Donald Trump and the media have had a rocky relationship for months. Much to everyone’s delight the media has done their part to report about the dumpster fire Trump campaign. Reporters gleefully dug up the fact that Trump tossed Corey Lewandowski for Paul Manafort, and that Manafort suspiciously worked pro-bono for the Trump Campaign. In April we learned about Paul Manafort was a partner in a consulting firm that tried to improve the image of some of the most repulsive authoritarian rulers on the planet, the most recent addition to Manafort’s portfolio of tyrants being disgraced former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.

Wild speculation that members of Trump’s campaign staff could possibly be on the Kremlin payroll gave us the story that a week before the Republican National Convention, Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page spent time in Russia. When he returned, the Trump campaign insisted the Republican Party Platform change their stance on Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine, including the illegal annexation of Crimea.

When Wikileaks released DNC emails the day before the Democratic National Convention, and smug libertarian rapist Julian Assange gloated over the fact the DNC email servers were compromised by Russian hackers, it became obvious to anyone paying attention that the Kremlin had a stake in who won the White House in November. A week later, when Trump begged Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 emails, the people who were paying attention became alarmed and disgusted with Donald Trump.

As Republicans refused to endorse Trump, and some said they wouldn’t vote for him in November, Trump continued his diatribe against the press. The Washington Post, CNN and the New York Times among many others have all been the subject of Trump’s haiku-like tweets accusing them of lying, making things up, and threatening to pull their credentials to his campaign. Then Trump rally attendees also vented at the press to show their support for Trump.

Here’s the funny thing about the media: If you insist on smacking at that hornet’s nest with a stick, the hornets will eventually come after you. People Magazine jumped into the swarm with their story about Ivanka Trump taking a break from her dad’s campaign, and raising her four month old baby to take a holiday in Croatia with Putin’s girlfriend, Wendi Deng Murdoch. This doesn’t look the least bit suspicious at all, right? Ivanka and Wendi have actually known each other for years, and it was Wendi that introduced Ivanka to her husband. It should also be shared that Wendi Deng Murdoch emphatically denies she’s in a relationship with the Russian president. As if that matters at this point, right? This is the 2016 election, and nothing matters.

And if that wasn’t crazy enough to end the week, Late Sunday night on August 14, Corey Lewandowski got the jump on everyone and tweeted this New York Times article about Paul Manafort, the guy who took his job on the Trump Campaign, still secretly working for Yanukovych after all these years and being paid millions to do it.


Euromaidan has been over for a couple of years, but the investigation into the corruption of the Yanukovych administration is ongoing. If it’s true Manafort was secretly paid millions to continue his work in Ukraine aiding pro-Russian politicians to regain power, what are the chances he’s working for the Kremlin to get Trump elected? Why would Manafort maintain an office in Kyiv when his client left the country over two years ago?
Manafort released a statement early Monday morning denying all of the allegations against him. In the election year where literally nothing matters, it may take more for this story to really pick up steam. Adam Weinstein tweeted that it will.


It will be fun to watch and see which news source beats the others to report more on Trump’s Kremlin connections.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to whinge about the media being unfair and lacking facts (meaning only publishing articles that make him look good) and has a “Mainstream Media Accountability” survey on his campaign website.

 

We know how you feel, kitty.


A wildfire burning since June on Poverty Island is sixty percent contained according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The fire started by lightning strike on June 26, 2016 and so far burned around 127 acres. Fire fighting efforts focused on saving a historic lighthouse.

By using controlled burns to remove vegetation, fire fighters from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service have contained enough of the fire on the island to save the lighthouse and two other structures. There are no other buildings on the island.

Recent rain will also help with controlling the fire. High winds could push smoke far enough where it may be viewed from a distance. The fire is being monitored from the air, and will likely be completely contained once rain and winter snow help put out the fire.

Poverty island is located in northern Lake Michigan, on the southern tip of Garden Peninsula.

What could possibly happen today?

There are mornings Up North Progressive kicks themselves in the butt for sleeping in.

In the wee hours of the morning, while the dream fog of Clinton leading Trump by 10 points in the polls faded with the morning light, there stirred a disturbance in the political aether that no one saw coming.

Wait, is this for real?

Anti-Trump Republican Launching Independent Presidential Bid

Evan McMullin would make for an unlikely presidential candidate. He has never held elective office before and has spent most of his career as a CIA officer … McMullin has virtually no public profile. He doesn’t appear regularly on television, and has just 135 followers on Twitter. His most high-profile recent appearance seems to have been a TEDx talk about genocide he gave at London Business School in April.

It is real. He even has a campaign logo and he’s jumped from 135 twitter followers to 5,806.

Here is McMullin’s Tedx talk. Make sure if you decide to watch this there are no hard surfaces with sharp points to hit your head on when you pass out from boredom.

Nobody knows who he is, but he knows who Donald Trump is. His twitter account is full of searing criticism.

So far all of McMullin’s commentary on the presidential election are critical of Donald Trump, which would be typical in a primary election, but general elections are about convincing voters to vote for you, not the other party’s candidate.

Evan McMullin has this to say on his late start in the presidential race:

Standing up to run for president because it’s never too late to do the right thing.

What Evan McMullin should know however is in 27 states it is too late to be on the ballot to run for president, and this coming Friday that number will jump to 35. Will he last the week before realizing no one is taking him seriously? For now he’s trending on twitter, and the media is digging into his past to find out all they can about him.

And you thought the highlight for today was going to be Trump’s economic policy speech in Detroit.

John Boehner seems to think so. The former Speaker who had an epiphany when the Pope visited and resigned from the House was photographed enjoying a glass of wine with a twist of Cercei Lannister smirk as he watched the whole thing burn.

The crowning moment of the August 2nd primary election in Kansas came at 8:52 PM CDT, when Tim Huelscamp staffers herded the press out of campaign headquarters promising a statement soon. Huelscamp lost his primary bid to Roger Marshall in a landslide after spending six years in Washington DC proving no one could out-tea bag him. His behavior was so repugnant he lost his seat on the House Committee on Agriculture in 2012, a seat held by a Kansas House member for 100 years.

Huelscamp had plenty of company Tuesday night, as Kansas voters fed up with conservative Republican tax cuts for the rich shenanigans removed 11 incumbent legislators from state government. The Kansas Primary was a vote of no-confidence on Governor Brownback’s supply side economic policies, which after six years has turned the state into a third world black hole in the center of U.S. flyover territory.

Since 2011 when several states found themselves strapped with fiscally conservative Republican governors, it felt like a race to the bottom to see which governor could destroy the economy of their state the fastest. Brownback has yet to poison a city of 100,000 people with lead just to save a buck, but his experiment to create the Utopia the Witchita-based Koch Brothers always dreamed of succeeded in doing exactly what Reaganomics could only do – make a state realize Reaganomics only works if everyone is already a billionaire, and likely not even then.

The people of Kansas have come to appreciate having things like roads and schools and politicians who support farmers in a state where farming is the backbone of the economy, and that maybe making rich people help pay for those things wouldn’t be a bad idea. The wave of moderate Republicans running for office in Kansas could be what’s needed to banish Brownbackistan from America for good. Hopefully, Kansas is a wake up call for the rest of us to realize tea party-fueled radical conservative terrorism needs to be eradicated from local, state and national government as soon as possible.

Good job, Kansas voters. On to November.

Polls are open from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM today. You can find a copy of your ballot at the Michigan Voter Information Center.

Listening to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump insult a gold star family, call Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton the devil and allege she will rig the election in November (And it’s only August 1st!), has emboldened Trump supporters in Northern Michigan to vandalize Democratic Party signs in Lake and Emmet Counties.

In Emmet County, an Adopt-A-Highway sign was vandalized with a Trump campaign bumper sticker. The two-mile segment of highway on US 31 in Oden is maintained by the Emmet County Democratic Committee. In Lake County on Old M 63 the Lake County Democratic Party billboard east of Luther was also vandalized by Trump Supporters. A campaign sign for one of the Lake County Sheriff primary candidates was also spray painted with TRUMP in black spray paint.

People who do this don’t have their candidates’ best interests in mind. It never convinces anyone to change parties or the candidates they will vote for, and often convinces on the fence independent voters to support candidates for the party that suffered the vandalism. Usually people from both parties see something like this and consider the people responsible to have poor judgment and questionable intelligence. The only people who think it’s funny are the ignorant people who committed the criminal act.

The Lake County Democratic Party billboard is hand-painted. The Adopt-A-Highway sign in Oden is owned by the state of Michigan.

It is one thing to support a candidate running for election, but defacing the sign of an opposing party is not. It’s also illegal.

In November a candidate with real vision to make lives better for all residents living in the 100th state house district will be elected to Michigan’s State Legislature. That candidate is Sandy Clarke.

Sandy Clarke of Webber Township in Lake County is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at West Shore Community College. Clarke earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and History from Wilberforce University in Ohio, and her post-graduate degree at Antioch University. Previously, she served Lake County as a County Commissioner from 2010 to 2014. She is a board member of The Baldwin Promise, and author of the book, Not Working Is Not An Option

Sandy Clarke’s priorities for Lake, Newaygo and Oceana Counties center on education, agribusiness, and economic development. In education, she wants to extend programs like the Baldwin Promise to Public Schools in all of the 100th state house district. Clarke stresses the importance of expanding STEM fields education, and would create an office of student loan ombudsman to provide funding for higher education.

To support economic development in the 100th state house district, Clarke wants to expand public transportation to Newaygo and Oceana Counties, bring broadband internet to the entire district, provide better services, housing and care for the district’s veterans, disabled and elderly. To find out more about Sandy Clarke you can contact her by email at sclarke443@gmail.com

The deadline to register to vote is October 11. Show your support for Sandy Clarke and all of the Democratic Party candidates by voting on November 8, 2016.