If true, Trump should immediately be removed from the Presidency!

By Greg Miller ,
Ellen Nakashima and
Shane HarrisSeptember 18 at 8:56 PM

The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said the former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in the matter has not been previously disclosed. It raises new questions about the president’s handling of sensitive information and may further strain his relationship with U.S. spy agencies. One former official said the communication was a phone call.

[Gap continues to widen between Trump and intelligence community on key issues]

The White House declined to comment late Wednesday night. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and a lawyer representing the whistleblower declined to comment.

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of “urgent concern,” a legal threshold that requires notification of congressional oversight committees.

But acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire has refused to share details about Trump’s alleged transgression with lawmakers, touching off a legal and political dispute that has spilled into public view and prompted speculation that the spy chief is improperly protecting the president.

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This bothers me. I don;t care if the defendants in this case are bad guys. This affects all of us in one form or another. We need to be able to trust prosecutors to pursue justice according to the law. It seems that My Overby wants to be able to withhold evidence detrimental to his case and favorable to defendants. This can result in innocent people languishing in jail:

The American Bar Association in 2009 said that prosecutors should be ethically bound to turn over evidence favorable to a defendant — either to exonerate the accused or mitigate punishment — as soon as possible. The ABA cited studies showing Brady violations are the leading cause of wrongful convictions across the nation.

"The standard at issue impacts when prosecutors — both state and federal — should turn over evidence that could help the accused. The Board of Professional Responsibility, which polices all attorneys, said prosecutors are ethically bound to turn over any information that might help the accused as soon as they get it.

The state Supreme Court disagreed. The court said prosecutors must only adhere to an appellate standard known as a Brady violation. Under that standard, prosecutors get to choose what to turn over and when, depending on whether the prosecution believes the evidence is legally significant enough that a jury might exonerate a defendant because of it."

KNS (paywall) Jamie Satterfield story

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October 11, 2019 - 07:00 PM

Live theatre! AND THE MOON STAYED by Jennifer L. Wallace, a reworking of Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale.” It is set in the Great Smoky Mountains and tells the bittersweet tale of jealousy, love and redemption.

Come see local Corey Jones at "Brother Leon"!

More details at PRINCESS BLOG.

“At least 40 percent of students in higher education suffer from some form of food insecurity,” Roane State President Chris Whaley said during the grand opening at the main campus in Harriman. “That’s appalling.”

The launch of the Raider Pantry in a small space just inside the Roane State gymnasium on the Roane County campus continues the college’s efforts to address food insecurity. Snacks are offered at campus locations, and three campuses (Roane, Oak Ridge, and Cumberland) offer dedicated rooms for food pantries.

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Uncommon, unreal, and (soon-to-be) unfrozen.
A new online era of The Far Side is coming!

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Enjoy!

This concerns me. Bill Lee campaigned as a moderate. KnoxViews.com has a comment...

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More in depth from Tennessee Citizen Action

While the Democratic Presidential Debate was going on, Trump was speaking to the House GOP retreat Yesterday. We learned a number of things about Trump including why he hates energy efficient lighting:

Trump blames new energy efficient light bulbs for making him "look orange."

[OK, he's got me there]

Speaking to the House GOP retreat, Trump brags that "earlier today, my administration formally repealed the horrible, dangerous, anti-everything waters of the United States rule."

[So in Trump's world it's horribly dangerous to stop polluters from dumping poisons into our ground water, where most of us get our drinking water.]

Trump on wind energy: "If you happen to be watching the Democrat debate and the wind isn't blowing, you're not going to see the debate ... 'the goddamn windmill stopped!'"

[Trump seems to not know about BATTERIES]

"We're now working on a tax cut for middle-income people that is going to be very, very inspirational. It's going to be something that I think it's what everybody is looking for, & we'll be announcing it sometime in the next year."

[Republicans seem to forget that Trump's last tax cut raised taxes on the middle class by $90 billion a year. Be very afraid of his promises!]

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No wonder TVA sees solar power as a threat to its existence:

MLGW must give TVA five years notice to split with the federal wholesale power utility and it would need to find a way to replace about $1 billion worth of electricity, or 11% of TVA's total load, from other sources. The Brattle Group study says MLGW could turn to the sun or wind to get its power for $240 million to $333 million less than what it pays TVA, especially if Memphis uses its tax-exempt borrowing authority. The study suggests that batteries and the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) could supplement that power to replace TVA.

With access to transmission lines, low cost solar and wind power across the Mississippi River could be procured at a fraction of the price of TVA power, the new report concludes.

Study says solar cheaper than TVA

The most expensive meals included $1,157 spent at a steakhouse in New York City, a figure that included $145 bottles of wine and resulted from TVA splitting the bill with a vendor. TVA also spent $1,157 at a steakhouse in Washington, D.C., and $911 to cover dinner for three employees at a French restaurant in New York City.

...The audit found executives repeatedly violated both federal travel regulations and TVA's own policies.

KNS (paywall?)

It’s the latest development in an off-the-rails scandal roiling the state legislature involving intra-party feuds, racist texts, and a lawmaker’s office chair getting peed on.

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Yeah, your football team is worse than anyone could possibly imagine (unless you've been paying attention to the athletic department's stunning incompetence at everything except raising money and paying it to coaches who don't work there any more), but here is something really cool that UT did!

Tallahassee Elementary School teacher Laura Snyder says it was college colors week and the student wanted to represent his favorite team – Tennessee – but he didn’t have a Vols shirt, so he made one.

Snyder said the child was bullied for his homemade shirt so she posted the photo on social media in the hopes of getting him an official Vols shirt.

Not only did UT fans send him a bunch of official gear, the University itself made his design an official shirt with a portion of theproceeds going to an anti bullying campaign.

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The well funded right wing media are attacking Pope Francis, apparently for his Christian statements and creed...

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Wednesday it was an “honor” to be attacked by U.S. Church conservatives and their Catholic media allies, who have criticized him on issues from theology to climate change and even called for his resignation.

How far from our ideals has America fallen?

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This is excellent, reflecting my own thinking only with more evidence and clarity.

The problem with Gore wasn’t that he was a nerd with negative charisma points. The inconvenient truth is that Gore was always a serious grownup hoping to lead a nation trained to prefer childish fantasy. He preferred being truthful to being entertaining, and that was his downfall.

Read this!

Haslam wasn;t even the Governor when he was the Governor. You're thinking of Lt. Gov Ron Ramsey.

Gov. Bill Haslam announced that he would not vote for the Republican nominee. He'd stayed silent through a number of outrageous episodes, but Trump's boasting about how he could "grab 'em by the pussy" and get away with it was enough to get Tennessee's timid billionaire governor to denounce him. Haslam said Trump should step aside.

We all know what happened next, and we've seen the results unfolding for three years now.

And yet, Haslam had this to say to The Tennessean last week when asked about next year's presidential election.

"I'm going to vote for the Republican," Haslam said

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Warren adopts Inslee's climate plan as part of her 2020 platform
BY BRANDON CONRADIS

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Tuesday announced she's backing Washington Gov. Jay Inslee's climate plan as part of her platform in the 2020 presidential race, calling for the U.S. to achieve 100 percent clean energy within the next ten years.

"Today, I’m embracing that goal by committing to adopt and build on Governor Inslee’s ten-year action plan to achieve 100% clean energy for America by decarbonizing our electricity, our vehicles, and our buildings," Warren said in a Medium post Tuesday night. "And I’m challenging every other candidate for President to do the same."

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Climate science deniers convened at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., for the Heartland Institute's 13th International Conference on Climate Change.

Making the world safe for oil corporation profits I guess...

Read this from Facing South:

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More

It's more complicated that that, of course. Roof top solar tied to the grid is a huge environmental boon. TVA denied that. The Judge says "Go ahead with your lawsuit, environmentalists!" (Figuratively speaking)

U.S. District Court Judge Liles C. Burke on Monday denied a request from TVA to dismiss a lawsuit filed last September challenging TVA's adoption of a pricing schedule that raises the fixed fees to get TVA-generated power. A coalition of environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Alabama Center for Sustainable Energy, Friends of the Earth and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, charged that TVA's grid access charge and related cuts in solar purchase payments combined to discourage investments in solar energy systems, energy efficiency measures and other forms of distributed energy.

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Without a stable, high-speed Internet connection, it’s virtually impossible for a town to keep or recruit new businesses. Not having broadband at home creates a “homework gap” that makes it much harder for students to compete. For rural and low-income communities, lawmakers have prioritized increased funding for telemedicine as a way to lower health-care costs and reach isolated communities. But again, that isn’t an option without good Internet...

Enough is enough. As president, I would work to ensure every home in the United States has an affordable, broadband connection. I have a plan for a new public option for broadband Internet, carried out by a new Office of Broadband Access that would manage an $85 billion federal grant program. Only electricity and telephone cooperatives, nonprofit organizations, tribes, cities, counties and other state subdivisions would be eligible for grants.

Elizabeth Warren

Mr. Scarborough,

We wanted to give you a heads up that under the auspices of the Coal Combustion Residuals Remediation Program TVA will be starting to take applications for a new Kingston Citizen Action Group. The impetus for creating a new group came out of discussions at a Local Officials and Media Briefing/Site Tour that CEO Jeff Lyash and Joe Hoagland recently held at the Kingston Fossil Plant. Mr. Lyash has charged TVA to develop a robust and transparent community involvement process at each active and closed coal plant site...

And so on asking me to volunteer to be on the CAG (community action group) again. I'm pretty soured on TVA in it's current iteration. But hey, they want to be open and transparent. That's good right? So then why is this threatening message at the bottom of the email?

NOTICE: This electronic message transmission contains information that may be TVA SENSITIVE, TVA RESTRICTED, or TVA CONFIDENTIAL. Any misuse or unauthorized disclosure can result in both civil and criminal penalties. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the content of this information is prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify me immediately by email and delete the original message.

It's time to take legislative action to resolve TVA's untouchable status and return it to serving citizens instead of just corporations.

"What's the difference between Greenland and a Republican?

Greenland is not for sale!"

In other news...

David Koch, One of the biggest welfare cheats in America has died...

"For the United States, the $649 billion in fossil fuel subsidies exceeded even the extravagant amount of money the country spent on defense. To offer a sense of scale, Pentagon spending accounted for 54 percent of the discretionary federal budget in 2015. In comparison to another important, but less well-funded part of the federal budget, fossil fuel subsidies were nearly 10 times what Congress spent on education. Broken down to an individual level, fossil fuel subsidies cost every man, woman and child in the United States $2,028 that year."

Report on fossil fuel costs from the International Monetary Fund

The hits just keep on coming with these people.

Conservative commentator Steve Gill spent the night in jail in Williamson County after being arrested for not paying $170,000 in back child support.

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What's with Republicans and their under aged victims?

Rep. Cameron Sexton, the Republican nominee to be elected speaker during Friday’s special session, is asking state Attorney General Herbert Slatery about whether the chamber has the power to oust Rep. David Byrd over allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage basketball players when he was their coach in the 1980s.

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With voter suppression, gerrymandering and outside money, the GOP now rules. To bad they don't represent citizens, except for rich corporate ones.

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You need to read this:

The employee argued that, on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material. Banning politicians wouldn’t be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda, he argued.

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As we all know, it was for over a century known as the Grand Old Party, G.O.P. No one could in truth call the organization that now. It is certainly not Grand, and it is questionable that there is enough resemblance to the old party to legitimately call it the Old Party. No. In truth it is now nothing but a fanatical personal cheering squad, not unlike that of the Nazi and Fascist organizations of the 1920-1930s. One can close one’s eyes and almost hear the echoes of “sieg heil.”

Remember the German roots whence our own fuhrer sprang.

Gerald Largen writes the truth!

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