Illinois Democrat Introduces "COVFEFE Act"

The meaning of the term Covfefe has finally been revealed, at least as interpreted by Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley who moments ago introduced the "COVFEFE" Act, also known as the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement. The bill introduced by the Illinois Democrat seeks to amend the Presidential Records Act to include the term "social media" as a documentary material for preservation in the National Archives, "ensuring additional preservation of presidential communication and statements while promoting government accountability and transparency."

The bill takes it its name from the "gibberish term" which Trump tweeted late one night at the end of May, which stayed on his feed for nearly 6 hours before being deleted. Most people took the tweet to be a typo, although Press Secretary Sean Spicer told the media that the term was used intentionally.

"In order to maintain public trust in government, elected officials must answer for what they do and say; this includes 140-character tweets," said Rep. Quigley. "President Trump"s frequent, unfiltered use of his personal Twitter account as a means of official communication is unprecedented. If the President is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference. Tweets are powerful, and the President must be held accountable for every post."

Quigley continued: "President Trump"s tweets frequently make national news and are a topic of everyday conversation, including deciphering the meaning behind his tweet using the previously unheard of term, "covfefe." While his personal account has become the de facto account for government business, it is unclear as to whether or not it would be archived in the same manner as the official @POTUS account under the Presidential Records Act. Another concern relates to President Trump"s frequent deletion of tweets. Including social media in the Presidential Records Act ensures that deleted tweets are documented for archival purposes, and makes deleting tweets a violation of the Presidential Records Act, subject to disciplinary action."

As the Hill adds, in January National Archives spokesperson Miriam Kleiman told the AP that Social Media posts would qualify as presidential records, but that statement is not explicitly spelled out in the law.

The White House, Trump surrogates and GOP congressmen have issued differing opinions on how seriously the president"s tweets should be taken. But the White House recently clarified that social media should be taken as official communication from the president

Last week, Spicer confirmed they should be taken as official presidential statements. 

"The president is president of the United States so they are considered official statements by the president of the United States,” he said

Incidentally, Quigley has a thing for acronyms: previously he introduced "The Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness" aka MAR-A-LAGO Act, which would force the president to make his records public. At least we now know how House representatives spend their time when not doing anything... like the past 8 years for example.

Finally, here is a suggestion for Rep. Quigley: come up with a witty acronym for a Bill that authorizes the upcoming bailout of his home state, which in less than three weeks is about to be downgraded to junk by the rating agencies, a first in US history.

Full Quigley press release below:

Quigley Introduces the COVFEFE Act

Legislation Expands Presidential Records Act Preservation to Include Social Media

WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (IL-05), co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, introduced the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement or "COVFEFE" Act. This bill codifies vital guidance from the National Archives by amending the Presidential Records Act to include the term "social media" as a documentary material, ensuring additional preservation of presidential communication and statements while promoting government accountability and transparency.

"In order to maintain public trust in government, elected officials must answer for what they do and say; this includes 140-character tweets," said Rep. Quigley. "President Trump"s frequent, unfiltered use of his personal Twitter account as a means of official communication is unprecedented. If the President is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference. Tweets are powerful, and the President must be held accountable for every post."

In 2014, the National Archives released guidance stating its belief that social media merits historical recording. President Trump"s unprecedented use of Twitter calls particular attention to this concern. When referencing the use of social media, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has said, "The president is president of the United States so they are considered official statements by the president of the United States."

President Trump"s tweets frequently make national news and are a topic of everyday conversation, including deciphering the meaning behind his tweet using the previously unheard of term, "covfefe." While his personal account has become the de facto account for government business, it is unclear as to whether or not it would be archived in the same manner as the official @POTUS account under the Presidential Records Act. Another concern relates to President Trump"s frequent deletion of tweets. Including social media in the Presidential Records Act ensures that deleted tweets are documented for archival purposes, and makes deleting tweets a violation of the Presidential Records Act, subject to disciplinary action.

In Congress, Rep. Quigley is working to combat the Trump Administration"s recent efforts to roll back transparency. In March, he introduced the Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness (MAR-A-LAGO) Act, a bill that requires the publication of visitor logs to the White House or any other location where President Trump regularly conducts official business, including various Trump Organization properties frequented by the president. Last month, he questioned the Acting Administrator for the General Services Administration (GSA) about the Trump International Hotel lease and possible conflicts of interest.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Has "Covfefe" Moment (Or Did She?)

Just a week after President Trump"s "mysterious" late-night tweet of codeword "covfefe", it appears Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has also sent an "accidental" tweet message to the world...

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? :/9//&?????????????
#????lolaklkk??????????????????????????????

— Sarah H. Sanders (@SHSanders45) June 10, 2017

What does it all mean? Should there be a hearing to investigate?

However, while conspiracy theorists across the web are desperately diving the hidden message within Sanders tweet - a clear signal to Putin that all is well in The White House - the deputy press secretary has a less sinister explanation...

This is what happens when your 3 year old steals your phone. Thanks Huck! #neverleaveyourphoneunlocked https://t.co/qFD8zRpn8g

— Sarah H. Sanders (@SHSanders45) June 10, 2017

But then again, how do we know if her 3-year child is not a puppet of Putin too?

5 Things You’re Missing While the Internet Obsesses over ‘Covfefe’ and Kathy Griffin

(ANTIMEDIA Op-Ed) Between last week’s bombing in Manchester, the patriotic three-day weekend in the United States, comedian Kathy Griffin’s mock beheading of President Trump on Tuesday, and the president’s recent ‘covfefe’ tweet, the media and public have been busy.

But as the mainstream media and left-wing faction of the country obsess over what covfefe means, and right-wing snowflakes clutch their pearls at Griffin’s politically incorrect, if not ill-advised and distasteful stunt, stories that actually affect the American people are falling through the cracks.

This is not to say the corporate media apparatus has not covered any of the stories we’re about to detail. It is to say that they’ve misplaced their outrage and focus on superficial, topical stories that do little to speak truth to power and expose the machinations of openly corrupt ruling institutions.

Here are five ongoing stories that should have received the same feeding frenzy as covfefe and Kathy Griffin — but didn’t and probably won’t:

1. Human Rights Watch issues urgent warning over a new “Back the Blue” law in Congress — Last week, the human rights organization penned a letter to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein condemning the pro-law enforcement legislation, which is currently making its way through both the House and Senate. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says H.R. 2437 and S.B. 1134 “[a]mend civil rights laws to severely limit private citizens’ ability to hold police accountable for their violations of the law.”

It also removes incentives for officers to refrain from abusive behavior against citizens. Additionally, it imposes mandatory minimum sentences for those convicted of causing “bodily injury” to officers, “defined to include injuries as minimal as a cut, an abrasion, a bruise or even just the temporary feeling of physical pain.” The letter claims “The ‘Back the Blue Act,’ which purports to protect law enforcement officers from violence, does not propose any meaningful measures to advance this important goal of keeping officers safe. Instead, it would weaken police accountability and do serious damage to existing tools for the protection of civil rights.”

The bill is currently in a judiciary committee, and HRW concluded its letter by urging lawmakers to reject it. Considering the continued police violence that plagues the United States — officers have already claimed nearly 400 lives so far this year, with few facing appropriate ramifications for their violence — the legislation appears to be a step in the wrong direction. Read Human Rights Watch’s full statement here.

2. Suicide bombing kills 90, injured 400 in Afghanistan — A terrorist attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, believed to be one of the worst in the country’s history, is being drowned out by the media’s incessant focus on covfefe and a fake bloody head. Though Westerners fumed at the attack in Manchester last week, which killed 22, the attack in the war-torn Middle Eastern nation is failing to attract the same indignation and outrage. The Taliban (a terror group empowered by U.S. policy) is denying responsibility for the attack, making it possible the Islamic State (another terror group empowered by U.S. policy) may take credit in the next few days, the Independent reports. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry says the death toll is expected to rise, which is nothing new for the country, which has been subject to the United States’ invasion and violence for sixteen years. In February, a U.S. airstrike killed 18 civilians in Afghanistan, and the American military has killed hundreds, if not thousands of innocents in Iraq and Syria in the last several months.

3. U.S. considers trillion-dollar military budget — Though the U.S. strategy of perpetual war has failed to quell terrorism or create stability in the Middle East, Antiwar.com reported this week that the Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal seeks to allocate over a trillion dollars toward military spending. As Antiwar.com notes, it is “particularly shocking just how money is disappearing not just into the general war-fighting budget, but into related costs of having such a massive military for so long.” Over $183 billion would go toward Veterans Affairs amid the ongoing crisis veterans face in the United States. Still, if the United States government stopped waging so many wars and creating so many veterans, that figure would not be necessary.

According to the Straus Military Reform Project, the discretionary base military budget would increase over $20 billion with the new proposal. They note that “The ‘base’ budget purportedly contains all routine, peacetime expenses; however, DOD and Congress have loaded tens of billions of such ‘base’ spending into the Overseas Contingency Operations fund for declared wartime expenses.” Further, Antiwar.com points out that while spending on the U.S. nuclear program would be increased by over $1 billion according to the budget, the cost of updating the entire arsenal will likely increase many times over as the policy is implemented.

4. The warfare state has come home to roost, according to documents detailing counterterrorism strategies used at Standing Rock — Over the holiday weekend, the Intercept reported that according to leaked documents, law enforcement worked with private defense contractor TigerSwan to impose counterterrorism tactics on protesters at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline. According to the Intercept, they were hired by Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the project: “Internal TigerSwan communications describe the movement as ‘an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component’ and compare the anti-pipeline water protectors to jihadist fighters. One report, dated February 27, 2017, states that since the movement ‘generally followed the jihadist insurgency model while active, we can expect the individuals who fought for and supported it to follow a post-insurgency model after its collapse.’ Drawing comparisons with post-Soviet Afghanistan, the report warns, ‘While we can expect to see the continued spread of the anti-DAPL diaspora…aggressive intelligence preparation of the battlefield and active coordination between intelligence and security elements are now a proven method of defeating pipeline insurgencies.’”

The vast majority of demonstrators at Standing Rock were peaceful, making it all the more concerning that a military-industrial profiteering company was deployed to silence free speech as militarized law enforcement used aggressive tactics to steamroll opposition — not to mention the fact that the pipeline has already sprung two leaks before even becoming operational.

5. Opposition to Trump’s $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia grows in Congress — Lawmakers like Rep. Justin Amash and Sen. Rand Paul have crafted legislation to nullify the president’s recent deal with the extremist Saudi regime, which received widespread coverage when Trump visited the Arab nation, sword-dancing with the monarchs and touching a glowing orb.

In an email sent out to constituents and followers Wednesday, Amash discussed the transfer of “tanks, ships, anti-aircraft missiles, and possibly precision-guided bombs,” which was sealed during the president’s trip to Saudi Arabia. Amash warned that “all those weapons are going to a questionable partner… in an unstable region… without so much as a debate.” Highlighting the fact that Saudi Arabia has inserted itself into a civil war in Yemen, attempting to prop up a leader previously ousted from power, he said “thousands of civilians, including more than a thousand children, have died in the conflict — some of them at the hands of the Saudi government, using American weapons.”

Citing extremism coming out of Saudi Arabia — indeed, the country spends billions exporting its radical Wahhabist ideology and has also funded ISIS — Amash asked for support for his bipartisan joint resolution, H.J. Res. 102, to halt the sale. Sen. Paul has also introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

***

Also deserving of honorable mention are the statements made in court on Tuesday by violent racist Jeremy Christian, who killed two Americans when they attempted to stop him from harassing two teenage girls, one African-American and one Muslim, in Oregon last week. Though that story received widespread coverage, Christian’s hyper-nationalistic statements have been somewhat drowned out by the Kathy Griffin-covfefe fervor. “Death to America’s enemies,” he said in the courtroom, also claiming, “Free speech or die, Portland. You got no safe place. This is America,” as he faced the judge, displaying no remorse for his murder of two men, including one Army veteran.

This extreme form of American “patriotism” is just one symptom of perpetual jingoism, militarism, and American exceptionalism, which are also represented in the five underreported stories highlighted in this list.

Opinion / Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

Media’s Obsession Over Trump’s ‘covfefe’ Typo, Shows How Easily American’s Can Be Controlled

If you turn on the television or log on to the internet today, you will be bombarded with the non-news of President Donald Trump tweeting out a typo in which he used the arrangement of characters, ‘covfefe’.

The mainstream media picked up this covfefe Tweet and began shoving it down the collective throats of Americans, literally instantly.

CNN, the NY Times, WaPo, USA Today, the Telegraph, the Guardian, NPR, and virtually every other mainstream media outlet in the world jumped on the bandwagon of non-news covfefe fluff and filled the airways with this inane blither.

While there are plenty of reasons to call out Donald Trump, covfefe, a random typo in the middle of the night is hardly newsworthy. However, it does serve as a remarkable distraction from the very real and very deadly US airstrikes in the Middle East.

Last week, while the media pushed distractions over Trump’s rantings out on the airways, a Pentagon investigation admitted that more than 100 civilians had been killed in a US airstrike in Iraq in March, but largely placed the blame on IS.

Following that admission, at least 35 civilians were killed, most of whom were women and children in Syria last Thursday. Before that, in mid-May, US airstrikes murdered nearly two dozen farm workers – mostly women – in a village in eastern Raqqa, as well as at least 59 civilians in residential areas of Deir al-Zor.

Yesterday, the Intercept reported that entire families, including infants, were ‘massacred’ by the US-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

“A U.S.-led coalition warplane targeted heavy machine guns at civilians trying to flee the city of Al-Tabaqa, which is witnessing heavy clashes between gunmen,” reported the local anti-ISIS activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently. The air raid led to “the death of a whole family.” Following the attack, photos of the young children from the al-Aish family circulated widely on social media and local news sites, including pictures of 3-year-old Abdul Salam and 6-month-old Ali.

Photos shared on social media showed 6-month-old Abdul Salam al-Aish and 3-year-old Ali al-Aish, who were killed in a U.S. airstrike near the town of Tabqa.

The strike that massacred this innocent family was one of thousands. As RT reports, figures show that a total of 14,192 rockets, bombs, and other munitions were dropped in the first four months of 2017, up from 9,442 during the same period in 2016.

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While these strikes are being touted as a means of ‘wiping ISIS off the face of the planet,’ the US government and the West, in general, is ignoring the fact that they are slaughtering innocent civilians. 

Does anyone really believe that a mother or father who watches a US bomb blow their innocent 3-year-old son to a fine red mist will think that this is okay because it is in the name of ‘fighting terrorism’?

Sadly, the heavily sedated masses, content with the day’s talking points handed down to them by the mainstream media, are mostly unaware and in entire acceptance of this foreign policy.

Murdering someone’s child creates a ‘terrorist’ out of every single person related to that child. 

When will people wake up to this fact?

Sadly, corporate media’s complete lack of coverage on the reality of ‘collateral damage’ has fostered a society who is okay with civilian casualties. Through slick reporting and dehumanizing spin, the thousands of innocent children blown to bits by US bombs are written off as little more than a statistic in the war on terror.

If a single image of dead children was allowed a platform on the mainstream media, this madness would likely be over rather quickly. Indeed, we have seen this happen before with the famous photo of Kim Phuc — aka napalm girl.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning photo showed the world the reality that is occupation and war. This photo — a single reminder of the brutal nature of war — ultimately brought it to an end.

The AP photographer Huynh Cong “Nick” Ut, who snapped the shot, explained in an interview how soldiers would thank him for his photo.

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“It changed the war. I met so many American soldiers who said ‘Nicky because of your picture I’ll get to go home early,’” he said.

Sadly, this very real and very necessary coverage is entirely absent from the mainstream today — and not by accident.

Showing photos of the destruction and death from US bombs will get your advertising pulled by Google. If you post these photos to Facebook, your account will be suspended. The truth, in modern day America, is becoming extinct and people are accepting it.

The reality of war is death. The reality of war is destruction. To deny these facts is to deny reality itself. It is because of these facts that war should be the absolute last resort of any government. In America, however — thanks to the military industrial complex — it is the first.

As Americans bicker over Trump’s covfefe typos on Twitter, he’s signing a deal worth hundreds of billions of dollars with the largest state sponsor of terror in the world — ensuring decades of future wars and the continuation of the cycle of terrorism.

As Americans argue over irrelevant partisan nonsense, beat into their minds by corporate media, they are losing jobs, their money is becoming worthless, their tax dollars are being used to fund and support ISIS, and their freedoms are being sold to fund the police state.

We are quite literally building our own prison as Americans wave flags in the street supporting this madness. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

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Everyone reading this right now has the power to stop this insanity and it’s in the palm of your hand or on the screen in front of you. Information is the key to freedom and standing up for the dissemination of that information is how we maintain that freedom. 

As Edward Snowden said yesterday, in his most powerful speech to date:

“Rights are lost by cowardly laws that are passed in moments of panic. Rights are lost to the cringing complicity of leaders who fear the loss of their office more than the loss of our liberties.”

“It’s not enough to believe that something’s wrong,” Snowden attested. “It’s not enough to disagree with it. It’s not enough to think that things could be better.

“You have to stand for something. You have to go out there and risk something. You have to dare yourself to actually get out there and change the world — even if in a small way, even if only for one person, even if for only one instant, you lay down a brick upon which everyone else can build.”

“That, ladies and gentlemen,” Snowden concluded, “is the only way the world has ever gotten better.”