The case is being laid out. Barnett’s 302 release just 7 days after his interview isn’t a coincidence. Then there’s the Weiner Computer and FBI suppression revelations. Durham investigating the Clinton Foundation.
– @adamhousley
https://twitter.com/adamhousley/status/1310050422422294529
Meet The Republican Senator Sabotaging Trump’s Plans to End Forever Wars and Bring Our Troops Home
Perhaps the most heroic moment of President Trump’s historic 2016 campaign was the when he stood on the South Carolina debate stage and dared to call out the Iraq War for the disaster it was. Trump achieved victory in 2016 in large part because of his sacred pledge to end our nation’s forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere and—finally–to bring our brave warriors back home. President Trump has taken a major step to fulfill that sacred pledge with recent commitments to troop withdrawals, combined with the nomination of two of America’s leading voices for America First foreign policy to key ambassadorial roles in Germany and Afghanistan.
Shamefully, Revolver News has learned from top senate sources that Republican Senator Jim Risch has been deliberately sabotaging the confirmation of William Ruger and Colonel Douglas MacGregor to ambassadorial posts in Afghanistan and Germany respectively on account of their support for the President’s America First policy of troop withdrawals.
Colonel Douglas MacGregor is one of the strongest defenders of the America First foreign policy President Trump campaigned on. He is a vocal critic of neoconservative foreign policy interventionists like Never Trumper Bill Kristol, and believes, as the President does, that it is time to end the endless wars and bring our troops home.
William Ruger, like Colonel Douglas Magregor is a prominent and tireless voice opposing the foreign policy establishment that puts its own lobbying contracts and power ahead of the interests of the American troops and the American people. Here is a representative sample of Ruger’s thinking on foreign policy and Afghanistan in particular:
In the face of increased polarization and so many 50/50 splits in the electorate, it is noteworthy that support for withdrawal from Afghanistan has substantially increased over the last two years. In March of 2018, 50 percent of Americans supported decreasing (26 percent) or fully removing (24 percent) U.S. troops from Afghanistan with 16 percent favoring an increase and 19 percent supporting maintaining the same number of troops. By the beginning of 2019, 51 percent of Americans continued to say they would support the decision to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan within the year with only 22 percent responding that they would oppose this decision and 27 percent unsure. By January of 2020, 69 percent of Americans supported bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan compared to 14 percent opposed. Today, as noted above, the number of Americans who favor bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan stands at 76 percent. Although the questions had slightly different framing, the answers show the same trend—support for withdrawal from Afghanistan has consistently risen.
…
In his capacity as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Senator Risch needs to move promptly to confirm Ruger and Macgregor—or he needs to answer to the to the President, the American people, and the military families who demand to know why he is putting the special interests of the war-loving swamp ahead of his country and the brave warriors who defend it.
https://www.revolver.news/2020/09/senator-risch-idaho-shamefully-stalls-america-first-trump-nominations/
Proud Boys draw smaller-than-expected crowd to Portland as city hopes for calm
Hundreds of members of the far-right group Proud Boys rallied at a public park here Saturday, venting threats and flashing weapons but failing to mobilize the show of strength that organizers had planned — and that Portland's leaders had feared.
The demonstration by the group — which has earned a reputation for politically motivated violence — was intended to bring adherents from across the nation to a city that has become a magnet for ideological brawls, some of them deadly.
Organizers said they expected as many as 10,000 people to turn out. Yet the actual crowd was far smaller, and the event in a grassy park near the Columbia River started breaking up after just 90 minutes — significantly less than the hours of rallying that were initially planned.
In that time, demonstrators preached their hatred for antifa and other left-wing organizations, along with their fealty to President Trump. Many were dressed in camouflage and some were armed with bear mace and guns.
“How do you become a Proud Boy? You gotta feel that calling,” one speaker told the crowd, which intermittently tuned in to the speeches radiating off the back of a flatbed truck. “We kick a lot of people to the curb. . . . Gotta love to drink, gotta love to fight.”
Yet the Multnomah County Sheriff’s reported the demonstration ended “without serious violence.”
That is likely to come as a relief to Portland’s leaders, who have grown weary after months of political showdowns that have come to symbolize the nation’s descent into extreme partisanship and ever-widening ideological chasms. America’s divisions have become increasingly visible and raw as rival factions have taken to the streets to shout each other down — or worse.
The city was especially on edge because left-wing groups, including antifa, staged a counter-rally at a different city park, three miles away. That demonstration — which the Sheriff’s Office estimated at 1,000 people, about the same size as the Proud Boys rally — also proceeded peacefully.
Images of the two rallies and witness accounts appeared to show that the left’s gathering, set in a neighborhood park, was larger. That rally featured speakers condemning white supremacists and conservative politicians, while many in the crowd donned black clothing and body armor.
“I am just very anti-racist, and I lived in Oregon a long time and there is a lot of it here,” said Brian Calza, 42, who drove in for the rally from Eugene, Ore.
While the Proud Boys strongly identify with Trump, the political affiliations of the anti-fascist protesters were more diffuse across the liberal and left-leaning spectrum. Trump’s name was ubiquitous at the Proud Boys rally, but support for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was not part of the anti-fascist rally.
more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/portland-proud-boys-rally/2020/09/26/9e4ca5a0-0046-11eb-830c-a160b331ca62_story.html
PG&E poised to shut off power to thousands overnight as winds roll into Northern California
Pacific Gas and Electric announced Saturday evening that about 15,000 people will have their lights turned off after midnight, the first stage of a larger planned blackout in advance of fast-moving winds.
A total of 89,000 PG&E customers may deliberately lose power this weekend, with the first 15,000 residing in areas familiar with the company’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs, which are implemented when fire danger is forecast to reach critical levels.
Parts of Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties can expect the power to start dropping off between midnight and 2 a.m. Sunday, when Diablo winds coming in from the east in the Sacramento Valley are expected to gain traction.
These winds are expected to increase in strength until daybreak Sunday, and they may even taper off somewhat around midday, according to PG&E meteorologists. But more blackouts will occur later around 4 p.m.
The bulk of customers will be included in this second stage of power outages. Approximately 74,000 homes and businesses will be left in the dark in Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Lake, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sierra, Sonoma and Yuba counties. Some residents of the Mooretown Rancheria Native American tribe will also be included in this blackout.
Later Sunday evening, some Santa Ana winds are expected to kick up as well, which means PG&E will cut power to about 15 customers in Kern County as well.
PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo said the company is planning on restoring power to all affected customers by the end of the day Monday. After the high winds subside Monday, PG&E line crews will go out to survey damage to determine when power can safely be restored.
The National Weather Service ordered a red flag warning earlier this week to last from Saturday night through Monday evening, citing a danger of fire starts in much of Northern California as winds enter fire-prone territory. After the red flag warning was issued, PG&E estimated that 21,000 customers could be affected by a PSPS before revising its figures to its current estimate of 89,000. Notifications regarding a potential shutoff were sent out to customers starting Thursday, according to PG&E officials.
The weather service said wind gusts could reach 55 mph. Coupled with the fast-moving winds comes low humidity that provides little relief, even overnight. Minimum daytime humidity in the region is expected to be in the range of 10% to 20%.
Earlier this month, PG&E shut off power to about 172,000 customers due to flaring Diablo winds. PG&E meteorologist Scott Strenfel said this wind event is similar, or slightly less in magnitude compared with the last event.
PG&E incident commander Mark Quinlan said PG&E is confident in its weather models, and does not expect any more customers to be included in the blackouts than are already called for.
“We have a high degree of confidence in this scope,” Quinlan. “We don’t see it moving upward.”
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article246040450.html
Texas woman says she was fired by Whataburger for wearing a Black Lives Matter mask
A Texas woman says she was fired by a Whataburger in Fort Worth for wearing a Black Lives Matter face mask to work, in what is the latest in a string of penalties handed down by employers for public displays of support for the social justice movement.
Similar cases are popping up across the state and all over the country. Over the summer, two Texas teachers faced disciplinary action from their schools, one for wearing a mask and the other for displaying a Black Lives Matter sign, among other signs, in her virtual classroom.
Meanwhile in Ohio, a Taco Bell worker was fired for refusing to take off his Black Lives Matter mask; the same happened to a convenience store worker in New Jersey. And Whole Foods is being sued by 15 employees across six stores, who are accusing the Amazon-owned grocery store of firing one employee and disciplining 40 others for wearing the masks and pins at work.
“What we’re seeing with a lot of employees, particularly during this time, is the desire to have their place of employment reflect their values,” said Andre Segura, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
The incidents come as people across the country continue to protest police brutality against Black people in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, who were both killed by police officers.
Ma’kiya Congious, 19, lost her job at the fast-food chain shortly after her supervisor told her to remove her Black Lives Matter mask when a white customer complained, her attorney Jason Smith said. Smith said Congious had worn the same mask to work in front of several of her managers without consequence.
A Whataburger representative said in a statement that Congious voluntarily resigned “due to a disagreement over our company uniform policy.” The representative said her resignation was accepted and Congious was paid for the two weeks she was scheduled to work.
Whataburger’s uniform policy, which extends to face masks, does not allow “non-Whataburger messaging,” like that related to politics, religion or sports.
“If we allow any non-Whataburger slogans as part of our uniforms, we have to allow all slogans,” a Whataburger representative said in a statement.
But Congious says she didn’t resign.
“Whataburger wants you to wear a mask that has no opinions whatsoever on them, all right? I mean, you’re entitled to your personal opinions, and that’s fine. But at Whataburger we don’t want to portray them because … some people may be offended,” a supervisor said in a conversation taped by Congious and provided to The Texas Tribune.
“Whataburger doesn’t want to get into anything political because we’re just hamburgers and fries,” the person on the recording continued.
Amid the heated discussion, Congious asked about putting in her two weeks’ notice and was told that she no longer worked there. Congious later said she hadn’t yet decided whether to quit but was effectively forced out of the job. When she remained in the store, her supervisors called the police, and five police cars showed up. Congious was not arrested, and no charges were filed against her.
Congious filed a discrimination complaint last month with the Texas Workforce Commission. In the complaint, Congious said she was let go by the fast-food restaurant because of her race and for having the words “Black Lives Matter” on her mask.
In the complaint, Congious pointed out that colleagues also wore face masks other than the ones provided by the company. One featured the Mexican flag, another the Gucci logo.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/26/texas-whataburger-black-lives-matter/