Keep an eye on this. Sure hope Wilbur Ross didn’t lie to Congress about coordinating or getting his department’s plan to rig the 2020 Census to disenfranchise blue state and district voters from a couple white nationalists.
In a few months we may have access to the President’s tax returns, which will likely shed a great deal of light on his foreign policy decisions.
With news that gubernatorial candidate and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp is currently blocking 53,000 predominantly African-American voters from voting in this election, Cam Joseph’s report on this critical and historic showdown over voting rights is even more of a must-read.
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Is this the story? There is a lot that is hard to figure about the apparent killing of Jamal Khashoggi. But one of the biggest for me is, why? He was a critic and a dissident. But he actually didn’t oppose the regime itself. He wasn’t calling for a change of government. He even supported a number of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s initiatives. Consolidating autocrats don’t like critics, period. But still it doesn’t quite fit. If Khashoggi died as described, it was an incredibly high stakes and visible move to silence someone who just doesn’t seem to have been that much of a threat. Read More
The Post is reporting that Turkish officials have told their U.S. counterparts that they have audio and video recordings that prove Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. It appears that the claimed video evidence is more circumstantial. The audio evidence would appear to be from listening devices either within or targeting the compound. According to the Post, the tapes the Turks claim to have essentially have the audio of Khashoggi being interrogated, tortured and then finally killed.
As the Post describes it, the Turks are extremely leery of sharing the evidence. And it’s not clear they’ve shared it with the U.S., as opposed to describe it to their U.S. counterparts. It’s a dicey situation. They clearly don’t want to out themselves or at least out the ways they bug diplomatic compounds.
B’Finghold The official White House transcript of the Trump/Kanye meeting today in the Oval Office. After the jump. Read More
President Trump is extremely opposed to sanctions against Saudi Arabia …
Trump really, really, really doesn't like the idea of sanctions against Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/My1uFoTAJI
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 11, 2018
Last night I reported this incident in which a campaign staffer with the campaign of Mike Siegel was arrested after delivering a letter about an on-going voting rights controversy to the County Judge’s office. I was able to speak to a representative of the Waller County Sheriff’s office who gave me their version of events. Read More