Category: News

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Trump Ordered To Turn 8 Years Of Tax Returns Over To Manhattan DA

Donald Trump ordered to turn over 8 years of tax returns to Manhattan DA Donald Trump is that much closer to losing control of his tax filings after years of stonewalling against the presidential norm of disclosing them to the public. A federal judge on Monday rejected Trump’s argument that sitting presidents are immune from criminal investigations, and ordered Trump to turn over eight years of personal and corporate tax returns to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The NYT reports:

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has been investigating whether any New York State laws were broken when Mr. Trump and his company reimbursed the president’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for payments he made in the run-up to the 2016 election to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, who had said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. 

In a 75-page ruling, Judge Marrero called the president’s argument “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.” Presidents, their families, and businesses are not above the law, the judge wrote.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers sued last month to block the subpoena, arguing that the Constitution effectively makes sitting presidents immune from all criminal inquiries until they leave the White House.

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Comedian Rip Taylor Passes Away At 84

Rip Taylor, king of confetti and comedy, died at age 84

Rip Taylor, king of confetti and comedy, died at age 84 Rip Taylor, the over-the-top “King of Camp and Confetti” comedian passed away Sunday in Beverly Hills at the age of 84. Variety reports:

Taylor, whose high-energy personality and confetti-throwing antics quickly made him a mainstay on television, made appearances on everything from sitcoms to talk shows, including “The Gong Show,” “Password,” “The Merv Griffin Show,” “The Mike Douglas Show,” “The Tonight Show,” “Late Night with David Letterman” in addition to a hosting stint for “The $1.98 Beauty Show” — a parody of beauty contests whose big prize was a bouquet of rotten vegetables.

Taylor saw even more success outside of game shows and late-night TV, headlining Las Vegas’ The Flamingo Hotel’s Rockettes Extravaganza — where he won Entertainer of the Year three consecutive times — and touring the country in lead roles for productions such as “Sugar Babies,” “Anything Goes, Oliver,” “Peter Pan” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

Taylor also made appearances in several popular spoof films including “Reposessed,” with Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen, and “The Silence of the Hams” in addition to other appearances in “The Monkees” and “The Bradys.”

Taylor is survived by his longtime partner, Robert Fortney.

“He didn’t have an easy childhood,” publicist Harlan Boll posted on Facebook about his longtime client. “Abused and bullied, he said he discovered early, that they weren’t hitting you if they were laughing.”

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Trump Approval Rating Drops Amid Impeachment Inquiry

From CNN:

A new Gallup poll out this week finds that President Donald Trump’s approval rating is 40%. His disapproval rating is 56%.

Trump is in worse shape than he was in early September when Gallup put his approval rating at 43% and his disapproval rating at 54%.

Throughout the Trump administration, Democrats were arguing among themselves over whether to impeach or, at minimum, start an impeachment inquiry against the President. One of the political arguments against it was that it would cause an electoral backlash — that is, trying to impeach Trump would allow his consistently low approval ratings to rise.

So far, that hasn’t happened. Trump, at this point, has not improved his position following the impeachment inquiry. If anything, his numbers have dipped.

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Support For Impeaching Trump Higher Than Nixon Or Clinton At Same Point

Donald Trump (screen capture)
Axios notes that support for the impeachment of Donald Trump is higher than when impeachment inquiries were launched against Richard Nixon (38%) and Bill Clinton (29%). From Axios:

Support for impeachment of Trump is still less than half the country — 44% in the Monmouth University poll shown here; 47% in a CNN poll. And the polling reflects a 50-50 country. But the Ukraine scandal is pushing the numbers up.

Per CNN: “The change since May has largely come among independents and Republicans. … Support for impeachment and removal has risen 11 points to 46% among independents and 8 points to 14% among Republicans.”

Keep in mind: A majority of the public didn’t support impeaching Nixon until a few weeks before he resigned.

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Raising $$$ For Cancer Research & Wellness Programs

Olivia Newton-John leads the 2019 Wellness Walk & Research Run to raise funds for programs at her hospital in Melbourne, Australia

I’m so proud of my husband, Michael Caprio, for raising over $25,000 at today’s Wellness Walk & Research Run for important wellness programs at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Center in Melbourne, Australia. We lost Michael’s mother earlier this year to leukemia, and ten years ago we faced my own cancer journey when I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma (I’m great now). In addition to her countless awards and accolades for her music and film work, Olivia’s lasting legacy will be this Center she has not only lent her name to but helped build from day one. If cancer has touched you or someone you love, please consider donating to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Center by heading to https://www.onjcancercentre.org

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Trump Makes His 235th Visit To Trump Golf Course

Fifty-four percent of Americans believe Donald Trump should be impeached

Donald Trump begins his Saturday with his 235th visit to a Trump golf course and his 308th day at a Trump property. In doing so, his golf club makes money charging the government for secret service and more. Trump’s golf habit has so far cost the American taxpayers an approximate $109,000,000. Note: Barack Obama played golf a total of 306 times over 8 years, during which Donald Trump was extremely critical that Obama should ‘get off the golf course and attend to the people’s business.’

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Burger King Apologizes After Employee Refused To Read Ingredients To Blind Customer

Oh, FFS… whatever happened to decency? From Insider.com:

Burger King has issued an apology to a blind customer after staff refused to tell her the ingredients of a brownie out loud.

After Hall told the staff about her nut allergy, she said, they claimed “company policy” meant she had to read the menu herself.

“I was shocked,” Hall told BBC. “Had I eaten it and it had nuts in, I would’ve had a major asthma attack and ended up in a hospital. In today’s day and age, you’d think they would want to read it and get it right.”

Burger King has since said there was no such policy and the company is “looking into this matter further,” as reported by BBC. The incident occurred at the fast-food chain’s Folkestone branch, located in Kent, a south-eastern county in England.

  (photo: Burger King by JeepersMedia is licensed under CC BY 2.0)

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Trump Attacks Mitt ‘Pompous Ass’ Romney For Criticizing ‘Perfect’ Ukraine Call

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), one of the few Senate Republicans to openly question Donald Trump’s motivations for asking foreign governments to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, criticized the Donald on Twitter Friday.

You knew this was coming, didn’t you? The Donald took to the Twitters calling for ROMNEY’s impeachment! How about that???

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2nd Intel Official Considering Whistleblower Complaint On Trump Corruption

Trump walks past reporters with no comment

And another shoe is just about to drop… From the New York Times:

A second intelligence official who was alarmed by President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine is weighing whether to file his own formal whistle-blower complaint and testify to Congress, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The official has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Mr. Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry. The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistle-blower, one of the people said.

A new complaint, particularly from someone closer to the events, would potentially add further credibility to the account of the first whistle-blower, a C.I.A. officer who was detailed to the National Security Council at one point. He said that he relied on information from more than half a dozen American officials to compile his allegations about Mr. Trump’s campaign to solicit foreign election interference that could benefit him politically.

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News Round-Up: October 4, 2019

Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Woofy Gus Kenworthy (above) chilling with his adorbs dog, Birdie. Although, scrumptious as Gus is, nothing could get me to drink Coors Light beer 🙁 • Equality Florida: A federal trial court struck down Tampa’s protections against conversion therapy for minors. Plaintiffs and the extremist, far-right Liberty Counsel brought the Vazzo v. City of Tampa lawsuit seeking to subject minors to the widely discredited and dangerous practice of conversion therapy. • KIT212: Kenneth runs down the list of what’s going on in the nation’s gay magazines. • Twitter: Two servings of Kenworthy today! Check out the Olympic silver medalist as he plays a game of chase with Birdie. Now – how do I get Gus to chase ME like that?

• France 24: A Russian court has ruled that two popular LGBT networking sites be blocked for disseminating “anti-family values”, including a major online group with nearly 200,000 members. • New Music: Popstar Mika drops his first album in five years today, My Name Is Michael Holbrook, as well as the provocative music video for his latest single, “Sanremo.” Set in the 1950s, the video represents “an era when homosexuality if not illegal was socially unacceptable, a time of discrimination and persecution.” Says the video’s director, Wiz, “’San Remo’ represents his utopian dream, a fictional place of liberation and transcendence.”