TYB
Abraham Lincoln 'Impeached.' Wait, What?
Abraham Lincoln is not just America's greatest president. To many, his very face is an emblem of America: honest, homespun, strong and sad, haunted, brooding and humorous.
So where does some famous Yale Law School professor get off writing a novel in which President Lincoln is accused of subverting the Constitution?
In Stephen Carter's new novel, The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln, the man we know as the Great Emancipator imprisons critics, invokes martial law, suspends the writ of habeus corpus, and throttles the press — all to win the Civil War.
Carter takes all kinds of liberties with history, beginning with that fateful night at Ford's Theatre, when John Wilkes Booth shoots Lincoln, and Lincoln .. survives? "I should begin by explaining that I am a big Lincoln fan," Carter says, laughing. "I think Lincoln was our greatest president; I have no question about that. But at the same time, there were a lot of things that Lincoln did during his presidency, in order to win the Civil War, that could be called into question. And so my idea was to write a courtroom drama that was crafted around that possibility. The path I sketch in my fiction is one possible path history might have taken."
At the center of Carter's story is a young woman named Abigail Canner, an Oberlin graduate who comes to the nation's capital intending to become a lawyer. Canner is African-American — at a time when there are just a few black lawyers in the entire country, and no women. "But she conceives this idea of wanting to be a lawyer, wanting to be involved in great events," Carter says.
He adds he developed Abigail's character to appeal to "that part in all of us, when we're young, that's ambitious and fresh and innocent and excited, and thinks the world's a just and fair place. And of course she goes out into that world and finds it's much more complex and dangerous than she imagined."
And the danger to President Lincoln in this book comes not from the cranky, mossbacked conservatives, but from the people who considered themselves progressive. Carter points out that the Republican Party of that era was the center of abolitionist activism, led by highly educated men who'd fought slavery all their lives and who resented Lincoln as an unlettered Western hick who wasn't moving fast enough to free the slaves.
Even as the war progressed, and even as the Union began to win, he remained deeply unpopular," Carter says. "There were a lot of people, the leaders of his own party, who simply thought he was not morally as good as they were."
Carter says he doesn't think Lincoln should have been impeached — though his opponents in the book make a pretty good case. "If you look at the things Lincoln actually did, his administration shuttered opposition newspapers, locked up editors, court-martialed reporters at the front who wrote unfavorable stories, suspended habeas corpus, ignored court orders, declared martial law," Carter says.
"And for Lincoln, all of this was justified by his need to win the war. And that's the question, that in my novel, that the Senate has to confront. Did Lincoln have a justification for the various things he attempted to do that he said were necessary?"
Lincoln, of course, is a central character in the book — but he doesn't appear very often. Carter says it was both intimidating and enormously difficult to write dialogue for such an iconic figure. "One of the reasons that he ends up being in only about five scenes in the novel is precisely that I didn't want to stray too far from the record and bring the whole legion of Lincoln aficionados down on my head."
Carter's version of Lincoln tells a few funny stories that the real 16th president is known to have told. "Where he has to talk about other things, I tried to use the cadences that so far as I can tell were accurate," Carter says, adding that he learned those cadences by studying Lincoln's letters, speeches and accounts of conversations people had with him.
Fantastical depictions of Lincoln seem to be popular this summer; Carter says that while he hasn't seen the movie Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, he's planning to. "I think it might be fun. And the truth is, anything that gets people to take a real interest in Lincoln, I think is a good thing."
https://www.npr.org/2012/07/07/156212913/abraham-lincoln-impeached-wait-what
Would the dems change the name of the WHITEhouse to OUR house?
Is a very very very fine house… with 3 Freddy’s in the yard…….
Anon still has press beating In head from Kayleigh today.
Always awesome to watch her.
In case you missed it. Today’s press beating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q9vO8H8Ny4
Agreed anon
Have another beer anon, Anon agreed that Kayleigh is better and if you don’t like it change anons mind.
Hive..that’s what anon hears her say in head.. kek
A California cop who wore a far-right patch to a George Floyd protest won't be fired
At a June protest in Costa Mesa, California, activists opposed to the police killing of George Floyd captured video showing a member of the Orange County Sheriff's Department with a patch associated with far-right paramilitary groups.
The story spurred an internal investigation, coming amid reports that fringe extremist groups have been increasingly successful at infiltrating law enforcement.
That investigation has now concluded, with the sheriff of Orange County announcing that the deputy will be keeping his job. He and his colleagues will also undergo training on the threat posed by the organizations explicitly honored on his uniform.
The patch in question displayed a logo for the Three Percenters — a movement whose followers, including a former sheriff's deputy, bombed a Minnesota mosque in 2017 — above the term "Oathkeeper," a reference to a paramilitary organization that recently declared the US to be in a state of "civil war." The members of such vigilante groups often appear in public heavily armed, sometimes in uniforms that suggest an official capacity, purporting to uphold their interpretation of the law, sans oversight or legal sanction.
https://www.businessinsider.com/cop-wore-far-right-patch-george-floyd-protest-not-fired-2020-8
California police shoot, kill armed man trying to burn down home with wheelchair-bound woman inside
California police shot and killed an armed man who allegedly tried to burn down a house with an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman inside after he pointed a firearm at officers, authorities said Sunday.
San Bernardino police responded just after 6 p.m. Friday to reports of a family dispute at a home where a man with a handgun was assaulting family members, the department said in a news release.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-police-shoot-kill-armed-man-trying-burn-down-home-wheelchair-bound-woman-inside
Charter schools can double dip up to $100 million in PPP funds and that's OK in Arizona
It’s galling enough that 100 Arizona charter school businesses scored up to $100 million from a federal program designed to make up for a loss of income during the pandemic – never mind that their schools didn’t actually experience a loss of income.
Galling enough that four in 10 of those schools do a lousy job of educating students and we just gave them tens of millions of dollars to continue doing a lousy job of educating students.
Now comes word that these double dippers won’t have to give the money back. Not. One. Penny.
In an opinion that defies logic, Arizona Auditor General Lindsey Perry has said state taxpayers must continue fully funding those charter schools even though federal taxpayers provided them with “forgiveable loans” through the federal Paycheck Protection Program to fund their schools.
Perry says they can take the public’s money and then take the public’s money again.
This, even though state law bars charter schools from being paid twice by taxpayers to fund the same thing.
Nothing like boosting your bottom line on the back of a pandemic.
Not all charters went for the big score Unlike other small businesses, however, Arizona’s charter school operations never even caught sight of that cliff.
They have continued to receive their regular per-student allotments of state funds, plus they’re eligible for a share of the hundreds of millions of dollars in CARES Act funding that is being pumped into public schools to cover added costs due to COVID-19 and budget shortfalls.
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It’s worth noting that more than 400 Arizona charter school operators took a pass on trying to make a killing off a public health emergency.
But 100 others went for the big score. Of those, The Arizona Republic’s Craig Harris reports that four in 10 are rated by the state as “D” or “F” schools when it comes to actually educating children.
But those that did scored huge
Among the schools that stuck their hand out was American Virtual Academy. The management company, which runs Primavera Online School, snagged somewhere between $2 million and $5 million in PPP money.
This is the same company whose CEO, Damian Creamer, managed to pay himself a combined $10.1 million in 2017 and 2018 out of public funds set aside to educate students. Never mind that fewer than a third of his students could do math and read at grade level or that nearly half were dropping out.
Creamer’s education technology company, StrongMind, also scored $2 million to $5 million from the PPP program, according to The Arizona Republic’s Lily Altavena. Meanwhile, Verano Learning Partners, which was founded by Creamer and lists the same address as American Virtual and StrongMind, snagged a PPP payout of $150,000 to $350,000.
Other charters that hit the PPP jackpot include Legacy Traditional Schools, which snagged up to $1 million each for its campuses in Peoria, Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler and Laveen and up to $350,000 for its Goodyear school. And another $5 million for its Nevada schools.
In all, the Network for Public Education, a watchdog group critical of charter schools, analyzed Small Business Administration records and reports that Arizona charter schools snagged anywhere from $39.6 million to $99.4 million in PPP money.
All to protect the paychecks of charter school employees whose paychecks already were protected by taxpayers.
That cash didn't come from the tooth fairy
And there’s nothing we can do about it, according to Arizona’s auditor general, even though state law says charter schools cannot “require taxpayers to pay twice to educate the same pupils.”
According to ARS 15-185: “The base support level for a charter school or for a school district sponsoring a charter school shall be reduced by an amount equal to the total amount of monies received by a charter school from a federal or state agency if the federal or state monies are intended for the basic maintenance and operations of the school.”
Like say, to meet payroll?
Incredibly, the state auditor, in a one-paragraph opinion marked as "guidance", says that law doesn’t apply to their PPP windfall because that money came from a bank.
Well, where does she think the banks got the money to dole out? The tooth fairy?
Those loans will never be repaid and it's fantasy to act as if they will be — or that the money comes from somewhere other than the federal government.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/arizona-is-ok-with-charter-schools-double-dipping-up-to-dollar100-million-thats-bizarre/ar-BB18yRsd
This is the stimulus plan you’ll get if Joe Biden is elected president
That’s according to Biden advisors who’ve been telling reporters in recent days that they feel the economy is getting worse with each passing day, and they think another massive stimulus package is needed in advance of Biden’s almost $3 trillion “Build Back Better” plan that would come later in the spring of 2021. Again, the caveat being if he’s elected. There are a little more than four months between now and the point when whoever wins this fall will be sworn in come January — plenty of time for the economy to continue to deteriorate and for the coronavirus pandemic to continue to run its course, threatening to complicate matters even further for whoever will be the nation’s 46th chief executive.
Biden has already unveiled this part of his broad economic vision for the country, and some or all of this would no doubt make its way into a more immediate stimulus plan — such as, no surprise, a new round of stimulus checks.
Look for a Biden administration to also launch an $8,000 annual tax credit for parents who have young children.
Paying for health insurance for people who’ve just lost their job is another idea, as well as pushing for greater paid sick leave benefits for workers.
Along similar lines, Biden’s economic roadmap includes strengthening unemployment systems and pushing for greater benefits for the newly jobless.
well didn’t this article make Biden look like a hero
President Trump, remember, has gotten behind the idea of more stimulus now — and even supports a new round of stimulus checks — but the GOP-controlled Senate hasn’t fallen in line. Republicans seem to have little interest at the moment in passing another major stimulus package, which has also put the idea of new stimulus checks on ice for now.
Meanwhile, the pandemic continues. According to Johns Hopkins University, the latest data shows that there have been some 6 million coronavirus cases in the US to date, along with more than 183,000 deaths.
https://bgr.com/2020/08/31/new-stimulus-bill-joe-biden-administration-trillion-dollar-package-in-january/