Trump’s hostility to cities threatens to worsen the recession

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President Trump’s hostility to cities may help him politically, but it threatens to worsen the recession because metropolitan regions are the engines of the nation’s economic growth, officials and analysts say.

The risk arises not just from the president’s rhetoric criticizing urban unrest. Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate are also rejecting fresh financial aid to state and local governments and to public transit systems in a second coronavirus relief package.

That shortchanges areas such as the Washington region and is a recipe for deepening and prolonging the economic slump. About 1.3 million state and local government employees have lost their jobs since March, and economists project that number will more than double in the next 18 months without help from Congress and the White House. Continue reading.

If Biden wins, get ready for Trump to punish America

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What could happen to America if Trump were to further, severely crash the U.S. economy the day after Joe Biden is announced as the winner of the 2020 presidential race?

As Trump tweeted on June 15, 2019, “if anyone but me takes over… there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before!”

On July 6, 2020, he tweeted, “If you want your 401k’s and Stocks, which are getting close to an all time high (NASDAQ is already there), to disintegrate and disappear, vote for the Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats and Corrupt Joe Biden.” Continue reading.

As Trump’s latest effort for new FBI headquarters falls flat, Shelby moves parts of the bureau to Alabama

Washington Post logoAt least 1,500 workers will relocate to $1.1 billion Huntsville campus, with thousands more expected to follow

Three years after President Trump canceled a decade-long plan to build an FBI headquarters in the Washington suburbs, the bureau’s effort at securing a new home remains mired in uncertainty, with no active plan or funding source and thousands of agents still working at the crumbling and poorly secured J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington.

But there is ample financial support and a clear plan for another FBI headquarters project, one in Huntsville, Ala., that will welcome 1,500 of the bureau’s headquarters staff from the Washington region next year and probably thousands more in coming years.

The principal architect of the flow of FBI staff to Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal complex is Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee who has shepherded the project through approvals and secured $1.1 billion in funding for it over the past four years. Continue reading.

Lt. Col. Vindman accuses Trump of ‘bullying and intimidation’ in scathing WaPo op-ed

AlterNet logoOn Saturday, writing for The Washington Post, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, one of the key witnesses in the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, slammed the president and stood up for his principles.

“After 21 years, six months and 10 days of active military service, I am now a civilian. I made the difficult decision to retire because a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation by President Trump and his allies forever limited the progression of my military career,” wrote Vindman. “At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation’s values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment. Our national government during the past few years has been more reminiscent of the authoritarian regime my family fled more than 40 years ago than the country I have devoted my life to serving.”

Since his testimony, Vindman was denied a routine promotion through the military ranks after White House officials dug up dirt on him and passed it along to the Pentagon. Vindman decided to retire from service, with his lawyer citing a culture of retaliation. Continue reading.

Justice Dept. drops support for Michael Cohen gag order, clearing way for tell-all Trump book

Washington Post logoNEW YORK — The Justice Department on Thursday dropped its support for a gag order that would have prevented President Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen from writing his forthcoming tell-all book or discussing it with the media, according to documents filed in federal court Thursday.

The about-face was spelled out in a proposed settlement agreement sent to U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein. In it, Assistant U.S. Attorney Allison Rovner and Cohen’s attorney Danya Perry wrote that there should be “no specific media provision” governing Cohen’s release from prison to home confinement.

Hellerstein has yet to approve the deal. Continue reading.

The Daily 202: Michael Cohen asked to sign stay-out-of-jail agreement that may violate his First Amendment rights, lawyers say

Washington Post logoMichael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, is back in solitary confinement at a federal prison facility in Otisville, N.Y., and legal scholars across the political spectrum are expressing alarm about his treatment.

Their objections center on a Federal Bureau of Prisons agreement Cohen was asked to sign last week that he and his lawyers say would limit the ex-Trump ally’s ability to work on books, including a forthcoming tell-all about the president.

Cohen’s return to jail last week is likely to open yet another legal front for a man who once described himself as Trump’s loyal “fixer” but later offered testimony implicating the president in possible crimes. Continue reading.

White House officials sent document to Pentagon criticizing Vindman after impeachment testimony

The Pentagon got the document as Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was on track to be promoted to colonel. Sources said the accusations could block a promotion if found to be true.

WASHINGTON — The National Security Council sent a list of allegations about Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman to the Pentagon after he testified before the House in impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, according to a person who has seen the document and two others who were briefed on it.

The Pentagon received the document, which alleged that Vindman created a hostile work environment at the NSC, as he was on track to be promoted to colonel. The accusations outlined in it, if substantiated, would have kept him from moving up a rank in the Army, the people familiar with the document said. They said it was not the typical evaluation that military officers serving on the NSC are given when their temporary positions end and they are set to return to the Defense Department, as Vindman was scheduled to do about six months after the document was sent to the Pentagon.

The NSC is housed in the White House and chaired by the president, although it’s managed day to day by the national security adviser. Continue reading.

Schiff to Vindman: ‘Right does not matter to Trump. But it matters to you’

The Hill logoHouse Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the House Democrats who led the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, on Wednesday thanked Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman for participating in the proceedings after Vindman announced that he was retiring from the Army. 

Schiff wrote in a letter to Vindman that his testimony during the inquiry stuck with him because of the military officer’s stated belief that in the U.S., “right matters.” Schiff also took aim at Trump’s “bullying and retaliation,” writing that Vindman should not have had “to choose between your oath of office and your career.”

“Right matters. Right does not matter to Donald Trump. But it matters to you. It matters to this country and to its people. It will always matter,” Schiff wrote. “And with those words, you have left an indelible mark on our nations’ conscience and history. For if right does not matter in our country, if truth does not matter, then we are truly lost.” Continue reading.

Duckworth doesn’t back down following Vindman retirement

Illinois Democrat demands more information on this ‘disgraceful situation’

Sen. Tammy Duckworth will keep her hold on more than 1,100 military promotions in place despite Wednesday’s announcement of the retirement of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The Illinois Democrat announced the hold on Thursday amid concerns that Vindman would not receive a promotion to the rank of colonel in retaliation for his testimony before the House last year.

Vindman, a former Ukraine expert to the National Security Council, was ousted from his White House job following his November testimony in which he validated many of the concerns raised by the whistleblower whose report sparked the impeachment inquiry. Continue reading.