Category: Uncategorized

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today, the Minnesota DFL joined Governor Tim Walz in calling for a common-sense solution to Minnesota’s insulin affordability crisis. Currently, both parties differ on funding sources for emergency insulin legislation, a difference which must be resolved before a deal can be finalized.

Minnesota DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement:

“Nobody should be forced to choose between paying rent and paying for life-saving medication. That’s why myself, Governor Walz, and DFL legislators believe so strongly in creating a program to supply Minnesotans in need with emergency insulin.

“When it comes to funding an emergency insulin program, the choice between the DFL and GOP is clear. Governor Walz and the DFL want to hold big pharma accountable for the crisis they created by making them fund our emergency insulin program. Republicans are trying to cozy up to big pharma by refusing to hold them accountable. Instead, Republicans want to pay for an insulin program using a fund they just tried to eliminate, the health care access fund.

“It’s unfortunate that Republicans continue to offer disingenuous solutions to this serious crisis for fear of alienating their big pharma backers. I urge all Minnesota lawmakers to support the DFL plan to fund an emergency insulin program. We have a chance to make a big dent in a serious problem. Let’s get this done and do it right.”

House Democrats are moving forward with lawsuits and subpoenas following former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony, even as their caucus remains divided over impeaching President Trump.

Across various committees, Democrats are seeking to obtain witness testimony and documents shedding light on the president’s conduct, personal finances and his administration.

While Mueller’s testimony offered nothing new for Democrats to sink their teeth into, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) described it as an “inflection point” on Friday.

View the complete July 26 article by Morgan Chalfant, Olivia Beavers and Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

In a civil court filing, a Chinese billionaire and member of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Florida is accused of being a spy for the Chinese government. But Guo Wengui and his attorney have maintained that not only he is not a spy — he is an avowed and outspoken critic of the Beijing government.

Daniel Podhaskie, Wengui’s attorney, told WPEC Channel 12 (a CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach), “Claims that Mr. Guo is a Beijing-backed spy utterly lack credibility.”

The civil case in which Wengui is alleged to be a spy for the Chinese government is Eastern Profit Corporation Limited v. Strategic Vision U.S., which addresses a business deal he supposedly helped bring about.

View the complete July 25 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

“He said that it was … the worst experience ever. He doesn’t wish that to anybody.”

An 18-year-old US citizen who was held in immigration detention for almost a month slept on the floor of a cell crowded with 60 men and lost 20 pounds from a lack of nutritious food — all while being denied access to a phone to call his family or a lawyer.

Attorney Claudia Galan said the conditions that Francisco Galicia faced in Customs and Border Protection detention were so bad that he considered signing the paperwork that would deport him to Mexico just to get relief. The high school student was born in Dallas in December 2000, according to his birth certificate.

“The officers were just telling him they didn’t believe he was a US citizen, he was Mexican and should go back to Mexico,” Galan told BuzzFeed News. “He said that it was inhumane, the worst experience ever. He doesn’t wish that to anybody.”

View the complete July 24 article by Claudia Koerner on the BuzzFeed website here.

President Trump has vetoed three congressional resolutions that would block his emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“This resolution would weaken America’s global competitiveness and damage the important relationships we share with our allies and partners,” Trump wrote in veto messages to Congress released by the White House on Wednesday evening.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) earlier in the afternoon entered Trump’s veto messages into the Senate record and set up a vote on the messages before Aug. 2.

View the complete July 24 article by Rebecca Kheel on The Hill website here.

The Justice Department argues that anything outside the report is covered by ‘presidential privilege’ that hasn’t been waived.

Justice Department officials have communicated to Robert Mueller that the department expects him to limit his congressional testimony this week to the public findings of his 448-page report, according to one current and one former U.S. official familiar with the preparations.

In extensive discussions since the former special counsel was subpoenaed on June 25 to testify, department officials have emphasized that they consider any evidence he gathered throughout the course of his investigation to be “presumptively privileged” and shielded from public disclosure.

View the complete July 22 article by Eliana Johnson, Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.

I wasn’t surprised by Donald Trump’s rage-tweet attack on Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, any more than I was surprised by the maturity and sobriety of their response. After all, Trump’s racism is legendary, and telling them to “go back where you came from” is not just textbook racism, it’s a schoolyard bully’s taunt. And a racist schoolyard bully is the sum and substance of what Trump is.

In fact, one expert, physician and psychiatrist Dr. Frederick “Skip” Burkle, told me that autocratic leaders typically have histories of being bullies, and that that the most important thing about them that the public needs to understand. I first contacted Burkle by way of counselor and therapist Elizabeth Mika, whose chapter in “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” (Salon review here) explained that “Tyrannies are three-legged beasts”: the tyrant, his supporters and the society as a whole. That perspective is vital to understand our specific predicament, which is historically unique only within our national borders.

The generic predicament of racism is nothing new — particularly for the Republican Party. (See “The Long Southern Strategy.” Salon author interview here.) What is new is Trump’s malignant psychology, a character disorder shared by dozens of destructive autocratic leaders whose patterns of murderous rule Burkle described in a 2015 paper, “Antisocial Personality Disorder and Pathological Narcissism in Prolonged Conflicts and Wars,” drawing on  decades of experience as a world  leader in emergency public health crises such as war and conflict, as well as his background in psychiatry and pediatrics. A recent follow-up paper (“Character Disorders,” for short), focused on the negative impact autocratic leaders have on health security, human rights and humanitarian care.

View the complete July 22 article by Paul Rosenberg from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

White House adviser Stephen Miller on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s racist tweets directed at four non-white congresswomen: Reps. Ilhan Omar (MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ayanna Pressley (MA) and Rashida Tlaib (MI).

In an interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked Miller to explain Trump’s “go back” remark and the “send her back” chant at a recent presidential rally.

“That is not protecting the American people, that is playing the race card,” Wallace said. “Let’s take the Obama birther — you don’t think that questioning whether the first black president is [a citizen]…”

View the complete July 21 article by David Edwards from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

In 1956, then-Senator John F. Kennedy authored a best-selling book titled Profiles in Courage, in which he told the stories of Senators in American history who, on principle, bucked the tides of power. Today, some Republican writer or conservative syndicated columnist – George Will or Max Boot – should write a book called Profiles in Cowardliness. It should cover Republican leadership’s near-total cowardliness in the face of Donald Trump, whom they despise on many fronts. Many in Republican leadership believe he has hijacked their Grand Old Party (GOP).

Clearly the Republicans – except for Rep. Justin Amash, who recently quit the Party after accusing Trump of impeachable crimes – are intimidated by this foul-mouthed president. Republican politicians are cowed by Trump’s bellicose personal rhetoric. We have seen this cycle repeat itself countless times, with the media boosting their ratings by recklessly repeating Trump’s insults.

Republicans remember what Trump did to Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio during the 2016 Republican primary. They observe how loud-mouthed Donald spews toxic falsehoods at Democrats and gets away with it. Why, Republicans ask themselves, should they take any chances provoking this unstable Twitter Emperor and his ditto-heads on social media whom he deliberately incites? The answer: because patriotism demands action.

View the complete July 19 commentary by Ralph Nader froM Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.