Want Trump to Read the Constitution? Tweet it to him! I just did. Line-by-line.

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Saturday February 04, 2017 · 5:18 PM PST

2017/02/04 · 17:18

Like a lot of my follow Kossacks and freedom-loving friends, since he-who-lost-the-popular-vote-tremendously has emerged as a viable political candidate, I have had a car-wreck curiosity and/or addiction to outrage that makes it hard for me to turn away from or ignore the daily Twitter dispatches of Sir-Tweet-a-Lot. Today, like most days, provided ample opportunity to be outraged, particularly as pertains to Mango Mussolini’s disparagement of an elected Federal judge and the system of checks and balances that create the balance of power that guarantees our freedom.

It has been suggested to Mr. Trump, time and again, that perhaps he should read the constitution; most famously by Gold Star father Khizr Khan during the Democratic National Convention.

584274482-khizr-khan-father-of-deceased-muslim-u-s-soldier.jpg.CROP.promo-xlarge2.jpg

Well, as I sat there, reading his Tweets while sighing deeply and rolling my eyes, it occurred to me: The only way to get Trump to read the constitution is by the only means likely to get his attention. That’s right: Tweet it to him.

So, I did. Line by line. From the preamble through Article VII: Ratification.

That’s right, I tweeted the entire Constitution of the United States to Donald Trump today.

I made sure to draw special attention to parts he might find particularly interesting or relevant.

Also:

I checked in with him from time to time, just to make sure he was holding up.

I reminded him what this was all about.

And made sure he focused on what was important.

Finally, we made it to the end.

Stein drops Pennsylvania recount effort

LaKathie

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Saturday December 03, 2016 · 3:53 PM PST

2016/12/03 · 15:53

Claiming that they cannot afford the $1,000,000 bond required by the courts to begin the Pennsylvania recount, Jill Stein and the Green Party have dropped the recount appeal for the state. As reported on Pittsburgh CBS local, the bond was due this Monday.

This action begs many questions, some of which are:

Where and how is the money Stein raised for the recount effort being allocated? What accountability and transparency is there for how the money is being used?

With absentee ballots, largely from urban areas, still being counted, as of Friday, Clinton’s deficit has decreased from more than 1% to .8%, with only 44,000 votes dividing the candidates, is it at all possible that the number may reduce to the 5% margin that would trigger an automatic recount? Is that too much to wish for?

What effect, if any, might this have in the recount efforts in Wisconsin and Michigan?

I must say, I am rather disheartened by this news.

Discuss?

Let's Talk about Trump University Again, w' Links

LaKathie

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Wednesday November 02, 2016 · 10:58 AM PDT

2016/11/02 · 10:58

It’s less than a week out of the elections, which seems like a great time to get people talking about something that has not gotten much attention lately — Trump’s upcoming Nov. 28 hearing on fraud and racketeering charges for ripping off hundreds of vulnerable people; particularly seniors, low-income, and under-educated people; i.e. many of the same demographics who are once again putting their faith in Donald Trump.

As you know, through Trump University, Trump has defrauded hundreds of gullible people with inflated, patently false promises and intentionally deceptive practices, which pretty much sums up his entire career and presidential campaign.

Herein, find a host of relevant article links to post, share, hashtag, etc. on your favorite social media sites. To help it spread, make sure to hashtag #TrumpUniversity.

Some tips: in addition to being posted individually, these make great retorts to any tweets or other posts that cast aspersion on HRC’s ethics. Also, I find it most useful to use links from the most middle-brow, or even right-tilting and right-wing sources, to counter the links being dismissed purely as media-biased. Personally, I enjoy posting these without comment as replies to almost anything Trump posts on Twitter. Finally, in the event that you draw annoying counter-trolls from the Trump camp, feel free to borrow my one-size-fits-all reply comment: “Keep livin’ your best life!” It drives them nuts!

I wonder how many posts it takes to make a hashtag trend? Let’s find out! Now here’s them links:

Video from Fox News: Trump University is the subject of multiple fraud lawsuits

From Time Magazine: Trump University was a scam, say former students

From Talking Points Memo: “Trump's 'Trump University' turned out to be a bit more sleazy and craven than I'd realized” — John Marshall

Fortune magazine: How bad are the charges against Trump University? Really Bad.

How many major-party Presidential front-runners have faced trial on “financial elder abuse” charges as they rolled toward the nomination?

To remind people about the likely high-level bribery to prevent litigation against Trump University in Florida and Texas:

From AP: Florida AG asked Trump for donation before nixing fraud case

From NPR: Texas Governor linked to Trump University fraud case

From Esquire, Trump as just another corporate scammer.

Of course, the fact that He, Trump was behind this scam is prima facie evidence of some thoroughgoing shenanigans, but that's not what I mean. He, Trump is an apex bunco artist, but he also is a high-profile American corporate businessman of the late 20th century.

Good All-purpose link from USA Today: How 75 pending lawsuits could distract a Donald Trump presidency.

Just two weeks before Election Day, at least 75 of the 4,000-plus lawsuits involving Trump and his businesses remain open, according to an ongoing, nationwide analysis of state and federal court records by USA TODAY.

And, to wrap up, a Trump University being called out in an info-graphic on how to avoid scam schools.

Feel free to share any other relevant links in the comments. And don’t forget to hashtag #trumpuniversity

Is Trump Private Server Communicating with Russian Bank? Evidence Says Yes.

LaKathie

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Monday October 31, 2016 · 3:52 PM PDT

2016/10/31 · 15:52

Just reported by Business Insider! I’d heard they had something big in the pipeline and this is it.

In short, a bunch of tech nerds (I love tech nerds!) started digging into Russian-linked hacking and cyber espionage when they came across something strange…

The computer scientists posited a logical hypothesis, which they set out to rigorously test: If the Russians were worming their way into the DNC, they might very well be attacking other entities central to the presidential campaign, including Donald Trump’s many servers. “We wanted to help defend both campaigns, because we wanted to preserve the integrity of the election,” says one of the academics, who works at a university that asked him not to speak with reporters because of the sensitive nature of his work.

In late July, one of these scientists—who asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a pseudonym that would protect his relationship with the networks and banks that employ him to sift their data—found what looked like malware emanating from Russia. The destination domain had Trump in its name, which of course attracted Tea Leaves’ attention. But his discovery of the data was pure happenstance—a surprising needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups on his screen. “I have an outlier here that connects to Russia in a strange way,” he wrote in his notes.

According to the article, a pattern was quickly recognized, but it wasn’t a bot-generated pattern. Rather it mimicked a conversation, and connected the Trump organization with an entity called Alfa Bank in Moscow.

That wasn’t the only oddity. When the researchers pinged the server, they received error messages. They concluded that the server was set to accept only incoming communication from a very small handful of IP addresses.

The article goes on to detail the amount of both doubt and diligence that was applied in pursuing this anomaly. More and more evidence signified that the communication wasn’t a fluke and wasn’t a coincidence.

However:

What the scientists amassed wasn’t isn’t a smoking gun. It’s a suggestive body of evidence that doesn’t absolutely preclude alternative explanations. But this evidence arrives in the broader context of the campaign and everything else that has come to light: The efforts of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager to bring Ukraine into Vladimir Putin’s orbit; the other Trump advisor whose communications with senior Russian officials have worried intelligence officials; the Russian hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s email.

Friends, I my head is still spinning from this report, and its implications. If this is just a coincidence, what explains it? Any techies out there want to take a stab at making sense of what it is happening here?

If I ask if Russia is secretly funneling money to the Trump campaign, does that mean I should go resize my tinfoil hat?

#Unfollowtrump Campaign Tops Twitter Trends

LaKathie

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Saturday October 01, 2016 · 12:24 PM PDT

2016/10/01 · 12:24

Kossacks, today, October 1, has been declared “The Big Unfollow.” The campaign, which was pitched in August by the comic Tim Heidecker, encourages his fellow comics and others who followed Trump out of morbid curiosity to, en masse, unfollow him today. And it is working!

“I’m going to encourage everybody to unfollow him just because watching any number go down probably, except his cholesterol, makes him crazy,” said “Modern Family” executive producer Danny Zuker, who in 2013 got into a Twitter war with the real-estate magnate that went viral.

One can only speculate how many of Trump’s 12 million Twitter followers are following him ironically, to see what kind of word vomit he is going to start spewing next.

The Wall Street Journal helped support the noble cause by publishing an article about the campaign on Thursday.

I’ve never followed Trump, although I will admit to checking his feed from time to time (okay, pretty much every day) out of some unhealthy impulse towards outrage. Nonetheless, I am doing my part to encourage others who may be following him but don’t actually support him to #unfollowTrump by retweeting the message and helping to spread the word.

Naturally, the deplorables have picked up on the hashtag and are subverting it with their crackpot rage spit; let’s not let them. I encourage all of my fellow Kossacks to keep the campaign trending by tweeting and retweeting pro-Clinton and/or anti-Trump messages with the #UnfollowTrump hashtag. Let’s do this thing!

Garrison Keillor's Pointed and Brilliant Trump Take-down.

LaKathie

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Thursday September 01, 2016 · 1:12 PM PDT

2016/09/01 · 13:12

The cap does not look good on you, it's a duffer's cap, and when you come to the microphone, you look like the warm-up guy, the guy who announces the license number of the car left in the parking lot, doors locked, lights on, motor running.

In the Washington Post (and reprinted in the Chicago Tribune and probably others), Mr. Folksy Nice Guy himself, Garrison “Woebegone” Keillor, completely eviscerated (hyperbole duly noted) Trump in a searing, spot on, second-person parodic take-down and he just nailed it, playing off of Trump’s insecurities and his yearning to be taken seriously.

And The New York Times treats you like the village idiot. This is painful for a Queens boy trying to win respect in Manhattan where the Times is the Supreme Liberal Jewish Anglican Arbiter of Who Has The Smarts and What Goes Where. When you came to Manhattan 40 years ago, you discovered that in entertainment, the press, politics, finance, everywhere you went, you ran into Jews, and they are not like you: Jews didn't go in for big yachts and a fleet of aircraft — they showed off by way of philanthropy or by raising brilliant offspring. They sympathized with the civil rights movement. In Queens, blacks were a threat to property values — they belonged in the Bronx, not down the street.

Keillor, who’ s Americana brand of storytelling you either love or hate, (as a fellow native Minnesotan, my relationship with him is love/hate) earns *all* of the props in the world for this subtle but not subtle take down. I could quote sections like mad but you have to just read it.

It’s so, so good.

Updated! Ouch! This Has Got To Hurt: 50 Repub Security Officials: Trump Would Be a Disaster

LaKathie

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Monday August 08, 2016 · 12:11 PM PDT

2016/08/08 · 12:11

Just posting from the New York Times, 50 top G.O.P. security officials, who’ve served under Bush I&II, Reagan, and Nixon, have all signed a letter stating that Trump would put the nation’s security at risk.

The letter says Mr. Trump would weaken the United States’ moral authority and questions his knowledge of and belief in the Constitution. It says he has “demonstrated repeatedly that he has little understanding” of the nation’s “vital national interests, its complex diplomatic challenges, its indispensable alliances and the democratic values” on which American policy should be based. And it laments that “Mr. Trump has shown no interest in educating himself.”

Signers include John Negroponte, Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, and Cheney’s former National Security adviser, Eric S. Edelman.

Mr. Trump, they all concluded,

“would be the most reckless president in American history.”

Text of the letter here.

Added: What? Rec list? Thanks, everyone! You’re the best!

LaKathie

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Tuesday December 06, 2011 · 10:49 PM PST

2011/12/06 · 22:49

Kossacks, it's been a while since I wrote, but a couple of years ago, I did write about my pending wedding to my longtime love at the Los Angeles home of the good friend who introduced us. And then, Prop 8 happened...

LaKathie

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Monday November 01, 2010 · 1:18 PM PDT

2010/11/01 · 13:18

Pastor (and Bishop) Jim Swilley came out to his congregation, citing the recent media barrage of gay teen suicides as his motivation, and acknowledging that it will probably end his career.

LaKathie

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Friday June 26, 2009 · 5:59 PM PDT

2009/06/26 · 17:59

Last week I started what I hope to be a weekly diary about community supported agriculture, farmer's markets, and locavore agriculture and produce, where subscribers, devotees (maybe even a dissenter or two) and the merely curious can talk about what's in season, how they're using it, and the pleasures and frustrations of eating locally. This is the second installment of that series. This week's veggie report after the jump!

Poll

17 votes Show Results

I say garlic scapes, you say...

17 votes Vote Now!

I say garlic scapes, you say...

po-tah-to

5 votes

yum!

7 votes

Huh?

4 votes

(eye roll)

0 votes

heath bar garlic scape blizzard at the DQ.

1 vote

Massacre in Baharestan, Where is the UN?

LaKathie

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Wednesday June 24, 2009 · 11:23 AM PDT

2009/06/24 · 11:23

While many of the first person accounts are unconfirmed (who is there to confirm them?), the sheer number of tweets, as well as a wrenching live interview with an alleged witness of the carnage aired on CNN, suggests a violent hightening in basij attacks against demonstrators and bystanders, particularly at a gathering in Baharestan Square, is taking on the scale of a full scale massacre. I agree with most here that the US should resist the call to take an active roll in the Iran situation, that our intervention would be inappropriate and wrongly direct attention to US-Iranian relations and away from the just cause of the protestors (I felt the same way, in fact, about Hussein's war crimes against his people -- that his justice should come through the world courts, and not unilaterally).

That said, I am not naive enough to think that the UN will actually do something about Iran's massacre its citizens. But they should. More on today's news after the jump.

LaKathie

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday June 17, 2009 · 2:09 PM PDT

2009/06/17 · 14:09

Today is a day Mrs. LaKathie and I look forward to all winter and spring: the first delivery of our box of fresh, locally grown produce from Angelic Organics, the community-supported-agriculture (CSA) farm we've been shareholders in for the past 8 years.

Last year, I got the idea to chart my weekly voyages into the wild and often unwieldy world of local, in season vegetables... To talk about what's in season, how I'm using it, anything anecdotal that comes up, and to swap stories and recipes with other CSA subscribers, or farmers market shoppers, or farmers themselves, or general foodies in Kos world. Join me for installment number one of What's in Your Box? after the jump.

Poll

33 votes Show Results

Do you eat your recommended servings of veggies?

33 votes Vote Now!

Do you eat your recommended servings of veggies?

And then some!

16 votes

I struggle, but I try.

16 votes

Vegetables don't agree with me.

0 votes

A Bloody Mary counts, doesn't it?

1 vote

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Want Trump to Read the Constitution? Tweet it to him! I just did. Line-by-line.

Stein drops Pennsylvania recount effort

Let's Talk about Trump University Again, w' Links

Is Trump Private Server Communicating with Russian Bank? Evidence Says Yes.

#Unfollowtrump Campaign Tops Twitter Trends

Garrison Keillor's Pointed and Brilliant Trump Take-down.

Updated! Ouch! This Has Got To Hurt: 50 Repub Security Officials: Trump Would Be a Disaster

We (Finally) Got Married!

Georgia Megachurch Pastor Comes Out: Cites Recent Teen Suicides

CSA: What's in YOUR Box, week two.

Massacre in Baharestan, Where is the UN?

Community Supported Agriculture: What's in YOUR box?