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Ex-Con and US Senate Candidate Don Blankenship Now Threatening to Run for President

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Don Blankenship served just a year in prison for conspiracy after 29 people died in one of his coal mines. Now he’s running to become the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in West Virginia. If he wins today’s GOP primary he’ll face Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, the state’s former governor.

Blankenship is under fire for a horrific campaign. Racism is its most recent feature, stemming from an ad in which he uses the terms “China people,” and “Cocaine Mitch,” and insists it’s not racist by using the word “Negro.”

A multi-millionaire, Blankenship has spent over a million dollars of his own money to fund his campaign.

According to reports, if he doesn’t win the GOP nomination, he may run as an independent. He can certainly afford to. But recent internal polls show that may not happen – Blankenship is currently leading in the three-way race for the nomination.

Blankenship is calling himself “Trumpier than Trump.” Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Meanwhile, it appears the 68-year old may not be satisfied with winning – or losing – a U.S. Senate seat.

In a just-published profile from The New Yorker, Carolyn Kormann discusses her interaction with Blankenship after attending a rally for supporters last week at a local West Virginia restaurant

After the town hall ended, Blankenship left Macado’s alone. I had more questions and said I’d follow him out. “In another situation, that wouldn’t be a bad thing,” he said, holding the door for me. “But I don’t think that’s what you had in mind.”

That certainly sounds creepy – not to mention he’s engaged to be married.

We stepped into the parking lot. “You’re not allowed to see my car,” he said. “It’s got Nevada plates.” (Blankenship’s opponents have criticized him for spending most of his time at his home in Las Vegas, where his fiancée lives.) As he looked for his keys, he began telling me about how he used to travel around the country with his son, who competes professionally in rally-car races. “I can’t drive across state lines,” he said. “Until Wednesday!” The day after the primary, his year-long probation will end.

Suddenly, Blankenship turned to me and said, “Are you a bad person?” I try not to be, I replied. “Well, most reporters are bad people,” he said. “But maybe they don’t know it.” We exchanged business cards. He told me to hold on to his for when he’s President. “If Trump gets in my way, I’ll just run against him,” he said.

Yes, the racist convicted criminal who’s supposedly “Trumpier than Trump” is now threatening to run for president – against Trump.

Image by Rainforest Action Network via Flickr and a CC license

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Josh Duggar to Remain Jailed After Being Indicted on Federal Child Porn Charges: Reports

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3 years ago

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April 30, 2021

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Former reality TV star Josh Duggar will remain in jail for now after he was indicted Friday morning in Arkansas on federal child porn charges, according to multiple local reporters, by the U.S. Dept. of Justice.

A statement from the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas says Duggar “allegedly used the Internet to download child sex abuse material. Duggar allegedly possessed this material, some of which depicts the sexual abuse of children under the age of 12, in May 2019.”

“Duggar will remain in custody,” a KNWA report adds, “until a May 5th detention hearing. One stipulation Judge Wiedermann requested is for Duggar to have a third-party custodian should he be released on bond. Also, the residence where he would stay must be devoid of minor children.”

ABC News’ Luke Barr:

KNWA’s Garrett Fergeson:

This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. 

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City Commissioner Calls the Old, Sick, and Homeless Drains on Society that Coronavirus Should Kill

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4 years ago

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May 9, 2020

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Ken Turnage II, YouTube screenshot

Earlier this month, the five-member City Council of Antioch, California voted to remove Ken Turnage II from his role as chairman of the city planning commission after Turnage published a Facebook post saying, “the elderly, the homeless and people with weak immune systems as a drain on society who should be left to perish as COVID-19 sweeps through Contra Costa County,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

The publication describes Tunage’s Facebook post:

“If we were to live our lives, let nature run its course, yes we will all feel hardship, we will all feel loss,” he wrote on Facebook. But “as a species,” he continued, the deaths would alleviate strain on the country’s healthcare and Social Security systems and free up jobs and housing.

As for “our homeless and other people who just defile themselves by either choice or mental issues,” Turnage wrote, the virus would “fix what is a significant burden on our society.”

Although Turnage said his personal views don’t affect his municipal duties, one constituent asked how he could be expected to responsibly shape his city after describing homeless people as a “significant burden” that a deadly virus could “fix.”

He says he has since received at least 1,500 phone calls, message requests, and calls to his business since publishing his comments. He claims he has also received lots of anonymous hate mail and death threats.

In a video explaining his comments, he said he only intended his post “to start debate and conversation about the epidemic.”

Although he didn’t specifically mention Nazis as a group, he said comparing him to one or to a eugenicist is inaccurate because Nazis actively killed groups of people whereas he simply said to “Let nature take its course.” He added that he didn’t pick the people this epidemic most affects and also said he’s not a Trump supporter.

In his video, he said:

“When I put this out there, that was what my goal was: was to start debate and conversation about the pandemic that’s going on…. I even put at the top, ‘If you can’t handle an alternate opinion, don’t read it.’

Well, I guess some people didn’t understand that and read it anyways and allowed themselves to be offended by what I said. Yes, I do understand some of the analogies I made could’ve been done differently…. And for that, I wish I would have done something different, but I didn’t.

Reality does not fit our moral compass… and sometimes it makes us uncomfortable, even other people’s opinions…. You and I both have the constitutional right to an opinion. Doesn’t matter if people like it…. I really wish people that were sensitive and needed their safe space would have stayed away from my space.”

He added that he had no decision to take legal action against the city and claims that the city of Antioch has been financially mismanaged for many years.

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‘Caught Red Handed’: Pompeo Thought He Was Acting Tough by Releasing Letter Attacking House Dems – It Hasn’t Gone Well

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5 years ago

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October 1, 2019

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“You are co-conspirator & a traitor to the country. You will resign or be impeached within months.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is under fire after responding to a letter from the House Foreign Affairs Committee requesting State Dept. officials sit for depositions as they build an impeachment case against his boss, President Donald Trump.

Pompeo, currently in Italy with former Trump White House official, conspiracy theorist (and alleged neo-Nazi) Sebastian Gorka, working to subvert more than a dozen CIA and FBI investigations into President Trump, decided strong-arm the Democrats. Attorney General Bill Barr was there last week on the same mission, and it was not his first time doing so.

The Secretary, despite having no legal standing or basis to do so, banned his officials from being deposed. And he falsely accused Democrats of trying to “intimidate” and “bully” State Dept. officials.

(It’s important to note that Pompeo was among the Republican Congressmen who forced Hillary Clinton to testify before Congress for over 11 hours for their the conspiracy theory-laden Benghazi investigation.)

As The Washington Post reports Tuesday, Pompeo and Barr “are increasingly implicated in the impeachment inquiry.”

Pompeo tweeted out his two-page letter, and was immediately mocked, ridiculed, and berated.

Among those who decided they were not going to take Pompeo’s smug authoritarianism and bullying lying down were Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), who rightly told the Secretary of State he’s been caught “red handed.”

Others:

 

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