[Washington Examiner] Former special counsel Robert Mueller has declined an invitation to testify about the Russia investigation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Chairman Lindsey Graham.
"He says he doesn't have enough time," the South Carolina Republican said Wednesday evening on Fox News host Sean Hannity's show. Graham also announced that former FBI Director James Comey agreed to testify at the end of the month, declaring "the day of reckoning is upon us when it comes to Crossfire Hurricane."
Graham is leading a congressional investigation into Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the FBI's counterintelligence inquiry into ties between President Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, which was wrapped into Mueller's special counsel investigation in May 2017. He has been pushing to hear from a catalog of witnesses and secure still-secret documents in the run-up to the 2020 election, which is now less than two months away, and the longtime South Carolina lawmaker is in what polls indicate will be a tight race against Democratic candidate Jaime Harrison to keep his seat.
Democrats pushed the chairman over the summer to invite Mueller to testify about his report as Graham set his sights on dozens of other officials from the Obama and Trump administrations who were involved in the Russia investigation. Graham said he would agree to invite Mueller to testify in July after the former FBI director wrote an opinion article in the Washington Post arguing that Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Trump, "remains a convicted felon, and rightfully so." This was after Trump commuted Stone's sentence on seven felony crimes.
Hannity asked Graham on Wednesday if he would "accept" Mueller declining the invitation to testify given the disclosure last week of documents that show more than a dozen phones belonging to special counsel team members, including top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, were "wiped" for various reasons. The senator demurred, saying he wants to ask "the people who did the erasing" and that he'll press the Justice Department and its inspector general to look into the matter.
Mueller has not testified about his report since the summer of 2019, and even then, he only spoke to two House committees. His unsteady performance shocked onlookers, including Democrats. After finishing his investigation, Mueller, now 76, rejoined the law firm WilmerHale.
#2
Lindsey, you've got an election down here in SC in just under 7 weeks. We are tired of all the huffing and puffing; and only the terrifying prospect of a Democrat Senate makes us pull the lever for you. But a little more action would be nice.
Posted by: Tom ||
09/17/2020 11:04 Comments ||
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#3
Mueller is just a little more cogent than Joey Biden.
#7
Its spelled S U B P E O N A you Lindsey, wimpy swamp slave.
Posted by: Egon Gagarin4242 ||
09/17/2020 21:38 Comments ||
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#8
I hope he realizes that this is his last term. There will be a real opposition next primary. Nikki Haley if she's not running for president will get this seat.
Posted by: Egon Gagarin4242 ||
09/17/2020 21:39 Comments ||
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#9
The government is not run by the elected representatives. It's run by unaccountable bureaucratic appointees and life tenure judges.
As for anybody who wants to elect Nikki Haley to anything, you are no friend of America. Go sit down and think about it. And that's not coming from a Linzee supporter.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/17/2020 21:52 Comments ||
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[Just the News] A Treasury Department agency that polices financial threats such as money laundering flagged several foreign transactions to Hunter Biden-connected businesses as "suspicious" during the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration.
The concerns from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) were highlighted in Suspicious Activity Reports turned over to Senate committees over the last year in conjunction with investigations into the Russia and Ukraine scandals, according to several officials familiar with the evidence.
As those Senate investigations wind toward the issuance of their first official report later this month, an essential question has emerged: Did U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agencies do anything to determine if the money flowing to Vice President Joe Biden's son posed any criminal or intelligence threats? Officials at Treasury, FBI and the Office of Director of National Intelligence declined comment.
Senate Democrats first called attention to the existence of the SARs in a little-noticed letter late last year and are now bracing for the flagged financial transactions to be a major revelation in a joint report they expect to be published by the GOP-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Senate Finance Committees as early as next week.
OLYMPIA — When Gov. Jay Inslee traveled to Eastern and Central Washington to bring the state’s prayers, concern and comfort to victims of fire-ravaged communities last week, he also brought something else: Apple maggot larvae.
By bringing crates of apples from trees growing at the governor’s mansion, Inslee was violating state regulations about bringing homegrown fruit from an apple-maggot quarantine area — which includes Thurston County and many other west-side counties — into pest-free counties.
To control apple maggots, Washington is divided into quarantine zones, with large signs along the highways warning people not to transport homegrown fruit into pest-free areas. Spokane County and part of Lincoln County are quarantined, but most of the rest of Eastern and Central Washington, home to the nation’s largest apple-production areas, are pest-free.
"It was a nice gesture, but not well-thought-through," said Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake. "As the state’s executive, he should have followed the law to keep our state’s agriculture safe instead of putting it at risk. I think the stiffest penalties are in order."
Whitman County, where fire-ravaged Malden and Pine City are located, is a pest-free area. So are Douglas and Chelan counties, where Inslee traveled Saturday.
On both trips, Inslee brought residents apples from trees outside the mansion. A check of some apples brought to a nursing home in Omak showed they have apple maggot larvae, said Will Carpenter, Chelan-Douglas Horticultural Pest and Disease Board director. Those apples were thrown out.
Carpenter said he was alerted earlier this week when photos of the apples Inslee brought to Bridgeport began circulating on social media with questions about whether they were infested and whether they should have been brought from Thurston County.
Now local officials are trying to round up other apples Inslee brought that may have been distributed at a food giveaway in Bridgeport over the weekend, he said.
Inslee also brought a crate of apples to Malden on Thursday. Washington State Department of Agriculture officials are trying to collect the apples the governor brought to the fire zones.
That’s an unusual step, said Hector Castro, communications director for the department. Usually it would tell people who had the apples to throw them in covered trash.
"The governor is a state official, and here’s a case of a state official who made a faux pas," Castro said.
Fruit that has apple maggot larvae may have dimples on the outside; when cut open, there will be brown areas and pin holes, Carpenter said.
The larvae eventually grow into small white pupae that stay in the ground over winter and turn into a fly around June. A female fly can lay hundreds of eggs to start the cycle over again.
The state also restricts the movement of compost and some municipal waste between those areas to control apple maggots.
Bringing home-grown apples into a pest-free zone is a misdemeanor, but the state rarely cites anyone, Castro said.
"Our practice has always been to educate the person and advise them that there’s a quarantine in effect," he said.
That’s what they’ve done to the governor’s office, Castro said: "They are well aware now that there’s a quarantine."
Inslee’s office issued a statement from the governor in which he said he and his wife Trudi picked the apples and he brought them along as a way "to express comfort for the communities suffering from devastating fires."
He and his office told the department Inslee brought a bag of seven apples to an old family friend at the nursing home in Omak. He delivered a tray of apples to a church in Bridgeport, gave four apples to some utility workers he talked with and another four to the mayor there. He gave the Malden mayor a box of apples, but it’s not clear how many it contained.
"We regret this mistake. This is a good reminder of the importance of awareness around apple quarantine," Inslee said in the news release. "We appreciate the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s efforts to help recover these apples and we are assisting to help make that happen."
[WND] After it was exposed Monday, President Trump ordered the immediate cancellation of a "critical race theory" training program planned by the Centers for Disease Control that violated his executive order.
Christopher Rufo, the director of the Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth and Poverty in Seattle, obtained leaked documents that outlined the plan to have employees "examine the mechanisms of systemic racism" and address "White supremacist ideology."
The final session was to teach the CDC employee how to become activists, Rufo said in a thread Monday on Twitter.
On Tuesday, however, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, announced on Twitter that Trump ordered that the program be canceled "immediately."
Rufo said Tuesday on Twitter, nevertheless, that there must be "consequences for the federal employees who brazenly violated a presidential order."
"If there is no action from the CDC Director in the next 72 hours, I will begin releasing the names of those involved," Rufo warned.
The CDC program planned to encourage employees to join an "Anti-Racism Collaborative with eight Collective Action Teams" focused on "communications," making scientific publications "anti-racist" and influencing "policy and legislation."
In general terms, critical race theory is a post-modern theoretical framework rooted in Marxist principles that views individuals through the lens of oppressed or oppressor based largely on their skin color.
[Blaze] After the tragic death of George Floyd rocked the nation, the Minneapolis City Council — which is composed of nearly all Democrats — took the lead in the anti-police movement, voting to defund the city's police department. The council sought to replace traditional law enforcement with newer community-based, alternative forms of policing.
But as violent crime has plagued the city for months, the city council is now asking: "Where are the police?"
WHAT'S THE BACKGROUND?
As TheBlaze reported, the Minneapolis City Council passed a resolution in June to replace the city's police department with an alternative "community safety" model.
The development came days after the council promised anti-police residents that they would completely dismantle the city's policing system.
WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW?
During a two-hour meeting with Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo this week, the Democratic city council, in brazen fashion, demanded to know why city police are not responding to the violence with enhanced law enforcement measures.
From Minnesota Public Radio:
The number of reported violent crimes, like assaults, robberies and homicides are up compared to 2019, according to MPD crime data. More people have been killed in the city in the first nine months of 2020 than were slain in all of last year. Property crimes, like burglaries and auto thefts, are also up. Incidents of arson have increased 55 percent over the total at this point in 2019.
"Residents are asking, 'Where are the police?'" Councilman Jamal Osman said, MPR reported. "That is the only public safety option they have at the moment. MPD. They rely on MPD. And they are saying they are nowhere to be seen."
Council President Lisa Bender, one of the loudest anti-police voices just months ago, claimed police are being "defiant," according to MPR.
"This is not new," she claimed.
Meanwhile, Phillipe Cunningham chided his colleagues for looking to the police for solutions when they called for the department's abolition just a few months ago.
"What I am sort of flabbergasted by right now is colleagues, who a very short time ago were calling for abolition, are now suggesting we should be putting more resources and funding into MPD," Cunningham said.
HOW WAS THE RESPONSE?
Arradondo told the council that he actually has taken measures to combat the spike in crime.
Arradondo explained that more officers have been added to patrols, additional resources have been allocated for investigative duties, and he has reiterated the seriousness of the crime issue with top department brass.
However, the department is also hemorrhaging personnel, Arradondo explained. In fact, more than 100 officers have left the department this year alone, more than double the usual number. With fewer officers, law enforcement becomes much more difficult.
ANYTHING ELSE?
As TheBlaze reported, momentum driving the push to disband the Minneapolis police department has dissipated because, as the Minneapolis City Council has learned, highly emotional rhetoric does not translate into functional policy.
Unexpectedly.
"I think when you take a statement and then move into policy work, it gets more complicated," Bender told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
I’m sure the councilpersons’ phones are ringing off the hook with calls from angry citizens, their voicemails are overflowing with ditto, and their secretaries have no time to type up their memos because they are taking messages.
#7
Governor Le Petomane: Holy underware! Sheriff murdered! Innocent women and children blown to bits! We've got to protect our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen. We must do something about this, immediately, immediately, immediately!
#10
The Council has given the Minneaolis police notice that their jobs will be terminated quite soon. They are therefore quite busy looking for other positions, which is very important to them, and they cannot spare the time to waste on activities that the Council has declared to be worthless.
Posted by: daniel ||
09/17/2020 12:05 Comments ||
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#11
Proactive Policing - looking to stop crime through aggressive awareness and interventions.
Reactive Policing - looking for opportunities to write meticulous crime reports in a patrol unit or the station.
When you are clear that the greatest risk each tour is from your own department hanging you out to dry for any enforcement action that involves confronting a POC, what do you choose?
QED
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan condemned reports that Barr considered charges
She accused Trump of 'abuse of power' by turning DOJ into 'political weapon'
Durkan said Trump and Barr are 'willing to subvert the law for political purposes'
A US attorney from Washington State denied that Barr was considering charges
Brian T. Moran said that he would be aware of such an investigation if it existed
DOJ also considered criminal charges against officials in Portland, Oregon
Barr told federal district attorneys in a call last week that a law against plotting to overthrow the government was among charges they could use on protesters
[DAILYCALLER] A Senate committee voted along party lines on Wednesday to authorize depositions and subpoenas for 41 individuals as part of a review of the Trump-Russia investigation.
The vote authorizes Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, to subpoena Stefan Halper, a former University of Cambridge professor who served as a confidential source for the FBI during Crossfire Hurricane, the name of the Trump-Russia counterintelligence investigation.
The committee also approved issuing a subpoena for Steven Somma, an FBI counterintelligence investigator who served as Halper’s handling agent. A Justice Department inspector general’s report released on Dec. 9 faulted Somma for numerous errors during Crossfire Hurricane.
The Senate committee voted in June to issue subpoenas for 35 people on Johnson’s witness wish list, but Democrats raised a procedural issue that required a new vote on Wednesday. (RELATED: GOP Senator Seeks Subpoena For ’Spygate’ Professor)
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on HSAGC, voiced his opposition to the subpoenas ahead of the vote on Wednesday. He accused Johnson of leading a politically-motivated investigation aimed at helping President Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... .
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2020 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[4 views]
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#1
Is there a Jan Brady meme/gif with her saying this?
[DAILYWIRE] Westmoreland County Sheriff James Albert announced this week that he has changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican following months of violent mostly peaceful riots and attacks on law enforcement by leftists.
"It was a really difficult decision and I’ve thought long and hard about it, but I feel I stand for the ideals of the Republican Party platform more than the Democrats today," Albert said. "I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, but a conservative Democrat at that. I’m pro-life, a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, a lifetime member of the NRA and, today, I feel my ideals are closer to the Republican Party than Democrats."
Albert, 77, has worked for more than four decades in both law enforcement and as a judge.
TribLIVE.com said that Albert’s decision came after he watched months of news coverage showing "arson, mob rule and attacks against law enforcement."
"I was saddened and enraged by the murder of David Dorn, a 77-year-old African American retired police captain, who was shot by a pawn shop looter during a protest in St. Louis," Albert said. "These outrageous, lawless acts have been met with silence, acquiescence and, in some instances, outright support from the local, state and national leadership of the Democratic Party ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... A recent report found that there have been approximately 570 violent mostly peaceful riots in nearly 220 locations spread across the U.S.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2020 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
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[DAILYWIRE] County officials in New Jersey tallied more than 1,600 uncounted ballots from the state’s July primary after finding them in a bin last Thursday.
The votes were reportedly placed in a "mislabeled" bin in a "secure area" of the county election office, according to the New Jersey Herald. Sussex County Board of Elections Administrator Marge McCabe maintained that the 1,666 extra votes did not change the outcome of the July 7 primary race. "The Board of Elections is confident that all ballots received have been processed and the security of all the ballots has remained in place," she said.
The Trump campaign has been tussling in court with New Jersey since August over Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy’s executive order requiring that every active registered voter be sent a mail-in ballot. As Politico reported, the campaign argued that Murphy’s executive order bypassed the state legislature’s authority and that it "violates the U.S. Constitution’s Electors and Elections Clauses as well as the 14th Amendment."
“The Governor’s inconsistencies, coupled with the Order’s timing amid a nationwide push by the Democratic Party ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... for the same measures, reveal that the Order is less about protecting the health of New Jerseyans and more about protecting the electoral prospects of the Governor’s political party,” the lawsuit said.
#5
If Pelosi can get her hair done without a mask and Joe Biden can vote in person at his voting place and the NCAA has said athletes should get the day off to vote, then we don't need unsolicited mail-in ballots.
[BIZPACREVIEW] A retired U.S. Marine slammed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden ...Candidate for president in 2020. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier... for an "abhorrent" story he shared about a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Retired Marine Johnny "Joey" Jones told "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday that he was "personally offended" by the story Biden shared at a campaign stop in the battleground state of Florida where he spoke on veterans issues. The former vice president pressed for an end to the "stigma" around mental health treatment as he told the story in Tampa on Tuesday.
Jones questioned whether Biden’s story was even true "grounded in fact" as he reacted on Fox News Wednesday, adding that it was "the worst thing I’ve ever heard a presidential candidate say about men and women serving."
"There was a Marine veteran that had been deployed a total of six times," Biden recounted in his speech Tuesday.
"Dodge Ram started down the street in front of his house. .. [He] saw a woman walking her dog, ran over her, killed her, killed the dog, put her in the back of his pickup truck... molested her ... came home ... and called the state police and said, ’I just killed someone,’" he continued. I have a fairly severe case of PTSD. I don't feel any "stigma." When I sit in a public place I like to have my back against the wall so I can see people coming in. I react to loud noises and I hate crowds. I'm a crappier husband and father than I should be. There are certain odors what will zone me out -- I'll be in two places and times at once. I've never run over anyone with my pickup truck, never killed anyone's dog, never molested any corpses. Nor have I ever read a news story about anyone who had done all those things, and I try (see rantburg.com archives) to keep up with the news. I do get irritated at people who're "triggered" by some minor irritation. Try sitting through a few rocket or artillery attacks, or having holes shot in your plane, and you'll understand "triggered." Those who have done either or both will understand my point. "There was a voice in my head saying, ’I have to kill someone,’" Biden added, going on to say, "We have to end the stigma surrounding mental health treatment." There's a voice in my head shouting "bullshit!"
Jones, who lost both of his legs in an IED explosion while serving in Afghanistan, told "Fox & Friends" co-host Steve Doocy that Biden’s story "literally equates serving in war to becoming evil," and that it "undid 10 years of work in the military nonprofit mental health community of actually removing a stigma."
"These men and women may lose their will to live, but they don’t lose their soul," Jones continued. "They may hurt themselves, but they don’t go hurting others. It’s very rare, and for him [Biden] to tell that story just because he thought it had some shock value and somehow likened himself to this issue just shows how out of touch he is."
The Fox News contributor and retired USMC bomb technician suggested that the "worst part" was that the Democrat probably didn’t even "understand the point of his own story."
"He doesn’t understand the point he is trying to drive home," Jones said. "And so, I can guarantee you if that story is true, I put my life on it that man had other issues that were not connected to war and might not have even went to war." When I came back from Vietnam the fashionable set was "concerned" that every vet was a potential nut job. I suppose lots of us were, and maybe still are. But we're not murderous nut jobs. Joe, being of approximately my generation, watched too much TV in 1970.
In a post on his Twitter account, Jones contended that the story was more like "a HUGE outlier, not the norm for war-injured vets." I suspect the story lies outside the realm of truth. I think Joe's a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier.
Doocy asked about several other tweets that the veteran had posted in which he slammed Biden for his "disgusting display of inept pandering."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2020 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[3 views]
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#1
A case that might traumatize Freud:
"Still... frisky. Still swiftly annoyed.
Now claims to be cured,
Having finally... matured...
But... six times to the Senate deployed?!?"
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136 ||
09/17/2020 8:36 Comments ||
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#3
Par for the course for this mendacious asshole. For years he told a. A boldface lie about the truck driver whom his first wife absent mindedly drove into at an intersection, killing herself.
Lyin' Biden told audiences that this man was drunk and that he killed Biden's wife. A complete fabrication and a vile slander that traumatized an innocent citizen, destroying his reputation, and according to the man's daughtered, ruining his life and hastening his death.
Biden is a disgraceful shit. His lifelong tendency to make things up - as a cheating, incompetent failure as a law student, as a plagiaristic failed presidential candidate, as an absurd braggart about non-achievements while playing Lou Costello to Soetoro's Bud Abbott - has now reached rock bottom.
His only hope is that he can glide along thanks to the ruthless Roman-style maneuver that saved his boss: nominate a VP who's even more absurd and repulsive than you are.
Posted by: Caesar Shemp8566 ||
09/17/2020 8:39 Comments ||
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#4
But... six times to the Senate deployed?!?"
Brilliant, Zenobia F. This one you took a lapidary knife to, not just cutting away the dross to find the essence of the thing but creating an array of perfect facets.
#5
Thanks... Mom! Seriously, though, that made my day. Glad now I didn't edit it away as I probably would've if I hadn't been on this [snarl growl screech] godforsaken phone.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R., Ga.) said Wednesday that the WNBA is trying to "cancel" her for her stance against the league's promotion of the Black Lives Matter movement.
"Sports are about unifying people," she said after a campaign event in Woodstock, Ga. "People from all walks of life, from all political views, should be welcome in sports, and to cancel someone because they want to protect innocent life, because they're fighting for the unborn, because they support the Second Amendment. ... That should be a tenet of sports is to welcome all views."
Players balked after Loeffler, a co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, urged the league not to follow through on plans to display "Black Lives Matter" and "Say Her Name" slogans on jerseys or courts when league play resumes. In a letter to commissioner Cathy Engelbert, Loeffler said the Black Lives Matter political movement was antithetical to the league's values.
"E-N-O-U-G-H! O-U-T!" the WNBA players association tweeted out.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Washington Examiner] Former special counsel Robert Mueller has declined an invitation to testify about the Russia investigation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to Chairman Lindsey Graham.
[Just the News] A Treasury Department agency that polices financial threats such as money laundering flagged several foreign transactions to Hunter Biden-connected businesses as "suspicious" during the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration.
[Blaze] After the tragic death of George Floyd rocked the nation, the Minneapolis City Council — which is composed of nearly all Democrats — took the lead in the anti-police movement, voting to defund the city's police department. The council sought to replace traditional law enforcement with newer community-based, alternative forms of policing.
...Oh, noze! Not him!...
...every time you hear the phrase 
...Candidate for president in 2020. 
"There was a voice in my head saying, ’I have to kill someone,’" Biden added, going on to say, "We have to end the stigma surrounding mental health treatment."
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R., Ga.) said Wednesday that the WNBA is trying to "cancel" her for her stance against the league's promotion of the Black Lives Matter movement.
