Blow strikes Dems, GOP plot exposed, Trump courts elites, China halts soy imports, Netanyahu fails, & more

By Robert A. Vella

Journalist, commentator, and New York Times op-ed columnist Charles M. Blow – who frequently addresses social justice issues – wrote a sharp criticism today of the Democratic Party leadership in the House of Representatives for resisting the growing calls for impeachment against President Trump.  A GOP plot to rig elections in their favor has been exposed by the daughter of a longtime Republican operative who died last year.  Trump is sending two administration officials to the secretive and controversial Bilderberg meeting despite his populist rhetoric railing against the “elites” which he campaigned on and has reiterated throughout his presidency.  China is halting all soy imports from the U.S. in an escalation of the worsening trade war between the two economic powers.  Shortly after winning reelection, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to form a governing coalition and new parliamentary elections are expected.  A second person has attempted (this time successfully) to commit suicide via self-immolation outside the White House in a gruesome display of public protest.  Fresh data has been published on voter turnout among younger generations.  New Hampshire has eliminated the death penalty, and Illinois is moving to require fingerprinting of gun owners.

Blow strikes Dems

From:  Democrats, Do Your Damned Duty! by Charles M. Blow

What the hell is it going to take, Democrats?!

What evidence and impetus would compel you to do the job the Constitution, patriotism and morality dictate?

What is it going to take to make you initiate an impeachment inquiry?

Your slow walking of this issue and your specious arguments about political calculations are pushing you dangerously close to a tragic, historic dereliction of duty, one that could do irreparable damage to the country and the Congress.

GOP plot exposed

From:  Deceased G.O.P. Strategist’s Hard Drives Reveal New Details on the Census Citizenship Question

WASHINGTON — Thomas B. Hofeller achieved near-mythic status in the Republican Party as the Michelangelo of gerrymandering, the architect of partisan political maps that cemented the party’s dominance across the country.

But after he died last summer, his estranged daughter discovered hard drives in her father’s home that revealed something else: Mr. Hofeller had played a crucial role in the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision.

Trump courts elites

From:  Pompeo and Kushner head to Bilderberg Meeting, a mysterious gathering of the global elite

The involvement of key Trump administration members may spark criticism from those who view the meetings as nefarious gatherings of the global elite. Conspiracy theorists, including a number who have publicly supported Trump, have picketed the event in recent years.

For example, Alex Jones, the American radio host who interviewed Trump when he was a presidential candidate in 2015, has claimed that Google “planned and launched” the Arab Spring at one such Bilderberg gathering.

“There are powerful corporate groups, above government, manipulating things,” Jones said in 2013 in Britain, where he was filmed standing outside the site of that year’s Bilderberg event.

China halts soy imports

From:  China Puts U.S. Soy Buying on Hold as Tariff War Escalates

China, the world’s largest soybean buyer, has put purchases of American supplies on hold after the trade war between Washington and Beijing escalated, according to people familiar with the matter.

Netanyahu fails

From:  Israel in Uncharted Territory as Netanyahu Fails to Form a Coalition

JERUSALEM — A politically fatigued Israel cranked back into election mode on Thursday, barely 50 days after its last national ballot and after the staggering failure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government by midnight Wednesday.

With the next vote set for Sept. 17, Israel is in uncharted political terrain. Mr. Netanyahu is Israel’s first prime minister-elect to be unable to form a coalition after an election, and the first to force another one by dissolving a Parliament sworn in just a month previously. His aura of invincibility, formed over a decade in office, has been seriously dented.

More news

From:  Officials: Man who set himself on fire near White House has died

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A man who set himself on fire near the White House has died of his injuries, the U.S. Park Police said on Thursday.

[…]

It was the second such incident in two months, when a man in an electric mobility scooter was hospitalized after he lit his jacket on fire outside the White House fence.

From:  Younger generations cast more votes than baby boomers and older adults in 2018

Voters ages 18 to 53, including millennials, Generation X, and young voters, cast more votes than baby boomers and older generations amid a modern record high turnout in the 2018 midterm elections, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

New Hampshire becomes the 21st state to abolish the death penalty

Fingerprinting gun owners approved by Illinois lawmakers