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2019
“Pocahontas” has become Trump’s go-to slur while mocking Warren and her ill-fated attempt to claim Native American ancestry. But attacking Warren’s demeanor and looks is a new twist, and comes while first lady Melania Trump is purportedly busying herself with anti-cyberbullying work as part of her broader “Be Best” campaign.

Trump went on to compare Warren unfavorably with himself, describing himself as “so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius!” But note that in that very same tweet, Trump revealed a confusion about fractions. According to an analysis of the results of the DNA test Warren released, her fractional Native American ancestry is somewhere between 1/64 and 1/1024. But in writing “1000/24th,” Trump got it backward.


“Stable Genius,” indeed.

Trump thinks he’ll win Minnesota over a silly Pledge of Allegiance controversy
Trump then turned his attention to Minnesota, where the city council in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park recently voted to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance before meetings. The story has been a major topic this week on Trump’s favorite television show, Fox & Friends.

The latest polling indicates that Trump’s approval rating is 16 points underwater in Minnesota, but Trump seems to think that the St. Louis Park City Council’s move will be enough for him to overcome that deficit and win a state that hasn’t gone for a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972.




Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1149281529727766528

The Pledge of Allegiance to our great Country, in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, is under siege. That is why I am going to win the Great State of Minnesota in the 2020 Election. People are sick and tired of this stupidity and disloyalty to our wonderful USA!


48.3K

7:37 AM - Jul 11, 2019
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18.3K people are talking about this



Trump’s tweet suggests that instead of using his power to do things that make people’s lives better, he thinks a winning strategy heading into 2020 is identity grievance issues. The polling in Minnesota begs to differ, but then again, Trump doesn’t buy polls that aren’t favorable to him.

Trump gaslights about his indebtedness to banks
Hours after the New York Times published a report about the business relationship between Deutsche Bank and Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender with ties to Bill Clinton and Trump, the president proclaimed that he doesn’t need to do business with banks because “I didn’t (don’t) need their money (old fashioned, isn’t it?).” He went on to acknowledge but downplay his dealings with Deutsche Bank.



Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

· 4h

The Fake News Media loves the narrative that I didn’t use many banks because the banks didn’t like me. No, I didn’t use many banks because I didn’t (don’t) need their money (old fashioned, isn’t it?). If I did, it would have been very easy for me to get.



Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump


....And remember, a bank that I did use years ago, the now badly written about and maligned Deutsche Bank, was then one of the largest and most prestigious banks in the world! They wanted my business, and so did many others!


33.3K

7:45 AM - Jul 11, 2019
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10.7K people are talking about this



This is brazen gaslighting. In March, the New York Times reported that Trump took out an astounding $2 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank and was cut off on two separate occasions by the bank because executives realized he was a risky client. That reporting came a little less than a year after news that Trump still owed as much as $480 million to a number of banks and financial services firms, including but not limited to Deutsche Bank.

And, of course, while Trump tries to brag about his business acumen, it’s worth remembering the Times’s bombshell reporting from last October about how he was gifted at least $413 million by his father, then participated in “dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud” to increase that fortune.

Some of Trump’s most bizarre mornings of tweeting have come amid bad news cycles for him or when bad news is on the horizon; for instance, as I detailed at the time, Trump posted a string of increasingly bizarre tweets shortly after the Mueller report was released publicly in April. But these Thursday tweets come as his approval rating hits historic highs — he’s still 9 points underwater but, according to a new Washington Post/ABC poll, at the highest point of his presidency — and with no obvious reason for him to be melting down. Perhaps there is less method to the mayhem than there sometimes seems.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
The Shame and Disgrace Will Linger


On Saturday, President Trump spread a conspiracy theory accusing the Clintons of murdering Jeffrey Epstein.

AUG 10, 2019

David Frum
Staff writer at The Atlantic
lead_720_405.jpg

SARAH SILBIGER / REUTERS
August 10, 1969: SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.—President Nixon accused his predecessor Lyndon Baines Johnson of complicity in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Speaking with reporters on the first day of a 10-day stay at his Pacific Ocean vacation home ….


Of course, that never happened. Obviously. How could it, how dare it? But had it happened, such an accusation—by a president, against a former president—would have convulsed the United States and the world. Today, President Trump accused his predecessor, Bill Clinton—or possibly his 2016 campaign opponent, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—of complicity in the death of the accused sex-trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.


Many seem to have responded with a startled shrug. What do you expect? It’s just Trump letting off steam on Twitter.

Reactions to actions by Trump are always filtered through the prism of the ever-more-widely accepted view—within his administration, within Congress, within the United States and around the world—that the 45th president is a reckless buffoon, a conspiratorial racist moron, whose weird comments should be disregarded by sensible people.

By now, Trump’s party in Congress, the members of his Cabinet, and even his White House entourage all tacitly agree that Trump’s occupancy of the office held by Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and Eisenhower must be a bizarre cosmic joke, not to be taken seriously. CNN’s Jake Tapper on August 2 quoted a “senior national security official” as saying: "Everyone at this point ignores what the president says and just does their job. The American people should take some measure of confidence in that.”


Everybody at this point ignores what the president says.

So even though Trump just retweeted the comedian Terrence K. Williams accusing the Clinton family of murder, the people who work for Trump may ignore that, too. They know that the president punches the retweet button like an addled retiree playing the slots through a fog of painkillers means nothing. The days of “taking Trump seriously, not literally” have long-since passed. By this point, Trump is taken neither seriously nor literally. His words are as worthless as Trump Organization IOUs.
But cosmic joke or no cosmic joke, Donald Trump is the president of the United States. You may not like it. I don’t like it. Mike Pompeo doesn’t like it. Mitch McConnell doesn’t like it. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t like it. But it’s still a fact, and each succeeding outrage makes it no less a fact. Grinning and flashing a thumbs-up over an orphaned baby? Yes, still president. Tweeting that a third-tier dictator has threatened him with more missile tests unless he halts military exercises with a U.S. ally——and that he has surrendered to that blackmail? Shamefully, still president. Accusing a former U.S. president of murder? It’s incredible, it’s appalling, it’s humiliating … but, yes, he is the president all the same.


Trump’s circle probably expects the world to sputter for a while and then be distracted by some new despicable statement or act. That is how it has gone for nearly three years, and that is how it is likely still to go. Trump is steering the U.S. and the world into a trade war and perhaps a financial crisis and recession along with it. He is wrecking the structure of U.S. alliances in Asia and his rhetoric is inciting shooting rampages against minorities. Compared to that, mere slurs and insults perhaps weigh lighter in the crushing dumpster-load of Trump’s output of unfitness for the office he holds.

But it shouldn’t be forgotten, either, in the onrush of events. The certainty that Trump will descend ever deeper into sub-basements of “new lows” after this new low should not numb us to its newness and lowness.

Neither the practical impediments to impeachment and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment process, nor the foibles and failings of the candidates running to replace him, efface the fact that this presidency shames and disgraces the office every minute of every hour of every day. And even when it ends, however it ends, the shame will stain it still.
 

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MASTERBAKER

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That dude Trump is nothing but a Twitter Bully!


Scoop: Trump tells advisers Israel should bar entry to Reps. Omar and Tlaib

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Reps. Rashida Tlaib (L) and Ilhan Omar. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
President Trump has told advisers he thinks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should use Israel's anti-boycott law to bar Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) from entering Israel, according to 3 sources familiar with the situation.

What he's saying: Trump's private views have reached the top level of the Israeli government. But Trump denies, through White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, ever giving any kind of directive to the Israelis. "The Israeli government can do what they want. It's fake news," Grisham said on Saturday.

Driving the news: Trump has told U.S. advisers, including senior Trump administration officials, that Israel should bar Omar and Tlaib's entry because the two congresswomen favor a boycott of Israel, according to sources familiar with Trump's private comments. In 2017, Israel's parliament passed a law requiring the interior minister to block foreign nationals from entering Israel if they have supported boycotting the Jewish state.

  • Trump's reaction came days after the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed a resolution to condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement, which Omar and Tlaib support. The resolution states that the global movement to boycott the state of Israel over its policies toward Palestinians "promotes principles of collective guilt, mass punishment, and group isolation, which are destructive of prospects for progress towards peace and a two-state solution."
  • Omar and Tlaib voted against the resolution.
Between the lines: Trump told confidants he disagreed with Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer's rationale for Israel to overlook the law to let Omar and Tlaib visit Israel. Dermer said last month: "Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any member of Congress into Israel."

  • Trump said that if Omar and Tlaib wanted to boycott Israel, "then Israel should boycott them," according to a source with direct knowledge.
  • Israeli officials say congressional Democratic leadership pushed Dermer to allow the congresswomen into the country. Their advocacy, per those officials, is a major reason why Netanyahu will allow the two women in.
  • The Democrats had argued that if the Israeli government blocked Omar and Tlaib's entry, then other Democratic members would cancel a planned, AIPAC-sponsored Israel trip in solidarity, these officials said.
Last week, Israeli deputy national security adviser Reuven Azar held an interagency meeting at the prime minister's office with representatives of the Foreign, Interior and Strategic Affairs ministries to prepare for the visit, according to Israeli officials who were briefed on the meeting. The officials added the meeting focused on how to react to anti-Israeli statements by Omar and Tlaib during the trip and whether to allow entry to people traveling with them who aren’t members of Congress and who support the boycott-Israel movement.

The big picture: Trump has spent the past month attacking Omar, Tlaib and 2 other progressive congresswomen. He suggested that the 4 women of color "go back" to where they come from, even though 3 were born in the U.S. The fourth, Omar, is a naturalized citizen from Somalia.

  • 235 House Democrats and 4 Republicans voted for a resolution in mid-July that "strongly condemns President Donald Trump's racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color."
Trump, along with other Republicans and some Democrats, has condemned Omar, Tlaib and other progressive lawmakers for their past statements on Israel and the BDS movement. In January, Omar said she had "unknowingly used" an "anti-Semitic trope" when she tweeted, in 2012, that "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."

  • A month later, Omar tweeted that members of Congress who support Israel are primarily motivated by money. Referring to the pro-Israel group AIPAC, Omar wrote, "It's all about the Benjamins, baby!"
  • After lawmakers from both parties condemned her remark as anti-Semitic, Omar tweeted out a statement: "Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes."
  • "My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize."
What's next: Israeli officials say Omar and Tlaib are expected to arrive in Israel on Aug. 18, but the date might change. Omar and Tlaib's offices did not respond to requests for comment.

The Israeli Prime Minister's office did not deny this account, but refrained from commenting for this story. Two senior Netanyahu aides said the issue was very sensitive and they were not allowed to discuss it.
 

MASTERBAKER

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Super Moderator
BREAKING: WHOA. A fed up Geraldo Rivera just CLASHED with his Fox co-host over Trump.
 
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