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| Porn Users Forum » WHY DOESN'T POTUS ARREST BILL CLINTON, HILARY CLINTON, AND OBAMA? |
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| 07-10-18 05:44am - 2366 days | #901 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User  Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The truth revealed: Michael Cohen's new lawyer reveals that President Trump and Rudy Guiliani are shithole liars. You can't trust anything President Trump or Guiliani says. ---------- ---------- Cohen’s new lawyer slams Giuliani over Russia investigation By Mark Moore July 9, 2018 | 2:46pm | Updated Michael Cohen’s new lawyer blasted Rudy Giuliani for suggesting President Trump’s former longtime fixer tell the truth to the special counsel’s Russia investigation. “Did @rudygiuliani really say on Sunday shows that @michaelcohen212 should cooperate with prosecutors and tell the truth? ,” Lanny Davis wrote on Twitter on Monday. “Seriously? Is that Trump and Giuliani definition of ‘truth’? Trump/Giuliani next to the word ‘truth’ = oxymoron. Stay tuned. #thetruthmatters.” Giuliani made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows to press his case that Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling and any collusion by Trump’s campaign associates was corrupt. The former New York City mayor also said Trump wasn’t aware that Cohen, the president’s longtime fixer and lawyer, paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 weeks before the 2016 election to keep her silent about an affair she alleges she had with Trump a decade earlier. He suggested Cohen, who’s under criminal investigation for bank and wire fraud by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, be free to speak to investigators. “Michael Cohen should cooperate with the government. We have no reason to believe he did anything wrong,” Giuliani said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I have no concerns that Michael Cohen is going to do anything but tell the truth.” Cohen hired Davis, longtime confidant to former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, last Thursday. Davis’ hiring came just days after Cohen told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” that his allegiance is to his family. “My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will,” Cohen said. | |
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| 07-10-18 08:47am - 2366 days | #902 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Letter to the editor: Trump's criminal associates troubling; it's clear he only has own interests at heart Jul 9, 2018 - 6:00 pm As more and more of Donald Trump's associates and enablers head off to prison, our president himself is looking more and more like a common criminal whose only exceptional characteristic is his persistent dishonesty. Does anyone seriously believe him about the Stormy Daniels imbroglio? As Michael Cohen's role as a fixer for Trump becomes clearer every day, Trump tries to distance himself from his so-called lawyer. Likewise, he tries to distance himself from Paul Manafort, his first choice for campaign manager. There are now over a dozen indictments (and a few guilty pleas) in regard to the probe of Russian involvement in the last election. Still, Trump tries to reinstate Russia to the G-7 summit while he alienates our longtime European allies. Withdrawal from the Paris Accord and the Trans-Pacific Partnership were both boons to China's global interests (and damaging to ours), while withdrawal from the Iran Treaty benefited Russia more than any other country. It becomes more and more obvious that Trump's driving purpose is to undo whatever Barack Obama had accomplished as president, whether or not it works to the benefit of our country. As he works to alienate our alliances with Canada and Mexico via trade tariffs that will cost the average American dearly in terms of inflation, he strives to abolish any remaining good will toward America. Donald Trump has only his own interests at heart as he negotiates the future course of our country. I expect evidence of money laundering, association with Russian mobsters, witness intimidation, embezzlement, bribery and obstruction of justice will come to light as a result of the raids on Michael Cohen's home and office. Compared to Trump, Richard Nixon was just a paranoid amateur. This time, the people of the United States have elected a true criminal as their president. John Kennedy property maintenance Harahan | |
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| 07-10-18 09:25am - 2366 days | #903 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Brett Kavanaugh, who helped build the case to impeach ex-President Bill Clinton (a slime-ball Democrat), has learned from the experience. He now believes that a President (who happens to be a Republican) should not be prosecuted or impeached unless there is serious and "dastardly" misbehavior. Is Donald Trump guilty of serious and "dastardly" misbehavior? Of course not. Trump is a Republican. One of the greatest Presidents the US ever had. Maybe the greatest President the US has ever had. Of course, it helps that both Kavanaugh and Trump are Republicans. But Kavanaugh, if approved for the Supreme Court, has sworn to follow the law. Without allowing personal prejudices to interfere. Can anyone say bullshit? ---------------- ---------------- Trump's Supreme Court pick has expressed doubts about investigating or prosecuting a sitting president Tara Francis Chan Brett Kavanaugh, who President Donald Trump nominated to replace the retiring Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy, previously contributed to a 1998 report that made a case for President Bill Clinton's impeachment. This experience has shaped Kavanaugh's belief that presidents should not be indicted or distracted by investigations while in office. "Whether the Constitution allows indictment of a sitting President is debatable," he has said. Kavanaugh instead believes impeachment is the proper way to deal with a president's serious and "dastardly" misbehavior. | |
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| 07-10-18 09:41am - 2366 days | #904 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Why doesn't Trump just pardon himself for any and all crimes he may have committed before and during his presidency? Of course, he would still be liable for state prosecutions, but with an army of lawyers, and with a conservative Supreme Court on Trump's side, he should be able to ignore any slime-ball Democrat attacks until Trump is dead and buried. Hail Trump, the slime-ball Neo-Nazi President of the United States. The most corrupt President we've ever had, who is the leader of the Christian Moral Majority. ------- ------- Trump pardons ranchers in case that inspired 2016 occupation Associated Press JILL COLVIN and ZEKE MILLER,Associated Press 49 minutes ago It began as a rally in support of Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, who reported to prison on Monday. WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has pardoned two ranchers whose case sparked the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon. Dwight and Steven Hammond were convicted in 2012 of intentionally and maliciously setting fires on public lands. The arson crime carried a minimum prison sentence of five years, but a sympathetic federal judge, on his last day before retirement, decided the penalty was too stiff and gave the father and son much lighter prison terms. Prosecutors won an appeal and the Hammonds were resentenced in October 2015 to serve the mandatory minimum. The decision sparked a protest from Ammon Bundy and dozens of others, who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near the Hammond ranch in southeastern Oregon from Jan. 2 to Feb. 11, 2016, complaining the Hammonds were victims of federal overreach. The armed occupiers changed the refuge's name to the Harney County Resource Center, reflecting their belief that the federal government has only a very limited right to own property within a state's borders. Bundy was arrested during a Jan. 26 traffic stop, effectively ending the protest. Another key occupier, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, was fatally shot that day by Oregon State Police. In a statement Tuesday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called that decision to resentence the Hammonds "unjust." "The Hammonds are devoted family men, respected contributors to their local community, and have widespread support from their neighbors, local law enforcement, and farmers and ranchers across the West," she said. "Justice is overdue for Dwight and Steven Hammond, both of whom are entirely deserving of these Grants of Executive Clemency." The pardons are the latest in a growing list of clemency actions by Trump, who has been using his pardon power with increasingly frequency in recent months. Trump has been especially pleased with news coverage of his actions, which included commuting the sentence of Alice Johnson, a woman serving a life sentence for drug offenses whose case had been championed by reality television star Kim Kardashian West. He has repeatedly referenced emotional video of Johnson being freed from prison and running into her family members' arms, and has said he's considering thousands more cases — both famous and not. But critics say the president could be ignoring valid claims for clemency as he works outside the typical pardon process, focusing on cases brought to his attention by friends, famous people and conservative media pundits. Aides say that Trump has been especially drawn to cases in which he believes the prosecution may have been politically motivated — a situation that may remind him of his own position at the center of the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling. Many have also seen the president as sending a signal with his pardons to former aides and associates caught up in the probe, or lashing out at enemies like former FBI Director James Comey, who oversaw the prosecution of lifestyle guru Martha Stewart, whom Trump has said he is thinking of pardoning. | |
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| 07-11-18 02:04am - 2365 days | #905 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Students, Alumni Urge Yale Law School's Leadership To Denounce Brett Kavanaugh HuffPost Carla Herreria,HuffPost 3 hours ago Even though Yale Law School published a press release touting the accomplishments of Brett Kavanaugh, its alumnus and President Donald Trump’s new Supreme Court nominee, not everyone at the school is singing his praises. As of Tuesday night, more than 200 students, staff members and alumni of Yale Law School signed an open letter calling for the institution to rescind its apparent support of Kavanaugh. The letter, addressed to the law school’s leadership and Dean Heather Gerken, argued that Kavanaugh, as a possible Supreme Court justice, puts American democracy in danger and called his nomination an “emergency.” “The press release’s focus on the nominee’s professionalism, pedigree, and service to Yale Law School obscures the true stakes of his nomination and raises a disturbing question,” the letter’s authors wrote. “Is there nothing more important to Yale Law School than its proximity to power and prestige?” The letter cited several of Kavanaugh’s past opinions, arguing that his conservative bias would place past Supreme Court rulings at risk. It also claimed Kavanaugh would act as a “rubber stamp for President Trump’s fraud and abuse,” pointing to the judge’s support for expanding presidential power. “At a time when the President and his associates are under investigation for various serious crimes, including colluding with the Russian government and obstructing justice, Judge Kavanaugh’s extreme deference to the Executive poses a direct threat to our democracy,” the letter read. Yale Law School published its press release about Kavanaugh on Monday, shortly after Trump announced he was nominating the Yale alumnus to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Yale Law spokeswoman Jan Conroy did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. Is there nothing more important to Yale Law School than its proximity to power and prestige? Open letter to Yale Law School's leadership Kavanaugh has played a role in major partisan political battles, working with independent counsel Ken Starr to prosecute President Bill Clinton and with President George W. Bush’s legal team during the 2000 election recount. The open letter to Yale Law School argued that Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh is the president’s way of overturning Roe v. Wade and making abortions illegal. The letter pointed to a dissent penned by Kavanaugh, in which the judge denied an undocumented teen the right to seek an abortion while in federal custody in Texas. It also highlighted another dissent written by Kavanaugh that argued the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate violated the rights of religious organizations, “even though those organizations were granted an accommodation that allowed them to opt out of” contraceptive coverage. The letter’s authors said Kavanaugh’s past opinions “give us grave concern that he will consistently prioritize the beliefs of third-parties over the oppressed,” including in cases involving abortion and contraception, and medical care for transgender patients. The students, alumni and staff called on Yale Law School’s leadership to rescind its implied support for Kavanaugh, urging them to find the “moral courage” when there is “so little cost.” “Perhaps you, as an institution and as individuals, will benefit less from Judge Kavanaugh’s ascendent power if you withhold your support,” the authors wrote. “But people will die if he is confirmed. We hope you agree your sacrifice would be worth it.” This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 07-11-18 07:46pm - 2364 days | #906 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Neo-Nazi Trump and his followers rejoice in tearing immigrant families apart. Claim that his Neo-Nazi followers are behaving with great generosity by putting the children in cages. Racist Neo-Nazi Trump, the most corrupt President in US history. But he has plenty of Republicans who support his Neo-Nazi policies. My question: why isn't Trump and his administration facing criminal charges for many of the corrupt and illegal acts they have done? --------- --------- HHS secretary: Separating immigrant families is ‘one of the great acts of American generosity’ Secretary Azar boasted of the Trump administration's abusive policy, claiming his department had nothing to hide. Rebekah Entralgo Jul 11, 2018, 10:45 am HHS secretary Alex Azar says separating immigrant families is "one of the great acts of American generosity."(Photo credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images) HHS secretary Alex Azar says separating immigrant families is "one of the great acts of American generosity."(Photo credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images) The same day the federal government missed a court-imposed deadline to reunite roughly 84 children under the age of 5 with their families — after being forcibly separated from them at the U.S.-Mexico border — Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar appeared on CNN to defend how his agency has handled the recent immigration crisis. “We have nothing to hide about how we operate these facilities,” Azar told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tuesday night, referring to the juvenile and “tender age” facilities in which many of the separated children are currently being detained, which HHS officials have barred media outlets and public figures from filming or visiting unannounced. Advertisement Speaking to the conditions in which the children are being held, he added, “It is one of the great acts of American generosity and charity, what we are doing for these unaccompanied kids.” Azar appeared to be using an incorrect term for children forcibly removed from their families at the border; typically, the term “unaccompanied” refers to those children who arrive at the border alone or without a parent or guardian present. The act of separating 3,000 children from their parents — HHS’ latest estimate for the number of minors in their care — is hardly generous. As many experts have noted, doing so can be deeply traumatic for the child and can cause long-lasting damage to their mental health. Last month, several media outlets published leaked footage and audio of some of those detention centers, in which children can be heard wailing and sobbing for their parents. “We have an orchestra here,” one border official is overheard saying in audio obtained by ProPublica, mocking the crying children. In audio from a phone call given to Vice News, another detained child cries to his mother, who is on the other end of the line, in Guatemala. “Everytime I go to sleep, I pray for you,” he says. The Trump administration has also had trouble keeping tabs on the families it separated at the border. Earlier in June, after President Trump signed an executive order reversing the family separation practice he himself had implemented as part of a broader “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, a federal judge in San Diego instructed the administration to reunite separated children with their parents within 30 days, or 14 days for children under the age of 5. However, during a conference call Friday afternoon, government officials requested an extension of that deadline, admitting to a federal judge that they had lost track of 20 percent of separated toddlers’ parents and would be unable to reunite them with their children by the July 10 cut-off. In a follow-up call Monday, during which the judge declined to offer an extension, administration officials further admitted they had only reunited four of the 102 children younger than 5 with their families and would not be reuniting 27 of them because their parents had criminal records. As The Daily Beast reported Tuesday, HHS has done the bare minimum to help reunite families, making the parents responsible for their own reunification. According to the outlet, U.S. officials recently told four immigrant women that they must pay for their own DNA tests in order to be reunited with their children, to prove they are, indeed, related. The tests are conducted by a private contractor on behalf of HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the care and housing of immigrant children. The Trump administration has only reunited four immigrant kids under the age of 5 with their families, according to a court filing Tuesday afternoon. Officials must prove to a judge that they've reunited a total of 63 by Tuesday night, or made a good faith effort to do so, by the time the court reconvenes on Friday. (Photo credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Trump administration has only reunited four immigrant kids under the age of 5 with their families Contrary to Azar’s claim that the agency has been making sure children are well taken-care of, some HHS shelters housing unaccompanied minors and children separated at the border also have dark histories of abuse. Advertisement As ThinkProgress previously reported, HHS has spent millions placing immigrant children into abusive homes, and some of the “tender age” facilities where the youngest children separated at the border are sent have faced allegations of sexual and physical abuse over the years. A recent ThinkProgress investigation, for instance, found that a shelter for unaccompanied minors, contracted by HHS, currently employs a man with a history of sex crimes. The shelter has also taken in children separated at the border. | |
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| 07-11-18 08:17pm - 2364 days | #907 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Trump picked a fine choice for the Supreme Court. A man who does not believe in rules limiting harmful emissions. It costs too much to force auto companies to make cars that allow people to breathe more easily. Instead, it's cheaper to let people die or go to the hospital if the air they breathe is harmful. ------------ ------------ Supreme Court July 9, 2018 / 10:04 PM / 2 days ago Supreme Court nominee has been a foe of emissions rules Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brett Kavanaugh, nominated on Monday to be a Supreme Court justice by U.S. President Donald Trump, is a long-time skeptic of business regulations, especially on rules limiting harmful emissions, although he has called global warming an “urgent” issue. Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh is seen in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 9, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg If confirmed by the Senate, the 53-year-old conservative judge, who is well known in Washington legal circles, could serve for decades and have a major say over environmental regulations issued by future presidents, long after Trump has left office. Michael Brune, president of the Sierra Club, an environmental activist group, said Kavanaugh is “an extreme ideologue who has time and again proven himself hostile to common-sense environmental safeguards.” A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2006, Kavanaugh often hears challenges to regulations brought by business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. In line with the views of White House Counsel Don McGahn, who led the Supreme Court nominee selection process, Kavanaugh has questioned environmental regulations issued by former Democratic President Barack Obama and the legal reach of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “The selection of Judge Kavanaugh shows that the Trump administration is serious about taming the administrative state,” said Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Last year, Kavanaugh wrote a ruling that struck down a rule regulating hydrofluorocarbons used in spray cans and air conditioners. Scientists say they contribute to climate change. Hydrofluorocarbon manufacturers including Mexichem Fluor Inc, a unit of Mexichem SAB de CV (MEXCHEM.MX) and Arkema Inc, part of Arkema SA (AKE.PA), were part of a coalition that challenged the regulation. “However much we might sympathize or agree with EPA’s policy objectives, EPA may act only within the boundaries of its statutory authority,” Kavanaugh wrote. Companies that supported the regulation, including Honeywell International Inc (HON.N), last month filed court papers asking the Supreme Court to reinstate it. If Kavanaugh were confirmed as a Supreme Court justice and the hydrofluorocarbon case came to the court, he would be recused. No other major emissions case is clearly headed for the Supreme Court’s docket in its next term beginning in October, but Kavanaugh’s record could shape future cases. In 2012, he disagreed with the Court of Appeals’ decision to uphold the Obama administration’s first efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The regulations were challenged by business groups and energy companies such as Alpha Natural Resources Inc (APNR.PK), which went through a bankruptcy in 2015, and Massey Energy Co, later bought by Alpha. When the court refused to reconsider its ruling, Kavanaugh dissented, saying the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had exceeded its authority in seeking to regulate carbon emissions under a specific EPA program. He stopped short of saying that agency could not regulate greenhouse gas emissions altogether, however. “The task of dealing with global warming is urgent and important,” he wrote. The conservative Supreme Court majority in 2014 agreed with Kavanaugh on the point he raised in the case, although it upheld most of the Obama regulations. In another environmental case, Kavanaugh in 2014 criticized the Obama administration for not considering the costs of a rule limiting emissions of mercury and other hazardous pollutants, mainly from coal-fired power plants. Peabody Energy Corp (BTU.N), a major coal producer, was among companies opposing the regulation. “To be sure, EPA could conclude that the benefits outweigh the costs. But the problem here is that EPA did not even consider the costs,” Kavanaugh wrote. Again, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court later agreed, ruling in 2015 on a 5-4 vote that the Obama administration should have considered compliance costs. Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh & Kim Coghill | |
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| 07-11-18 08:33pm - 2364 days | #908 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
A sporting goods assistant manager was fired because he helped catch a suspect trying to steal a gun. The manager's mistake: he violated store policy which prohibits employees from placing their hands on customers while they’re in the store. To policy is meant to reduce lawsuits against the store. Even though the suspect was trying to steal a handgun and ammunition, the assistant manager was fired. Maybe the assistant manager should have been a reservist cop. In that case, he could have shot the thief dead, and claimed self-defense. And the police union would have backed him up. And the police union would have helped sue the store for firing a cop doing his job. ------------ ------------ Florida 6 hours ago Academy Sports manager fired weeks after intercepting gun thief suspect in Florida store, lawyer says Elizabeth Zwirz By Elizabeth Zwirz | Fox News Dean Crouch, a sporting goods store employee who last month helped catch a suspect allegedly trying to steal a weapon, was suspended and later lost his job at the Florida business following the incident, his lawyer said. Dean Crouch, a sporting goods store employee who last month helped catch a suspect allegedly trying to steal a weapon, was suspended and later lost his job at the Florida business following the incident, his lawyer said. (Ryan Hobbs) A sporting goods store employee, who last month helped catch a suspect allegedly trying to swipe a weapon, was suspended and later lost his job at the Florida business following the incident, his lawyer said. Dean Crouch, 32, was working at the Academy Sports store in Tallahassee on June 29 when robbery suspect Jason White allegedly tried to steal a gun, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. After White reportedly tried to flee with the stolen firearm he’d requested to see, Crouch stepped in and ultimately detained him. Crouch, an assistant manager at the store, was nearby when the incident occurred and heard employees yelling "stop that guy," his attorney, Ryan Hobbs, told Fox News. While police made their way to the scene, the suspect was relocated to an office at the business, he said. Hobbs said the suspect had attempted to make off with a .40 caliber handgun and matching ammunition. The Tallahassee Police Department, who arrested the suspect, wrote on Facebook that “employees detained a man who tried to run out of the store with a firearm, ammunition, and a backpack, which were stolen from the business.” The suspect also allegedly stole two weapons from a pawn shop earlier the same day, police said. Hobbs claimed his client was placed on suspension in the days after the incident amid a policy that prohibits employees from placing their hands on customers while they’re in the store. Crouch lost his job on Tuesday, he said, adding that his client had been “suspended and terminated for preventing this thief from stealing this weapon.” “Academy has decided to, instead of treating him like a hero he is, they terminated his employment effective immediately because he put his hands on Mr. White,” Hobbs told the Tallahassee Democrat. Left without a job, Hobbs told Fox News that Crouch – who has a wife and two small children – put their home up for sale as “a direct result of him losing his job at Academy Sports.” “They’re just scared,” he said. A representative for Academy Sports did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. But company spokeswoman Elise Hasbrook told the Democrat that Academy’s treatment of the former employee’s conduct, as well as his eventual firing, complied with company policy. “While the incident ended without injury, actions inconsistent with corporate policies were taken,” she told the outlet. “We addressed the matter with the local store and individuals involved.” Hobbs told Fox News that they are “exploring” their “options” but at this point, no lawsuit has been filed. At the moment, he said they’re more concerned with “trying to protect his rights” and finding him a new job. Hobbs also told the Democrat that Academy’s policy might warrant a reexamination. “My instincts tell me they are concerned more about people like Mr. White suing them for being stopped in the course of a theft than they are about rewarding or acknowledging in a positive manner that Mr. Crouch may have saved lives,” he told the outlet. | |
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| 07-12-18 03:16am - 2364 days | #909 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Neo-Nazi Trump reveals his desperation. His followers have arrested Stormy Daniels, the stripper who confessed to having a sexual relationship with Trump. Can Trump have Stormy Daniels buried or murdered in jail? While the whole world watches? Except that people die in jail, and the cops usually give a story that the people were suicidal, or that the cops did everything to help the people before they died. Cops are humane people. To serve and to protect is their motto. That is why cops have the right to shoot to kill unarmed civilians. Because the civilians are a danger to the cops. But, getting back to Stormy Daniels, does Trump have the right to have Stormy Daniels arrested on bogus charges? Yes, if you are a Trump follower, who believes that Trump has the right to grab women by their pussies. No, if you think Trump is a Neo-Nazi lying slime-ball, who is dragging America down into the swamp he promised to clean. Trump, the slime-ball Neo-Nazi swamp creature from hell. (What a great title for an upcoming movie.) --------------- --------------- Lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels says she was arrested AFP AFP 3 hours ago Adult film actress Stormy Daniels speaks outside US Federal Court in New York with her lawyer Michael Avenatti in April (AFP Photo/EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ) Washington (AFP) - Adult film star Stormy Daniels, locked in a court battle with President Donald Trump over their alleged affair, was arrested Wednesday while performing at a strip club in what her lawyer described as a "politically motivated" setup. Daniels was arrested at a club in Columbus, Ohio while performing an act she has done at nearly 100 strip clubs across America, Michael Avenatti wrote on Twitter. He said Daniels was arrested for allegedly allowing a customer to touch her in a non-sexual way while on stage. "This was a setup & politically motivated. It reeks of desperation. We will fight all bogus charges," Avenatti wrote. "They are devoting law enforcement resources to sting operations for this? There has to be higher priorities!!!," he added. Avenatti said in a later tweet that he expects Daniels to be released on bail "shortly" and charged with a misdemeanor for "touching." "We will vehemently contest all charges," he wrote. Daniels -- real name Stephanie Clifford -- is suing Trump and his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to nullify a 2016 non-disclosure agreement preventing her from speaking out about the affair she says she had with Trump in 2006. Just days before the 2016 election, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence. She is hoping to have the non-disclosure agreement thrown out on the grounds that it is not valid because Trump never signed it. Through White House officials, Trump has denied the affair, although Cohen has admitted paying Daniels $130,000 as part of the agreement. He initially said he used his own money to pay Daniels and was not reimbursed by Trump. However, Trump -- who initially denied knowledge of the payment -- subsequently conceded that Cohen was in fact reimbursed. | |
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| 07-13-18 05:26am - 2363 days | #910 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump is forced to tell the truth. And put aside his modesty for a brief moment. Trump admits he is the most popular person in GOP history: "I beat our Honest Abe." Honest Abe, for those who do not know, is Abraham Lincoln, considered one of the most important Presidents in United States history. My guess is that Donald Trump considers himself the greatest, and most important President the United States has ever had, or will ever have. And if Trump is able to change the Constitution and the laws of the land, and make himself President/Dictator for Life of the United States of Trumpland, that idea might hold some truth. ----------- ----------- Trump brags he’s the most popular person in GOP history: ‘I beat our Honest Abe’ HuffPost US Ed Mazza Jul 13th 2018 4:49AM President Donald Trump claims he’s now more popular than President Abraham Lincoln. “You know, a poll just came out that I am the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party,” he boasted in an interview with the British tabloid The Sun. “Beating Lincoln. I beat our Honest Abe.” It’s not clear what poll Trump was referring to, but he made a similar claim on Twitter earlier this week: A Gallup poll found that 90 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s job performance. However, as the New York Times noted, President George W. Bush was even more popular among Republicans at this point in his first term, buoyed by post-9/11 unity. Gallup had Bush in the mid- to high-90s among Republicans through much of 2002, peaking at 98 percent at multiple points. There were no polls during Lincoln’s time in office. Trump, who is currently in the United Kingdom, also claimed to be very popular there. “But the people of the UK, and I’ll bet if you had an honest poll, I’d be very strong,” Trump said. “They want the same thing I want. I love the U.K.” A YouGov poll conducted for ITV found that 77 percent of Brits have an unfavorable view of Trump. And in what may be another sign of his unpopularity, an anti-Trump social media campaign caused the 2004 Green Day song “American Idiot” to surge in popularity. According to USA Today, the tune is currently at #18 on the pop charts and #1 on Amazon’s British bestseller list. But it’s Trump claims about Lincoln that received attention on Twitter: This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 07-13-18 10:56am - 2363 days | #911 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Even if there is not sufficient evidence yet to convict Donald Trump as a Russian spy and operative, the FBI should place Donald Trump and his associates, including Mike Pence, in jail, while they work to determine how much damage Trump has done to the United States of America. At the least, Trump is guilty of using the office of President to enrich himself and his family. That is a crime punishable by both Federal and State laws. Enough is enough. Put Trump and his crooked allies in jail. Remember the chant: Crooked Hilary? Well, Trump is a bigger crook than Hilary ever was. --------- --------- New Mueller indictments reveal that congressional candidate requested stolen documents from Russian hackers in 2016 Joe Perticone 2m WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 13: U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (C) holds a news conference at the Department of Justice July 13, 2018 in Washington, DC. Rosenstein announced indictments against 12 Russian intelligence agents for hacking computers used by the Democratic National Committee, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other organizations. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images A candidate for Congress asked Russian hackers to provide documents on their campaign's opponent during the 2016 election. The allegation was revealed in a series of indictments against 12 Russian operatives by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Friday. WASHINGTON — When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced on Friday the indictment of 12 Russian government operatives, the charges revealed that a candidate for the United States Congress requested information and documents on their campaign's opponent during the 2016 election. In the indictment, which became the latest development in the special counsel investigation headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller, described the details of the transaction. "Between in or around June 2016 and October 2016, the Conspirators used Guccifer 2.0 to release documents through WordPress that they had stolen from the DCCC and DNC," the indictment read. "The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0,also shared stolen documents with certain individuals." "On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress," the charges added. "The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's opponent." The indictment does not name the candidate for Congress or allude to whether or not they won their election months later. The party primaries would have been wrapped by August of 2016, hinting strongly that the individual who requested hacked documents from senior Russian military operatives was a Republican. The additional 12 indictments on Friday are yet another milestone in the ongoing investigation by Mueller and his team. So far, two dozen Russians have been indicted, while several others have faced charges for other crimes, including Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman and Michael Flynn, the Trump White House's former national security adviser. | |
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| 07-13-18 11:19am - 2363 days | #912 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
I am starting a Go-Fund-Me Campaign with a goal of $1 million US dollars. The aim is to be able to attend Sean Spicer's book launch. The price of tickets runs from $30 to $1,000. But I also need first class air tickets. Plus, whatever else is needed for contributions for graft and donations to the Neo-Nazi Donald Trump foundation to support his family in the style they are accustomed to after Trump is forced to leave the White House (from impeachment, jail, retirement, whatever). I do not believe that Donald Trump himself will be at the book siging. But if my Go-Fund-Me score hits $20 million or more, and Trump hears of this, then he might be tempted to attend, if I can promise him a $15 million donation to his favorite charity, which is himself. His second-favorite charity is to his family. No need to donate to Trump's friends, because they can grab enough graft for themselves. ----------- ----------- Politics This Is the Most Embarrassing Audience Ever to Witness a Book Launch, Period Esquire Charles P. Pierce,Esquire Thu, Jul 12 7:31 AM PDT Photo credit: Getty Images From Esquire It is 2018. Everything is weird and awful. From CNN: Organizers are selling tickets for the former White House press secretary's July 24 launch event, with prices starting at $30 and going up to as much as $1,000. Imagine explaining to your spouse and/or partner that you just dropped a grand out of the house account to go to Sean Spicer’s book event. For that price, Spicey better bring his own shrubbery to hide in. But, there’s more, isn’t there, Ghost of Johnny Olson? In addition to food and drinks, the event will feature a question and answer session with Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich, during which, according to the event's online description, Spicer will talk about "becoming an author, his days in the White House, and lessons learned." Prospective attendees are being directed to a website where they are presented with four ticket options: "Press Corp" for $30 which includes admission and a copy of Spicer's book, "The Briefing: Politics, the Press and the President"; "Assistant Press Secretary" for $250 which includes two tickets and signed books; "Deputy Press Secretary" for $500 which includes two tickets, admission to a VIP reception, and signed books; and "Press Secretary (Host Committee)" for $1,000 which includes being part of the host committee, four tickets, personalized books, and admission to the VIP reception. Wow. A chance to watch noted philosopher and public intellectual Katie Pavlich ask Sean Spicer questions! And the VIP reception! More high-end wingnuts than a MAACO outlet. Photo credit: Getty Images And, for your $1,000, you can hear Spicer create the chicken salad of poetry out of the chicken shit of his former job. The Guardian has excerpts. “I don’t think we will ever again see a candidate like Donald Trump,” Spicer writes. “His high-wire act is one that few could ever follow. He is a unicorn, riding a unicorn over a rainbow. His verbal bluntness involves risks that few candidates would dare take. His ability to pivot from a seemingly career-ending moment to a furious assault on his opponents is a talent few politicians can muster.” A unicorn, riding a unicorn, over a rainbow? A thousand bucks to see the lead singer in a Moody Blues tribute band? Everything is weird and awful. | |
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| 07-14-18 11:00pm - 2361 days | #913 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Donald Trump makes a confession: the Russian hacks during the President campaign happened during Obama's presidency. Therefore, Obama is to blame for the Russian hacks. Obama should be put in jail, for his crimes. And Donald Trump is completely innocent. ----------- ----------- Obama to blame for Russian hacking response: Trump "The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration," Trump tweeted. CBS/AP July 14, 2018, 9:26 AM Trump responds to Russian hacking indictment by blaming Obama administration Last Updated Jul 14, 2018 10:02 AM EDT President Trump on Saturday blamed the Obama administration for not responding aggressively enough to Russian hacking of Democratic targets in the 2016 U.S. election — cyberattacks underpinning the indictment announced Friday of 12 Russian military intelligence officers. Mr. Trump's first personal response to special counsel Robert Mueller's initial charges against Russian government officials for interfering in American politics came in tweets the president posted while at his golf resort in Scotland, two days before a high-stakes summit in Finland with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Mr. Trump said he will bring up election meddling with the foreign president. On Saturday morning, Mr. Trump referred to the detailed, 29-page indictment of Russian intelligence officials from his own government as "stories." "The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration," Trump tweeted. "Why didn't they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?" When he has seemed to suggest acknowledgement of Russian meddling in the past, Mr. Trump has also blamed Obama for failing to do enough. The Saturday tweet follows a statement from the White House Friday that honed in on the fact that the indictment charges no Americans and does not claim the vote count was changed by the alleged meddling, while failing to condemn the Russians or hacking itself. "As Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said today: 'There is no allegation in this indictment that Americans knew that they were corresponding with Russians. There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result,'" Deputy White House Press Secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement Friday. The indictment said the Russians hacked into Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic Party and released tens of thousands of private communications as part of a broad conspiracy by the Kremlin to meddle in an American election. U.S. intelligence agencies have said Moscow was aiming to help the Trump campaign and harm Clinton's bid. The indictments were announced Friday by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as part of the ongoing special counsel probe into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. The 29-page indictment lays out how, months before Americans voted in November 2016, Russians schemed to break into key Democratic email accounts, including those belonging to Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Stolen emails, many politically damaging for Clinton, appeared on WikiLeaks in the campaign's final stretch. Mueller did not allege that Trump campaign associates were involved in the hacking effort, that Americans were knowingly in touch with Russian intelligence officers or that any vote tallies were altered by hacking. Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about Russian involvement in the hacking while being accused by Democrats of cozying up to Putin. Trump, hours before the indictment was made public, complained about the Russia investigation hours, saying the "stupidity" was making it "very hard to do something with Russia." The Kremlin denied anew that it tried to sway the election. "The Russian state has never interfered and has no intention of interfering in the U.S. elections," said Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov. The indictment identifies the defendants as officers with Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, also known as GRU. If that link is established, it would shatter the Kremlin denials of the Russian state's involvement in the U.S. elections, given that the GRU is part of the state machine. The Russian defendants are not in custody, and it is not clear they will ever appear in an American court. The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Russia. The indictment accuses the Russian hackers, starting in March 2016, of covertly monitoring the computers of dozens of Democratic officials and volunteers, implanting malicious computer code known as malware to explore the networks and steal data, and sending phishing emails to gain access to accounts. One attempt at interference came hours after Trump, in a July 27, 2016, speech, suggested Russians look for emails that Clinton said she had deleted from her tenure as secretary of state. "Russia, if you're listening," Trump said, "I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." That evening, the indictment says, the Russians attempted to break into email accounts used by Clinton's personal office, along with 76 Clinton campaign email addresses. By June 2016, the defendants, relying on fictional personas such as DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, began planning the release of tens of thousands of stolen emails, the indictment alleges. The Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks displayed the campaign's private communications, including deliberations about messaging that played into attacks that Clinton was calculating and a political flip-flopper. Private speeches she gave to financial industry firms were particularly damaging within the left wing of the Democratic party and among independents frustrated with the influence of Wall Street in politics. The indictment alleges that Guccifer 2.0 was in touch with multiple Americans in the summer of 2016 about the pilfered material, including an unidentified congressional candidate who requested and then received stolen information. On Aug. 15, 2016, the indictment says, Guccifer 2.0 reached out to someone in contact with the Trump campaign and asked the person if they had seen anything "interesting in the docs I posted?" Guccifer 2.0 said it would be a "great pleasure" to help. Prosecutors say weeks later, Guccifer 2.0 referred to a stolen DCCC document posted online and asked the person, "what do u think of the info on the turnout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign." The person responded, "(p)retty standard." The indictment doesn't identify the person, though longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone acknowledged Friday, through his lawyer, a "24-word exchange with someone on Twitter claiming to be Guccifer 2.0." "This exchange is now entirely public and provides no evidence of collaboration or collusion with Guccifer 2.0 or anyone else in the alleged hacking of the DNC emails," said lawyer Grant Smith. The charges come as Mueller continues to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. Before Friday, 20 people and three companies had been charged in the investigation. Defendants include four former Trump campaign and White House aides, three of whom have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate, and 13 Russians accused in a powerful social media campaign to sway U.S. public opinion in 2016. Mr. Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said on Twitter that it was time to end the investigation since "no Americans are involved" in Friday's indictment. But with Mueller still investigating, it's not known whether further indictments are taking shape or will. On Saturday, top state election officials are meeting in Philadelphia to discuss cybersecurity concerns as a part of their annual meeting. The meeting comes in between Friday's indictment and Monday's Trump-Putin meeting. Some Democrats have called on Mr. Trump to cancel the summit, if he can't hold Putin accountable. Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Trump shouldn't be meeting with Putin one-on-one. "There should be no one-on-one meeting between this president and Mr. Putin. There needs to be other Americans in the room," Warner told reporters Friday. ___ Colvin reported from Glasgow, Scotland. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Richard Lardner, Desmond Butler and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report. | |
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| 07-15-18 02:53am - 2361 days | #914 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The FBI, the CIA, and other spy agencies in the US are full of corruption and graft. President Trump needs to clean the swamp in Washington. Throw the corrupt agents in prison: at the very least, fire them from their cushy jobs. Make America great again. -------- -------- Politics Republicans 'preparing to impeach deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein' after 12 Russians indicted over election meddling The Independent Emily Shugerman,The Independent 13 hours ago Republicans in the House are reportedly preparing an effort to impeach deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, the man overseeing the special counsel's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have drafted an impeachment filing for Mr Rosenstein and are planning to introduce it as early as Monday, according to Politico. Republicans have long accused Mr Rosenstein of stalling their attempts to investigate the FBI’s probes of President Donald Trump’s campaign team and election rival Hillary Clinton’s private email server. News of the impeachment filing came as Mr Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian military officials for federal crimes during the 2016 election on Friday – a major development in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Democrats claim the Republicans are using the threat of impeachment to undermine Mr Mueller’s probe, which Mr Trump has repeatedly criticised as a politically motivated witch hunt. Mr Rosenstein took over supervision of the probe – which also concerns possible obstruction of justice by Mr Trump – after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself last March. Republicans, meanwhile, say the deputy attorney general is deliberately stonewalling their investigations of possible FBI bias. The House passed a measure last month demanding access to thousands of FBI documents related to the Russia investigation and the Clinton email probe. The White House also waded into the fray, ordering the Department of Justice on Monday to give legislators access to classified information about an informant the FBI used in its investigation of the Trump campaign, according to the New York Times. Republican such as Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, and Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan threatened to impeach Mr Rosenstein in April over similar complaints. Experts said at the time that impeachment was unlikely, as it would require a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate, where Republicans have a slim 51-49 majority. Mr Rosenstein defended himself in a public hearing last week against accusations by Mr Jordan that he was hiding information from Congress. "Your use of this to attack me personally is deeply wrong," Mr Rosenstein told Mr Jordan at the hearing. "When you find some problem with the production or with questions, it doesn't mean that I'm personally trying to conceal something from you." Announcing the indictment of the Russian officials on Friday, Mr Rosenstein accused members of the military unit known as GRU of monitoring computers, implanting malicious computer code, and stealing emails from Democratic organisations and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. The Mueller probe has so far resulted in indictments or guilty pleas from 32 people and three Russian companies, according to a Wall Street Journal tally. | |
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| 07-15-18 08:10pm - 2360 days | #915 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
This news article proves that cops should not carry guns. Guns can be used to kill innocent people. And even a cop can be killed with a gun. So cops should not carry guns, and that will lower the death rate of cops and civilians killed by guns. As for Neo-Nazi Trump, he should not be allowed to carry a gun, or have the legal power to fire nuclear weapons. Trump is in the early stages of alzheimer's, which explains why he is attacking our allies and playing friendly with hostile competitors like Russia, China, and North Korea. If Trump were a horse, he would be ready for the glue factory. Instead, Americans have voted him President. Sad day for America. ---------- ---------- U.S. Police officer, bystander die from gunshot wounds Associated Press SARAH BETANCOURT,Associated Press 5 hours ago BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts police officer and bystander died Sunday from wounds sustained when a suspect allegedly took the officer's gun and fired following a vehicle crash and a foot chase. Weymouth officer Michael Chesna was shot multiple times by his own firearm around 7:30 a.m. Sunday, and died from the injuries at South Shore Hospital, officials said. An unidentified elderly woman also died after being hit by stray bullets in a nearby home, authorities said. Weymouth Police Chief Richard Grimes said the shooting suspect, 20-year-old Emanuel Lopes, was in custody. Weymouth is located approximately 16 miles (26 kilometers) south of Boston on what is known as the South Shore. Police say the suspect crashed a car, fled the scene, and was later discovered by Chesna allegedly vandalizing a home. Prosecutors say that's when he attacked Chesna with a rock to the head. Chesna fell to the ground, and officials say, Lopes took the officer's gun and shot Chesna multiple times in the head and chest. Lopes then fled and fired more shots during a chase. Police say one of those shots fatally struck the woman in her home. Lopes suffered a leg wound while being arrested and is hospitalized at South Shore Hospital. He will be arraigned on two counts of homicide on Monday, at either his bedside or in court. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said on Twitter that his thoughts were with the families of the officer and bystander. "I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Officer Chesna and an innocent bystander today and my thoughts and prayers are with their families, loved ones and the @WeymouthPD after this tragic loss," Baker tweeted. Grimes described Chesna as a 42-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran who leaves behind a wife and two children, ages 4 and 9. Chesna was from Weymouth and graduated in 1994 from Weymouth High School. "I hired Mike Chesna six years ago tomorrow," Grimes said. Grimes said he had spoken to Chesna's mother and she said her son joined the military "to open the doors to get in this job." "He always had a kind word and a good attitude ... we very much appreciated his service to the Weymouth Police Department," said Grimes, describing the overnight shifts and traffic division duties Chesna held. Chesna's body was removed from the hospital and transported via procession of multiple law enforcement agencies to the state's medical examiner office in Boston, where he will be evaluated. Dozens of police, some tight-lipped and others crying, somberly saluted the vehicle carrying the officer's body, and mourners placed bouquets by the Weymouth Police Headquarters, now draped in black bunting. The Norfolk District Attorney's Office says it cannot release more information on the suspect's "past court involvement " prior to court Monday. Law enforcement groups as close as the Boston Police Department and as far as Maine are taking to social media to express their sadness. Massachusetts State Police Colonel Kerry Gilpin offered her condolences for the "horrific crimes," and said the State Police Crime Lab "will work tirelessly alongside District Attorney Morrissey and the Weymouth Police Department to speak for those two victims by holding the defendant accountable." | |
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| 07-18-18 07:00am - 2358 days | #916 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Trump is cleared of all wrong-doing. Secret tapes show it's the slime-ball Democrats who allowed Russia to interfere in the Presidential election. So not only is Obama guilty of treason, when he allowed Russia illegal access to the election, but Trump is a righteous man of great integrity, who allowed Obama to stay out of prison, because Trump is a Christian who forgives his enemies. Hail Trump, leader for life of the greatest country on Earth. ---------- ---------- Donald Trump and the tangled tale of the tapes Jerry Adler and Hunter Walker 3 hours ago Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty When Donald Trump gets in one of his frequent jams, caught between his own words and the truth, he likes to allude to the existence of tapes that will exonerate him. He did it in his confrontation with former FBI director James Comey over what was said in their private Oval Office meeting, leading to Comey’s famous expostulation to Congress: “Lordy, I hope there are tapes!” (There weren’t.) He did it just last week, disputing a British newspaper’s account of him insulting Prime Minister Teresa May, offering to supply reporters with tapes of the interview “for your enjoyment if you’d like it.” (The White House never followed up when Yahoo News requested the tapes, and the newspaper in question, the Sun, eventually released a clip that seemed to show Trump had said exactly what had been reported.) In fact, tapes (audio and video) have more often gotten Trump into trouble than out of it. There was, of course, the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that nearly derailed his campaign one month before the election. There is (or isn’t) the rumored “pee tape” of Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room during his brief visit there in 2013, a recording supposedly in the possession of Russian intelligence, which in some people’s minds explains his otherwise inexplicable deference to Vladimir Putin. There are countless hours of outtakes from his 14-year run as host of “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice” in which he either did or did not say or do something reprehensible. While there’s no evidence for all or most of these recordings, the potential that they do exist supplied the premise for an upcoming television show in which comedian Tom Arnold details his search for compromising Trump clips. One thing Arnold almost certainly won’t find is a tape of the private conversation Trump had with Putin in Helsinki Monday. The two presidents met for more than two hours with only their translators present, and only those four know what was said — unless, as former CIA Director John Brennan suspects, Russian intelligence was listening in. “I think whatever Trump said in that meeting is now memorialized on Russian tape and will be used as necessary by Putin against Trump,” Brennan said in an appearance on “Morning Joe” Tuesday morning. Putin’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and the ongoing probe into whether Trump’s team colluded with the Russian mischief makers have brought spycraft into the spotlight in a way that hasn’t been seen since the height of the Cold War. A dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele raised the possibility that the Kremlin possesses embarrassing information about the commander in chief. The question came up at the president’s press conference with Putin when a reporter asked if Moscow has “any compromising material on President Trump or his family.” Putin laughed at the notion, but didn’t explicitly deny the existence of what Russian intelligence — which has a specialty in the sexual and financial blackmail of prominent Westerners — calls “kompromat.” “Yeah, I did hear these rumors that we allegedly collected compromising material on Mr. Trump when he was visiting Moscow,” Putin said. “Now, distinguished colleague, let me tell you this: When President Trump was at Moscow back then, I didn’t even know that he was in Moscow. I treat President Trump with utmost respect. But back then, when he was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me that he was in Moscow.” (That assertion runs contrary to reporting in the book “Russian Roulette,” co-authored by Yahoo News Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff, that Putin had been expected to meet with Trump backstage at the Miss Universe pageant and canceled at the last minute.) If Trump does find himself caught on secret recordings, it would represent one of his favorite weapons turned against him. During his real estate career, Trump earned a reputation for surreptitiously taping his employees and associates. Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen also was rumored to record his conversations for him and his client, for potential use as leverage. And Arnold and others have suggested that Cohen’s recordings could come back to haunt Trump since they likely fell into the possession of Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Trump’s relationship with Russia. Trump has also demonstrated a preoccupation with the possibility that others are taping him — most famously last year when he tweeted that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory,” a claim it took the Justice Department six months to debunk. In fact, he reportedly didn’t even want White House stenographers to do their job of recording and transcribing his conversations with reporters, according to one who worked in both the Obama and Trump administrations. A deputy White House press secretary “told my colleague we would need to keep our microphones far away from the president’s face,” Beck Dorey-Stein wrote in the New York Times Tuesday. If Trump is so averse to being taped, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham had a warning for him: that Putin, a former KGB agent, could have taken advantage of the summit to plant a bug with the president. He suggested Trump should get rid of a World Cup souvenir Putin presented to him with during their meeting on Monday. “Finally, if it were me, I’d check the soccer ball for listening devices and never allow it in the White House,” Graham wrote on Twitter. | |
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| 07-18-18 08:16am - 2358 days | #917 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: The US Government spent over $68,000 at Trump's Turnberry Resort during his weekend stay. In addition to government money spent, Trump also did free advertising for the resort, which he owns. Both are violations of the law that says a sitting president should not profit personally from his personal business ties, according to the US Constitution. So is Trump breaking the law? Trump says he is enjoying the fruits of his labors. Trump's critics say he is breaking the law. And who believes a Trump employee, who states that the US government was only charged cost for services rendered? ------------ ------------ U.S. Government Spent Over $60,000 at President Trump's Turnberry Resort During His Visit Money Alix Langone,Money 14 hours ago Trump has still yet to fully divest from his company. The U.S. federal government spent more than $60,000 to house the President and his staff at Trump’s Scottish Turnberry golf resort last weekend. According to Scottish newspaper The Scotsman, which claims to have seen the records, the State Department made payments to SLC Turnberry Limited of more than $68,000 to cover expenses incurred on the trip. The total cost is not known. While the amount itself is not unusual for an international presidential trip, the federal funds used to pay for it typically do not go to a business owned by a sitting president, especially one who has yet to fully divest from the company which owns the resort. In addition to the payments, President Donald Trump also attained what essentially amounts to free advertising for Turnberry. In his now-infamous interview with British tabloid The Sun — during which he criticized Prime Minister Theresa May’s handling of Brexit — Trump referenced his luxury resort, calling it a “magical” place and one of his favorite places. He played two rounds of golf while staying at Turnberry, according to the Scotsman. Playing there marked his 169th day of playing golf as the president. Ethics watchdog groups have expressed concern over the questionable decision to stay at one of his own hotels on a government trip. “I view this as kind of a forced subsidy of an infomercial for his properties,” Norman Eisen, chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics told the New York Times. “He’s attempting to utilize his trip to get beneficial PR.” Despite Trump showing off his Turnberry property on the international stage, financial records show it has not been profitable since Trump purchased it in 2014, the Times reported. According to the Scotsman, the Turnberry luxury resort lost $23 million in 2016 alone. A chief compliance officer at the Trump Organization by the name of George Sorial reportedly told the Scotsman that, “For United States government patronage, our hotels charge room rates only at cost and we do not profit from these stays.” | |
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| 07-18-18 08:40am - 2358 days | #918 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news (or real news, it's hard to tell the difference any more). Trump changes his tune on North Korea. Says that Putin, his Russian master, will serve as an advisor to the the North Korean process. We are grateful that Putin has agreed to lend his expert help with the North Koreans. Hail Donald Trump, President of the United States. Hail Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, and Trump's best buddy (or maybe master is more accurate). ================ ================ Trump now says no 'time limit' to denuclearize North Korea AFP AFP 13 hours ago US President Donald Trump addressed his ongoing talks with North Korea on Tuesday at the White House (AFP Photo/NICHOLAS KAMM) Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump said Tuesday there is no hurry to denuclearize North Korea under his accord with Kim Jong Un -- a shift in tone from when the US leader said the process would start very soon. "Discussions are ongoing and they're going very, very well," Trump told reporters. "We have no time limit. We have no speed limit." Trump said he discussed North Korea with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday at their summit in Helsinki. "President Putin is going to be involved in the sense that he is with us," Trump said. The Republican president met with Kim on June 12 for an unprecedented summit in Singapore during which the North Korean leader pledged to work toward denuclearization of the peninsula. But the accord did not spell out a timetable for the process or say how it would be carried out. Diplomats are now expected to hammer out the details. More than a month later, no concrete progress has been reported and North Korea has complained the Americans are making unilateral demands. Before the Singapore summit, the Trump administration said denuclearization should start "without delay," and after the meeting, it spoke of the process beginning "very quickly." A day after the meeting, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the bulk of North Korea's denuclearization should be completed by the end of Trump's term in 2020. The White House has hailed the summit between Kim and Trump in Singapore as a major breakthrough toward disarming the isolated, nuclear-armed North in exchange for easing of sanctions and other help with economic development. Pompeo met with Kim's key aide this month during his latest trip to Pyongyang but as soon as he left, the North's foreign ministry berated him over his "unilateral and gangster-like" demands. Trump last week signaled optimism however, unveiling a letter from Kim in which the young leader hailed the "start of a meaningful journey" and tweeting "Great progress being made!" | |
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| 07-20-18 01:50am - 2356 days | #919 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: President Donald Trump leads a crowd of Neo-Nazi and KKK followers in a flag burning ceremony of the U.S. flag. Trump vows he will fly the Nazi flag over the White House, and tells his followers that now is the time to scourge America and make it Great, White, and Clean Again. His followers chant: "Death to Commies and Liberals and Slime-ball Democrats." (Ignoring that Trump's master is Vladimir Putin, a Commie.) ----------- ----------- American flag burned outside LA office of congresswoman Associated Press CHRISTOPHER WEBER,Associated Press 7 hours ago People place their fists over a burned U.S. flag as they chant slogans outside the Los Angeles office of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, Thursday, July 19, 2018, in Los Angeles. A crowd gathered at the field office to counter a protest by a self-styled militia group burned the flag taken from the back of a pickup truck that drove up to the scene. The pickup, with two men who appeared to be white inside, was stopped by the crowd. The crowd opened the doors and a man then grabbed the flag flying on a pole in the bed of the vehicle, which took off. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) LOS ANGELES (AP) — A small crowd that gathered Thursday outside the Los Angeles office of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters to counter an expected protest by a self-styled militia group burned an American flag taken from the back of a pickup truck. The incident happened after the far-right Oath Keepers group didn't appear at the office after saying it would rally against the congresswoman. A group of counter-protesters there to support Waters were chanting "black power" and other slogans when the pickup approached. The vehicle, occupied by two men who appeared to be white, was stopped by the crowd. Some marchers opened the doors and one grabbed the flag flying on a pole in the bed of the truck, which sped off. The flag was stepped on and lit on fire as someone stoked the flames. A few people cheered and someone yelled, "This is not the American flag, this is their flag." No one was injured or arrested. Police wouldn't immediately say whether they were investigating. Attempts to reach a representative for Waters were unsuccessful. The congresswoman, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, sparked anger among conservatives after she called on the public to "push back" on administration officials spotted in public. The Oath Keepers called Waters a "protest terrorist inciter" and said members intended to "stand against terrorism, stand for freedom of speech and association, in support of ICE/Border Patrol as they enforce constitutional immigration laws." The gathering was planned for the early afternoon but police said then that authorities had been informed by Oath Keepers that the demonstration was called off. "The Oath Keepers would like nothing more than to inflame racial tensions and create an explosive conflict in our community," Waters said in a statement a day earlier urging counter-protesters to stay away. A few dozen counter-protesters including union workers, church leaders, South Los Angeles residents and members of activist groups gathered peacefully outside the office at midday. Some held signs proclaiming "Black, brown and labor unity!" and "Resist!" "These people are coming here to cause problems," said Cliff Smith, an organizer with United Union of Roofers Waterproofers and Allied Workers Local No. 36. "Violent right wing groups have no business here." __ Contact Weber at https://twitter.com/WeberCM __ Associated Press photographer Jae Hong contributed to this report. | |
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| 07-20-18 10:59am - 2356 days | #920 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Did Neo-Nazi Trump ever have a sex life? Trump's lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, secretly taped Trump talking about making hush payments to Playboy model Karen McDougal. So my hope is that Trump got his money's worth. Except that now that he is president, Trump seems to feel that historic events are fake news: whatever he does not like is fake, so his sex with any women except his current wife is fake: except I don't know if Trump is getting any from his current wife, since he can't get his hands on her to grab her by the pussy, his favorite technique. Even though this is a porn site, we should respect the office of the President of the United States, even if he does not respect anyone or anything except the cash in his own personal bank account. So, a moment of silence, while we visualize Trump and Melania in bed. Do the heaven shake and thunder while this happens? Separately, President Trump called the FBI raid on Michael Cohen "an attack on our country". I guess Trump means sex is sacred, and should not be investigated. Except when a Democrat has sex, like ex-President Clinton, then it's all right to investigate and even lead to impeachment, because Democrats are slime-balls. While Republicans are men of outstanding courage and moral fiber, who might have sex, but it's the good, God-fearing kind of sex that people should applaud. Go, President Trump, the first President who proclaimed that women should be grabbed by the pussy. Except that Trump is a serial denier: he denies he ever said that women should be grabbed by the pussy. And he denies that he ever had an affair with Karen McDougal or Stormy Daniels. And if you ask him, he is willing to deny he is a thief, a hypocrite, a liar, and the most corrupt President the US ever had. ------------------------- ------------------------- Cohen taped Trump discussing making hush payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal: Sources Good Morning America Good Morning America 15 minutes ago Cohen taped Trump discussing making hush payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Investigators discovered recordings made by Michael Cohen that include then-candidate Donald Trump talking about making a payment to a former Playboy model, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News. The recordings were found as part of the raid on Michael Cohen’s home office and hotel carried out earlier this year in New York, the sources told ABC News. The New York Times first reported the news of the recordings. The Playboy model in question is reportedly Karen McDougal, who has previously claimed that she had an affair with Trump. The White House previously denied McDougal's claims. Cohen is under criminal investigation by New York federal prosecutors in a case that’s separate from the one that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is pursuing. Sources said that investigators were looking into Cohen’s personal business dealings as well as those with Trump’s alleged mistresses and media organizations as well as the 2016 campaign. The April raid on Cohen’s home office and hotel – unusual for targeting an attorney – sparked outrage from the president, who called it “an attack on our country.” Cohen, the president’s longtime fixer and personal attorney, was known for his loyalty to Trump, vowing to “take a bullet” for him. But he recently told ABC News’ chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos: “I put family and country first.” PHOTO: ABC News' George Stephanopoulos interviewing Michael Cohen, who was formerly an attorney for President Donald Trump. (ABC News) Cohen has not been charged with a crime. Rudy Giuliani, who is now Trump’s personal attorney, confirmed to ABC News Trump did have a discussion with Cohen before the election but he said that the payment to McDougal that was being discussed was never made. Giuliani also said the recording in question is less than 2 minutes long. The payment, as ABC News has previously reported, was made to McDougal by AMI. “Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Giuliani said to ABC News. “In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” he said. McDougal, who was Playmate of the Month in December 1997 and Playmate of the Year in 1998, alleges that she had a 10-month romantic affair with Trump in 2006. After being silent for more than a decade, McDougal started speaking about it earlier this year, first opening up in an interview with The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow in February. PHOTO: Karen McDougal, Playboy Playmate of the Year 1998 attend Playboy's Super Saturday Night Party presented by Bacardi at Sagamore Hotel, Feb. 6, 2010, in Miami Beach, Fla. (Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Bacardi) McDougal told CNN's Anderson Cooper in March that her first intimate encounter with Trump came in June 2006, soon after she met the New York real-estate tycoon at the Playboy mansion during a taping there of his reality series, "The Apprentice." At the time, Trump had recently married the now-first lady Melania Trump, and the couple had an infant son. "I was attracted to him," McDougal said. "He's a nice looking man. I liked his charisma." (MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cohen says family and country, not President Trump, is his 'first loyalty'  (MORE: Donald Trump's alleged affair with Playboy model reveals 'systemic' pattern of concealing stories, says Ronan Farrow) (MORE: Who is Karen McDougal, the ex-Playboy Playmate who allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump?) (MORE: Ex-Playboy model on alleged Trump affair: 'Somebody's lying, and I can tell you, it's not me' In March, McDougal filed a lawsuit in state court in California, seeking to invalidate a contract she signed with American Media, Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer. In August 2016, AMI purchased the rights to McDougal's story in exchange for $150,000 and a deal for her to write columns and appear on covers of fitness magazines owned by AMI. But AMI never published a story about her alleged affair with Trump. She's alleging in court filings that AMI colluded with her former attorney and Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to purchase her story with the purpose of burying it in advance of the election. AMI has denied the allegations. In the interview with CNN, McDougal claimed that she is a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump and that she has no financial motivation for speaking out. She said she would be willing to return the $150,000 she received from AMI. "I just want my rights back," she told CNN. A White House spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News in February that Trump denies having an affair with the ex-Playboy model: "This is an old story that is just more fake news. The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal." | |
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| 07-20-18 11:13am - 2356 days | #921 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Scott Pruitt, the EPA chief who either resigned or was fired, used a double standard: Protect himself with taxpayer money, but let ordinary taxpayers go to hell. This is the Republican way: protect yourself, grab as much money as you can, funnel money to the rich and wealthy, while taking money away from programs to benefit workers and the lower class. Make America great again: White, Conservative, and power to the wealthy. -------------- -------------- EPA worries about Pruitt’s toxic desk reveal absurd double standard By Yaron Steinbuch July 20, 2018 | 10:44am Former EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s staff planned to take precautions to protect him from the toxic effects of formaldehyde in a fancy new desk – but months later, his top aides blocked the release of a report on the health dangers of the carcinogen, according to Politico. Pruitt was wrapping up a more than $9,500 redecoration of his office when a top official noticed a California warning on a desk the administrator wanted to order saying it contained the chemical. “Sorry to bother you with this but we need some help. The desk the Administrator wants for his office from Amazon has a California Proposition 65 warning,” acting deputy chief of staff Reginald Allen emailed Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, acting head of EPA’s toxic chemicals office, the news outlet reported. “What I am asking is can someone in your area tell us whether it is OK to get this desk for the Administrator related to the warning?” Allen wrote April 7. The emails were released to the group American Oversight under the Freedom of Information Act and shared with Politico. In her response, Cleland-Hamnett explained that the desk was likely made of compressed wood in which formaldehyde is frequently used as a glue. Although an EPA regulation limiting formaldehyde emissions from such items had been put on hold by Team Trump, California regulates the chemical, meaning emissions from the ornate desk were “likely to be fine,” Cleland-Hamnett wrote. But she suggested letting the furniture piece air out for a few days before being placed in the administrator’s office. Administrative staff apparently made plans to have the desk assembled at a warehouse and left there for a week, according to the report. It’s unclear whether Pruitt ended up ordering the desk as part of the renovation — which included artwork from the Smithsonian and framed photographs of Pruitt and President Trump — but his aides took steps to protect him from exposure to the chemical, documents showed. A few months later, top EPA officials took steps to block a health report produced by another division at the agency that found the levels of formaldehyde that many Americans breathe every day are tied to leukemia and nose and throat cancer, among other ailments. American Oversight chief Austin Evers said the emails fit into the pattern of behavior that led to the downfall of Pruitt, the perk-seeking, climate-change skeptic who recently resigned amid an avalanche of ethical controversies over his personal and professional behavior “You can add ‘EPA chemical safety science’ to the list of taxpayer-funded benefits that Scott Pruitt kept for himself. The irony would be comical if this wasn’t so dangerous,” Evers said in a statement. “Months before Scott Pruitt blocked the EPA’s report on the dangers of formaldehyde to public health, he got the benefit of EPA’s safety experts looking out for his own health,” he added. Formaldehyde-based compounds are commonly used in industrial strength adhesives and can be found in composite wood products. | |
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| 07-21-18 06:09am - 2355 days | #922 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
In spite of what President Donald Trump says, not all FBI agents are corrupt. Here is an example of an FBI agent who enjoys photography. He uses his cell phone to take pictures of women changing in a dressing room. The problem is, he does not get permission first. As a FBI agent, he should follow the advice of the Pres, and grab them by the pussy. Or use his gun to cop a feel. ------------ ------------ Charlotte Observer | CharlotteObserver.com 22-year-old changing in dressing room catches FBI agent taking photos, NJ cops say | Charlotte Observer A New York FBI agent was arrested after police said a womat an Edison, New Jersey, clothing store caught him using his cell phone to take pictures of her changing in a dressing room. A New York FBI agent was arrested after police said a woman at an Edison, New Jersey, clothing store caught him using his cell phone to take pictures of her changing in a dressing room. Mark Lennihan AP National 22-year-old changing in dressing room catches FBI agent taking photos, NJ cops say By Jared Gilmour jgilmour@mcclatchy.com July 20, 2018 04:18 PM A 22-year-old woman was changing in a New Jersey clothing store’s dressing room on Thursday when she made a horrifying discovery, according to police. There was a man snapping pictures of the woman on his cell phone as the woman changed clothes at the shop in Edison, New Jersey. And when the woman confronted the man, she found out he wasn’t just anyone. The man told her he was a law enforcement officer, according to Middlesex County prosecutors. That’s when the woman called 911. Danuel S. Brown, a 30-year-old special agent in the FBI’s New York field office, was arrested on charges of fourth-degree invasion of privacy, prosecutors said. Brown is a resident of Piscataway, a New Jersey town near Edison. Brown had positioned his cell phone below the door to the woman’s dressing room, and then used the device to capture multiple pictures of the 22-year-old as she changed, investigators said. Brown is being held in a Middlesex County jail until a court appearance in New Brunswick, according to prosecutors. Authorities said the investigation is ongoing, and that anyone with additional information in the case should reach out to Edison police. | |
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| 07-21-18 07:33am - 2355 days | #923 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Your favorite president speaks about recordings. There are many types of recordings. Most of them are fakes. If you hear a recording with President Trump making un-American speeches or talks, that is certainly a fake recording. Only trust recordings with a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the President Trump himself. That is the only way you will know the truth. So if you hear a fake recording by Michael Cohen of the President talking about Stormy Daniels or that Playboy Playmate, do not trust it! Did it come with a certificate of authenticity signed by Donald Trump? Of course it did not. Donald Trump is a God-fearing man who has devoted his life to his country and his family. He would never lie, cheat, or steal, because money is the least of his concerns. He values honor above all else, honor to God, to his country, to his family. ---------- ---------- Trump denies wrongdoing, says lawyer's tape 'perhaps illegal' Reuters By David Brunnstrom,Reuters 54 minutes ago U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday denied any wrongdoing a day after reports that his onetime attorney had recorded them both discussing buying the rights to a story by a woman who said she had an affair with Trump. The president said it was "perhaps illegal" for a lawyer to record a client. "Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of," Trump tweeted, in an apparent reference to an FBI raid on the office of his former lawyer Michael Cohen in April. "Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!" Trump added. Trump's onetime personal attorney Michael Cohen recorded a conversation with Trump two months before the 2016 election in which they discussed buying the rights to a story by a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump, one of the president's lawyers said on Friday. Lawyer Rudy Giuliani said no campaign funding was involved in the discussion between Trump and Cohen, who has distanced himself from Trump in recent months as the FBI investigates Cohen's business dealings. If campaign funds were used, that could run afoul of federal election law, legal experts say. Before the election, the Trump campaign denied any knowledge of payment to the former model, Karen McDougal, but the taped conversation could undermine those denials. The existence of the audio recording was first reported by the New York Times, which said Trump and Cohen discussed a potential payment to McDougal. Giuliani confirmed the conversation to Reuters and that it took place in September 2016 but said it involved reimbursing the parent company of the National Enquirer tabloid for McDougal's story rights. The payment was never made, he said. Giuliani also denied Trump had an affair with McDougal. He said the tape would show that Trump makes clear that if there is going to be a payment, it should be done by check, which would be easily traced. Giuliani said the FBI seized the recording this year during a raid on Cohen's office. The FBI investigation stemmed in part from a referral by the U.S. special counsel's office, which is looking into possible coordination during the election campaign between Trump's aides and Russian officials. Moscow denies U.S. allegations that it interfered in the election and Trump denies any campaign ties to Russian officials. A representative for McDougal has not responded to requests for comment. The White House had also declined comment. McDougal has said she began a nearly year-long affair with Trump in 2006 shortly after his wife, Melania, gave birth. She sold her story for $150,000 in August 2016 but it was never published by the National Enquirer, a practice known as "catch and kill" to prevent a potentially damaging story from becoming public. David Pecker, the chairman of parent company American Media Inc (AMI), is Trump's friend. Giuliani said the discussion of payment did not mean McDougal’s claim of an affair was true and characterized it as an attempt to resolve false allegations that were "personally damaging" to Trump. Under U.S. election law, presidential candidates must disclose campaign contributions, which are defined as things of value given to a campaign in order to influence an election. Giuliani said the proposed payment was a personal matter and not subject to campaign finance law. The New Yorker magazine reported in February that Trump had an affair with McDougal at the same time he had a relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels and that the National Enquirer prevented McDougal's story being made public. The White House has said Trump denies having sex with Daniels. Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating Cohen for possible bank and tax fraud, and for possible campaign law violations linked to a $130,000 payment to Daniels and other matters related to Trump's campaign, a person familiar with the investigation has told Reuters. Cohen has not been charged with any crime. (Reporting by Andrew Heavens and David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Nick Zieminski) --------------- --------------- | |
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| 07-21-18 07:34am - 2355 days | #924 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Good Morning America Cohen taped Trump discussing making hush payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal: Sources Good Morning America Good Morning America 14 hours ago Cohen taped Trump discussing making hush payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Investigators discovered recordings made by Michael Cohen, at least one of which includes then-candidate Donald Trump talking about making a payment related to a former Playboy model, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News. The recording was found as part of the raid on Michael Cohen’s home office and hotel carried out earlier this year in New York, the sources told ABC News. The New York Times first reported the news of the recording. The Playboy model in question is reportedly Karen McDougal, who has previously claimed that she had an affair with Trump. The White House previously denied McDougal's claims. The recording includes a short conversation between Cohen and then-candidate Trump talking about a plan, allegedly devised by Cohen, to try to purchase the rights to McDougal’s story from AMI since the media company had already bought the rights to her story, according to sources familiar with the audio recording. Cohen proposed paying about $150,000 to AMI, the sources sadi, and on the Trump can be heard telling Cohen to make sure the payment is properly documented in order to keep a record of it. That said, the sources say that payment never happened. The content of the recording was first reported by The Washington Post. Cohen is under criminal investigation by New York federal prosecutors in a case that’s separate from the one that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is pursuing. Sources said that investigators were looking into Cohen’s personal business dealings as well as those with Trump’s alleged mistresses and media organizations as well as the 2016 campaign. The April raid on Cohen’s home office and hotel – unusual for targeting an attorney – sparked outrage from the president, who called it “an attack on our country.” Cohen, the president’s longtime fixer and personal attorney, was known for his loyalty to Trump, vowing to “take a bullet” for him. But he recently told ABC News’ chief anchor, George Stephanopoulos: “I put family and country first.” PHOTO: ABC News' George Stephanopoulos interviewing Michael Cohen, who was formerly an attorney for President Donald Trump. (ABC News) Cohen has not been charged with a crime. Rudy Giuliani, who is now Trump’s personal attorney, confirmed to ABC News Trump did have a discussion with Cohen before the election but he said that the payment to McDougal that was being discussed was never made. Giuliani also said the recording in question is less than 2 minutes long. The payment, as ABC News has previously reported, was made to McDougal by AMI. “Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Giuliani said to ABC News. “In the big scheme of things, it’s powerful exculpatory evidence,” he said. McDougal, who was Playmate of the Month in December 1997 and Playmate of the Year in 1998, alleges that she had a 10-month romantic affair with Trump in 2006. After being silent for more than a decade, McDougal started speaking about it earlier this year, first opening up in an interview with The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow in February. PHOTO: Karen McDougal, Playboy Playmate of the Year 1998 attend Playboy's Super Saturday Night Party presented by Bacardi at Sagamore Hotel, Feb. 6, 2010, in Miami Beach, Fla. (Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Bacardi) McDougal told CNN's Anderson Cooper in March that her first intimate encounter with Trump came in June 2006, soon after she met the New York real-estate tycoon at the Playboy mansion during a taping there of his reality series, "The Apprentice." At the time, Trump had recently married the now-first lady Melania Trump, and the couple had an infant son. "I was attracted to him," McDougal said. "He's a nice looking man. I liked his charisma." In March, McDougal filed a lawsuit in state court in California, seeking to invalidate a contract she signed with American Media, Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer. In August 2016, AMI purchased the rights to McDougal's story in exchange for $150,000 and a deal for her to write columns and appear on covers of fitness magazines owned by AMI. But AMI never published a story about her alleged affair with Trump. She's alleging in court filings that AMI colluded with her former attorney and Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to purchase her story with the purpose of burying it in advance of the election. AMI has denied the allegations. In the interview with CNN, McDougal claimed that she is a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump and that she has no financial motivation for speaking out. She said she would be willing to return the $150,000 she received from AMI. "I just want my rights back," she told CNN. A White House spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News in February that Trump denies having an affair with the ex-Playboy model: "This is an old story that is just more fake news. The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal." | |
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| 07-21-18 03:01pm - 2355 days | #925 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Former VP Joe Biden comes out swinging against Donald Trump. Biden is not a fan of Donald Trump, says Trump is the most corrupt president the US ever had. The feeling is mutual: Donald Trump says Obama, who Trump hates, picked Joe Biden out of the garbage heap to serve as VP. --------- --------- 'We're in the midst of an all-out assault on human dignity': Joe Biden Good Morning America JUSTIN DOOM,Good Morning America 6 hours ago 'We're in the midst of an all-out assault on human dignity': Joe Biden originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Former Vice President Joe Biden denounced the current administration's handling of issues including immigration on Friday night, saying in a speech in Arizona, "We're in the midst of an all-out assault on human dignity." Biden was addressing the League of United Latin American Citizens at an event in Phoenix, where he said "grotesque lies about immigrants and policies that rip babies from their mothers' arms carry echoes of the darkest moments in our history." "Not only are they a national shame," Biden added, "they tarnish the very idea of America and diminish our standing in the world." It's not the first time Biden has criticized the administration or President Donald Trump. In February, the former vice president said Trump was "a joke" and that his criticism of the FBI was "just a disaster." A month later, he said if he and Trump attended the same high school, he "would have beat the hell out of him" for disrespecting women, adding: "I've been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life. I'm a pretty damn good athlete. Any guy that talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room." (MORE: Biden on Trump: 'He's a joke' and his FBI attacks are 'just a disaster' (MORE: Biden says he would have 'beat the hell out' of Trump in high school for disrespecting women) Biden later walked back the comment, but not before Trump responded on Twitter that Biden was "weak, mentally and physically" and he "would go down fast and hard, crying all the way." On Thursday, the president said in a CBS News interview, when asked against whom he'd most like to run in 2020: "I dream about Biden." Later in the interview, as reported by the Associated Press, Trump said Barack Obama took Biden "out of the garbage heap, and everybody was shocked that he did. I'd love to have it be Biden." A Biden spokesperson declined to comment at the time. In his comments on Friday night, the former vice president also criticized the administration's "betrayal of the Dreamers," Trump's pardoning of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, underfunding schools, attacking organized labor and neglecting Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. (MORE: Trump pardons controversial former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio) He encouraged those in attendance "to vote, to raise up your voices and, especially, to run for office" as "we fight to preserve the promise of a proud, inclusive middle class." "I was raised by a man -- my father -- who believed with every fiber in his being that everyone -- everyone -- deserves to be treated with dignity," Biden said. "We're in the midst of an all-out assault on human dignity. Yes, at the border, but also in the courtroom, in the classroom and on the factory floor." | |
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| 07-22-18 01:23am - 2354 days | #926 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
TheHill.com Schiff: Surveillance warrant docs show that Nunes memo 'misrepresented and distorted these applications' By Jacqueline Thomsen - 07/21/18 11:04 PM EDT Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Saturday that the release of documents related to the surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser show that Republicans “misrepresented and distorted these applications” in their claims of bias at the Department of Justice. “These documents affirm that our nation faced a profound counterintelligence threat prior to the 2016 election, and the Department of Justice and FBI took appropriate steps to investigate whether any U.S. persons were acting as an agent of a foreign power,” Schiff said in a statement. “FBI and DOJ would have been negligent had they not used all the tools at their disposal, including Court-authorized FISA surveillance, to protect the country.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Saturday released more than 400 pages of heavily-redacted documents on the surveillance of former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The application documents state that FBI "believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government ... to undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in violation of U.S. criminal law." Page told The Hill that he’s “having trouble finding any small bit of this document that rises above complete ignorance and/or insanity.” Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee argued in a memo released in February that the DOJ and FBI were biased against Trump and his campaign, and abused their authority in obtaining the surveillance warrant against Page. Committee chair Devin Nunes's (R-Calif.) staff authored the document. Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and other Democrats released their own memo shortly afterward, pushing back against the GOP claims of bias. Schiff said Saturday that while the documents show the FBI’s “legitimate concern” about Page, he said the materials should not have been released during a pending investigation. “These national security considerations were cast aside by President Trump, whose decision to declassify the Nunes Memo — which misrepresented and distorted these applications — over the fervent opposition of the Department of Justice, was nakedly political and self-interested, and designed to to interfere with the Special Counsel’s investigation,” the lawmaker said. | |
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| 07-22-18 06:37pm - 2353 days | #927 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
DID Brett Kavanaugh HELP TO IMPEACH BILL CLINTON Brett Kavanaugh worked with Ken Starr to impeach President Bill Clinton. Clinton was a Democrat. Later, Kavanaugh wrote that a sitting President should not be bothered by civil proceedings or criminal proceedings unless the President was accused of a heinous crime. (Was Clinton accused of a heinous crime? By lying under oath? By having sex with Monica Lewinsky?) So did Kavanaugh flip on the issue? Not really. He helped impeach Bill Clinton, a Democrat. But while Republican Presidents were in office, he said a President should not be bothered by minor or even major crimes, unless they were truly momentous. Kavanaugh also argued that the Supreme Court should never have forced Richard Nixon to turn over the Watergate Tapes. Without the Watergate Tapes being exposed, Nixon would not have resigned. Nixon, of course, was a Republican. So the law is the law. But how it's applied or interpreted is a not an unbiased act, but can be a very biased action. Just my two cents. Everyone is equal under the law. If you believe that, then I have a Brooklyn Bridge I want to sell you, for cheap. The Bridge is very valuable, because it controls access to Manhattan. Do I hear an offer of $1 billion? Do I hear an offer of $5 billion? Come, people, if Trump can make the Chinese invest $500 million in his Indonesian project, surely a domestic bridge is worth far more than $5 billion. | |
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| 07-23-18 03:58pm - 2352 days | #928 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump administration considers stripping critics of security clearance. There’s just one problem. Trump's press secretary said the administration may strip security clearance from critics -- even those without one. Josh Israel Jul 23, 2018, 3:56 pm Updated: Jul 23, 2018, 4:22 pm Perhaps three of the most consistent hallmarks of Donald Trump’s administration were on display Monday at Sarah Sanders’ press briefing. In a single announcement, the administration demonstrated wild hypocrisy, pettiness toward critics, and total incompetence. At the urging of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the Trump administration says it is considering a move to revoke security clearances for former CIA directors John Brennan and Michael Hayden, former FBI director James Comey, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. Their reasoning: this bipartisan group of former appointees has been critical of Trump. “The President is exploring the mechanisms to remove security clearances because they’ve politicized, and in some cases monetized, their public service and security clearances,” Huckabee Sanders announced. “Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia — or being influenced by Russia — against the President is extremely inappropriate, and the fact that people with security clearances are making baseless these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence.” Trump and his administration, of course, have broken all precedent to ignore the constitutional prohibition on foreign emoluments and have made millions in personal profits thanks to the power of the presidency. Minutes after her press conference, Trump himself was hawking his own campaign merchandise at an event down the hall. But beyond the pettiness and hypocrisy, the announcement was notable for the lack of preparation and research that preceded it. A spokesperson for McCabe responded via Twitter that — thanks to the Trump administration’s decision to fire him back in March, he already had his security clearance deactivated. General Hayden also tweeted that he does not even receive classified briefings, meaning that he is not monetizing or politicizing classified information. A competent administration might have better examined whether such a petty and hypocritical move would have any effect before announcing that it was under consideration. The Trump administration did not. UPDATE (7/23, 4:22 p.m.): Washington Post national security reporter Devlin Barrett tweeted on Monday afternoon that Comey also no longer has a national security clearance. | |
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| 07-24-18 06:25pm - 2351 days | #929 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Is President Trump a liar? Is the moon made of green cheese? --------- --------- AP FACT CHECK: Trump overstates progress on veterans care Associated Press HOPE YEN,Associated Press 4 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is exaggerating the progress he's made on his campaign promise to provide veterans with quick medical treatment from private doctors if they're dissatisfied with Department of Veterans Affairs care. Speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention Tuesday, Trump prematurely described VA benefits that have yet to be implemented as immediately available and a "big success." His newly signed law seeking to expand the private-sector Veterans Choice program will take at least a year to be implemented. The program has also struggled to meet a standard of providing timely medical appointments within 30 days, a problem that even his new VA secretary, Robert Wilkie, has acknowledged might not be fixed soon. A look at the claims and the reality behind them: TRUMP: "We passed Veterans Choice, the biggest thing ever. ... It has got to be the biggest improvement you can have. So now if you can't get the treatment you need in a timely manner, people used to wait two weeks, three weeks, eight weeks, they couldn't get to a doctor. You will have the right to see a private doctor immediately, and we will pay for it." THE FACTS: The care provided under the Choice program is not as immediate as Trump suggests, nor is it likely to be the "biggest thing" ever. Currently only veterans who endure waits of at least 30 days for an appointment at a VA facility are eligible to receive care immediately from private doctors at government expense, a standard that the VA is frequently unable to meet. Under a newly expanded Choice program that will take at least a year to implement, veterans will still have to meet certain criteria before they can see a private physician. A recent Government Accountability Report found that despite the Choice program's guarantee of providing an appointment within 30 days, veterans waited an average of 51 to 64 days. Pressed at his confirmation hearing last month, Wilkie declined to commit the VA to meeting the 30-day standard, pledging instead to push interim fixes and better training for VA schedulers to help speed appointments. It's also unclear whether the expanded Choice program will prove to be the "biggest thing ever." The new law gives the VA secretary wide authority to decide when veterans can bypass the VA, based on whether they receive "quality" care, but the program could be restricted by escalating costs. ___ TRUMP: "We're greatly expanding telehealth and walk-in clinics so our veterans can get anywhere, at any time, they can get what they need, they can learn about the problem and they don't necessarily have to drive long distances and wait. It's been a very big success." THE FACTS: It's not a success at all because it hasn't started. A new benefit giving veterans access to walk-in clinics such as MinuteClinics won't begin for another year, and the care won't always be freely provided "anywhere, at any time." Only enrolled veterans who have used VA health care services in the previous two years would be able to get care at private walk-in clinics. After two visits, veterans could be subject to higher co-payments charged by the VA. Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck | |
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| 07-25-18 11:11am - 2351 days | #930 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
www.usatoday.com/ Michael Cohen's playmate payoff tape with Donald Trump puts both men in legal crosshairs Harry Litman, Opinion contributor Published 1:52 p.m. ET July 25, 2018 It doesn't matter if Trump paid by cash or check. The Cohen tape shows two men carrying out a conspiracy. The question is whether it was criminal. The immediate focus since the release of the audio tape of Michael Cohen talking to President Donald Trump has been on whether the president suggests paying off model Karen McDougal, with whom he allegedly carried on a 10-month affair in 2006, with cash or a check. That question, however, is really of marginal significance and is swamped by several larger factual points that the tape establishes, and several others that it suggests. First, the anchoring point for legal purposes is that the tape clearly demonstrates two men carrying out a common scheme, or, in the terms of the law, a conspiracy. While Team Trump and Cohen are busy trying to disparage one another, they obscure the chief fact that for purposes of whatever conduct they are pursuing in the tape, they are joined at the hip. Cohen’s liability is Trump’s; Trump’s liability is Cohen’s. Second, given that the two are acting in concert, the question becomes what is the objective of their agreement, and is it criminal? Again, from the standpoint of a prosecutor, this will ultimately be a question for a jury. And it is critical to remember that the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have a mountain of evidence in addition to the tape, on top of which will likely be Cohen’s own testimony. But the evidence of the tape alone is that the object of the conspiracy was to conceal the payout to McDougal in order to further Trump’s electoral prospects. Cold-blooded nonchalance about a payoff That seems the clear import of several aspects of the tape. The entire conversation is about the campaign, beginning with Cohen’s congratulations to the president on his poll numbers. The discussion is also about suppressing the records of Trump’s divorce from Ivana (which allegedly included an accusation of spousal rape) and includes Trump’s statement “All you’ve got to do is delay for —,” which is most naturally construed as a delay until the election. And the conversation takes place in September 2016, in the final weeks before Election Day. Furthermore, there is no indication of any other purpose, for example shielding Melania Trump from the painful revelation of the affair. On the contrary, one of the most probative aspects of the tape — and an illustration of why tape evidence is usually a prosecutor’s dream — is the evident nonchalance and cold-bloodedness with which Trump pursues the apparent hush-money arrangement. The third factual issue raised by the tape is if the men are acting in concert, and if the objective is to suppress the information in order to aid Trump’s electoral prospects, what legal liability might that entail. Again, it’s important not to judge the case solely on the tape, but that point cuts against Trump and Cohen, because we can reasonably expect the prosecutors to have a wealth of additional information. More: Michael Cohen's legal woes keep getting worse and signs don't point to a Trump pardon Donald Trump's foolish legal strategy is weakening the presidency From Stormy Daniels to John Bolton, will America ever recover from Donald Trump? But there are at least three kinds of charges that the prosecutors would want to pursue. They all concern a kind of fraud, and they can be categorized according to whom the men's action was designed to fool. First is the Federal Election Commission. It would have been awkward to say the least to list a $150,000 in-kind contribution from the National Enquirer to buy the silence of Karen McDougal on a campaign disclosure form, and the Trump campaign did not. That means that they may very likely have broken campaign finance laws that require full disclosure of contributions. A willful violation of that sort is criminal, though the FEC has not been robust in enforcing the criminal provisions of the law. The second sucker was Karen McDougal herself, whom the men and others manipulated shamelessly to keep her story bottled up. In particular, there appears to be evidence that Trump pal David Pecker, the CEO of AMI, which owns the Enquirer, bought the rights to her story for $150,000 with the intention of performing a “catch and kill,” preventing the story from ever seeing the light of day. (It is the rights to that story that Trump and Cohen are discussing buying from AMI.) The manipulation may have included supplying McDougal with an attorney — the same attorney he funneled to Stormy Daniels — who was at least somewhat in Cohen’s pocket and failed to act in her best interest. It’s a safe bet that attorney, Keith Davidson, will be cooperating with the prosecutors. Cohen and Trump in the crosshairs Finally, the sort of arrangement Trump and Cohen were pursuing requires incorporation, banks, and other administrative inconveniences. It is at least a possibility worth pursuing that in setting up and using the corporation — which may have been designed for multiple clean-up operations — Cohen would have misled bankers about the purpose of the funds. So bank fraud would be a third possibility that prosecutors will be looking into. That is not to say an indictment of Cohen — which will almost certainly be forthcoming unless he decides to cooperate — would also name Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator. It could, but that decision would need to be made at the highest reaches of the Department of Justice (in this case by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein) and would implicate weighty questions of constitutional law. Still, it’s important to remember that the tape’s political implications and legal implications are not one and the same. Prosecutors don’t care about the political mud wrestling between the two camps, and will mainly overlook (except as it provides evidence of guilty knowledge) the outlandish spinning that Giuliani in particular is attempting in the public arena. They are pursuing facts and law to where they take them: the statutory elements that spell out criminal behavior in the U.S. code. And with the tape, that mission now has Cohen and the president directly in the crosshairs. Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, teaches the Supreme Court as a Political Institution at UCLA Law School. He clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy during the 1988-89 Supreme Court term and worked on Supreme Court and other judicial nominations at the Justice Department. Follow him on Twitter: @harrylitman | |
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| 07-25-18 02:47pm - 2351 days | #931 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
A lawsuit filed by attorneys general in Maryland and Washington D.C. alleging that Donald Trump violated the Constitution will continue, the Washington Post reports, despite Trump’s efforts to dismiss the case. U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte has agreed to hear a case arguing that, by overseeing the Trump Organization, which conducts business overseas, Trump broke a set of obscure anti-corruption laws known as the Emoluments Clauses that bar public officials from accepting payments from foreign officials. (He resigned from the business, but this means nothing, as he has not fully divested). According to the Post, this appears to be the “first time the first time a federal judge had interpreted those Constitutional provisions and applied their restrictions to a sitting president.” From the Post: Messitte’s 52-page opinion said that, in the modern context, the Constitution’s ban on “emoluments” could apply to Trump — that it could cover any business transactions with foreign governments where Trump derived a “profit, gain or advantage.” “This includes profits from private transactions, even those involving services given at fair market value,” Messitte wrote. ... “In sum, Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that the President has been receiving or is potentially able to receive ‘emoluments’ . . . in violation of the Constitution,” Messitte wrote. The Justice Department, which is reviewing the decision and may appeal, released a statement saying, “We continue to maintain that this case should be dismissed.” Trump’s previous defense has been “I have a no-conflict situation because I’m president,” which makes absolutely no sense, unless of course by “president” he means “man who is above the law.” I ask, again: is it crime time yet? About the author Prachi Gupta is a senior reporter at Jezebel. | |
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| 07-25-18 04:22pm - 2350 days | #932 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Has Trump ever lied? While he was President? A better question would be: Does Trump know what the truth is? Trump is a serial liar. Trump has a history of secretly recording telphone calls. But when his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly recorded phone calls between Cohen and Trump, Trump says the tapes are possibly illegal. (Because the tapes could be used against Trump.) The tapes show that Trump lied (or had his spokespeople lie) about the Karen McDougal payment. ---------- ---------- Trump blasts Cohen over recording: 'What kind of a lawyer would tape a client?' Dylan Stableford 9 hours ago President Trump on Wednesday blasted his lawyer Michael Cohen after CNN aired a recording of a conversation that was secretly taped by Cohen shortly before the 2016 presidential election. On the tape, then-candidate Trump and Cohen can be heard discussing potential hush-money payments intended to squash a Playboy model’s story about an alleged affair she had with Trump. “What kind of a lawyer would tape a client?” Trump tweeted. “So sad! Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear there are other clients and many reporters that are taped — can this be so? Too bad!” The tape is one of several recordings seized by the FBI during a raid on Cohen’s office earlier this year. Cohen is under federal investigation for potential bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Cohen, Trump’s self-described “fixer” and longtime ally, has in recent weeks signaled a willingness to “flip” on his former boss. Michael Cohen and Donald Trump (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images, Joshua Roberts/Reuters, iLexx/Getty Images) On the September 2016 recording, which was made inside Trump Tower, Cohen appears to tell Trump that he will need to set up a company for “financing” to buy the rights of Karen McDougal’s story from American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer. AMI had reportedly reached a $150,000 deal to pay McDougal for her story about their alleged 2006 affair, which it never published — a tactic commonly known in the world of tabloid publishing as “catch and kill.” “What financing?” Trump asks Cohen. “We’ll have to pay,” Cohen replies. “Pay with cash,” Trump appears to reply. “No, no,” Cohen says. The two-minute recording then cuts off. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, contends that Trump actually told Cohen “don’t pay with cash.” Appearing on Fox News Tuesday night, Giuliani urged viewers to listen to the recording multiple times. “The third time you hear it, it becomes clear,” Giuliani said, adding: “I’ve had about 4,000 hours of Mafia people on tape. I know how to listen to them. I know how to transcribe them.” Based on the audio, Trump’s instruction to Cohen is not entirely clear. Giuliani said the payments to AMI were ultimately never made. But it appears Trump knew about payments to McDougal — something his campaign denied. On Nov. 4, 2016, when asked about the payments AMI made to McDougal by the Wall Street Journal, Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said, “We have no knowledge of any of this.” Last week, after the existence of the tape was reported by the New York Times, Trump reacted on Twitter by characterizing the raid as a break-in and suggesting Cohen’s actions were “perhaps illegal.” “Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) — almost unheard of,” Trump tweeted. “Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client — totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!” The raid was conducted via a warrant. In New York State, where Trump Tower is located, only one party has to consent for a legal recording of a discussion. And in May 2017, when Trump warned that fired FBI Director James Comey “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations,” the Washington Post noted that Trump, himself, has “a long history of secretly recording calls.” | |
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| 07-25-18 04:30pm - 2350 days | #933 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Did Donald Trump make a secret deal to advertise for Coke over Pepsi? Enquiring minds want to know: How much did Coke pay Trump for the advertisement? ----- ----- Donald Trump Shouting ‘Get Me A Coke’ On Cohen Tape Sets Twitter Alight HuffPost Lee Moran,HuffPost 11 hours ago Tweeters are thirsting over one particular moment from the secretly recorded conversation between President Donald Trump and his former personal attorney Michael Cohen. In audio recorded by Cohen in 2016 that CNN aired Tuesday night, Trump abruptly interrupted the lawyer as they discussed a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal (with whom Trump allegedly had an affair) to demand that someone “get me a Coke.” Trump’s demand comes at the 2:30 mark below: Guess he didn’t have his red button handy at the time ― the one that reportedly sits on the president’s Oval Office desk to summon a White House butler with a Coke. Trump, on the tape, then said what various accounts report as either “please” or “Liz” before returning to the matter at hand. The tape itself has caused a political stir, showing that Cohen is escalating his break with Trump. But many people on Twitter couldn’t resist using their new favorite catchphrase “get me a Coke” to have fun at the president’s expense: This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 07-25-18 11:19pm - 2350 days | #934 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Draining the swamp in Washington. House conservatives move to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Is Rosenstein a slime-ball Democrat? If so, he is probably guilty of treason. They are working to impeach Rosenstein for high crimes and misdemeanors. A lawyer being accused of high crimes? Put him against and wall, and let President Trump order his troops to FIRE! Actually, Rosenstein is a registered Republican. But--Rosenstein is probably a deep-cover Democrat masquerading as a Republican. So, it's important to clean our house, and eliminate all Democrats and traitorous Republicans to make America great again. -------- -------- House conservatives move to impeach deputy attorney general Associated Press Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press,Associated Press 3 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) -- A group of 11 House conservatives on Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who oversees special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The move comes after months of criticism aimed at the department — and the Russia investigation in particular — from Trump and his Republican allies in Congress. Trump has fumed about Mueller's probe and repeatedly called it a "witch hunt," a refrain echoed by some of the lawmakers. The impeachment effort is led by North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows, who talks to Trump frequently and often defends him to his colleagues. It is unclear whether there will be enough support in the party to pass the impeachment resolution, as Republican leaders have not signed on to the effort and are unlikely to back it. Meadows, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and the other Republicans who introduced the resolution have criticized Rosenstein and Justice Department officials for not being responsive enough as House committees have requested documents related to the beginning of the Russia investigation and a closed investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails. The introduction does not trigger an immediate vote, but Meadows could make procedural moves on the House floor that could force a vote late this week or when the House returns in September from its upcoming recess. The House is scheduled to leave Thursday for the five-week recess. The five articles charge Rosenstein of "high crimes and misdemeanors" for failing to produce information to the committees, even though the department has already provided lawmakers with more than 800,000 documents, and of signing off on what some Republicans say was improper surveillance of a Trump adviser. The resolution also goes directly after Rosenstein for his role in the ongoing Mueller investigation, criticizing him for refusing to produce a memo that outlines the scope of that investigation and questioning whether the investigation was started on legitimate grounds. Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Trump's campaign was in any way involved. It is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for lawmakers to demand documents that are part of an ongoing criminal investigation. In a statement, Meadows said Rosenstein's conduct is "reprehensible." "It's time to find a new deputy attorney general who is serious about accountability and transparency," Meadows said. It's uncertain how many of Meadows' fellow Republicans agree. Rosenstein, along with FBI Director Christopher Wray, faced dozens of angry Republicans at a House hearing last month. The lawmakers alleged bias at the FBI and suggested the department has conspired against Trump — but many could draw the line at impeachment. "Impeachment is a punishment, it's not a remedy," House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy said shortly before Meadows introduced the resolution. "If you are looking for documents, then you want compliance, and you want whatever moves you toward compliance." The impeachment resolution came about two hours after GOP lawmakers met with Justice Department officials about the documents. Meadows said after that meeting that there was still "frustration" with how Justice has handled the oversight requests. Republican leaders, however, have said in recent weeks that they are satisfied with the Justice Department's progress. Gowdy said after the meeting that he was pleased with the department's efforts. House Speaker Paul Ryan has also said he is satisfied with progress on the document production. Meadows heads the conservative Freedom Caucus and has sparred with Ryan on issues from immigration to federal spending. His open threat of triggering a vote on impeachment — which he can do if he follows a certain set of procedural rules — could help him win concessions on other contentious issues before the House. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department said she had no comment on the articles of impeachment. Rosenstein has overseen the Russia investigation since last year, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe following reports of his meeting with the Russian ambassador. Democrats have criticized the Republican efforts to pressure the Justice Department, saying they are attempts to undermine Mueller's investigation. In a joint statement, the top Democrats on the House Judiciary, Oversight and Government Reform and intelligence committees called the move a "panicked and dangerous attempt to undermine an ongoing criminal investigation in an effort to protect President Trump as the walls are closing in around him and his associates." So far, the special counsel has charged 32 people and three companies. That includes four Trump campaign advisers. Democratic Reps. Jerrold Nadler of New York, Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Adam Schiff of California said Rosenstein "stands as one of the few restraints against the overreaches of the president and his allies in Congress." | |
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| 07-26-18 12:00am - 2350 days | #935 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Can you trust Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer and fixer? About as far as you can trust Trump. Cohen told a reporter that he would not record a conversation. Then he recorded the entire conversation in secret. ---------- ---------- New York Post Cohen secretly recorded conversation with CNN anchor By Bob Fredericks July 25, 2018 | 6:11pm | Updated Cohen’s lawyer warns of ‘more to come’ after releasing Trump tape President Trump’s longtime fixer Michael Cohen recorded a conversation with CNN reporter Chris Cuomo earlier this year in which he said he arranged “on my own” a $130,000 payment in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. In the nearly two-hour exchange, which the paper said appeared to have been surreptitiously recorded by Cohen, Trump’s ex-lawyer discussed at length the payment he arranged in October 2016, a month before the presidential election, to Daniels, who alleged that she had a one-night stand with Trump in 2006, shortly after his third wife Melania gave birth to their son. “I did it on my own,” Cohen said of the payment, sources told The Journal. The conversation took place after The Journal in January revealed that Cohen had arranged the payment to Daniels. The paper reported that Cohen told Cuomo he wasn’t running a tape — before recording their entire conversation. Cohen has often appeared on Cuomo’s CNN show, and on Tuesday Cohen’s lawyer gave a widely anticipated audio recording of a conversation Cohen had with Trump in 2016 about buying the rights to a former model’s story of an affair with the then-candidate. | |
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| 07-26-18 02:04am - 2350 days | #936 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Donald Trump, the President of many truths. Trump hints that the secret tape of Michael Cohen, that seems to implicate Trump in a payoff scheme, was doctored. Trump is the President. He is obviously innocent. Why? Because the President can not be charged with any crimes in the performance of his duties. The President is not just the leader of our country, but also the man and force that holds the nation together. Anyone who criticizes Donald Trump is a traitor. They should be shot or exported, like scummy Hilary Clinton and her pervert husband who played sex games in the White House. Never again. We now have a President who knows how sacred women are, how they should be respected and treated. God save Trump. God save America. --------- --------- Politics Donald Trump Hints That Cohen’s Secret Tape Was Doctored Deadline Erik Pedersen,Deadline 17 hours ago For those who wondered how President Donald Trump would spin the Michael Cohen tape that seems to prove that POTUS lied about having no knowledge of the Karen McDougal payoff, here’s how: It was doctored. Really, we shoulda seen this one coming: On the 2016 recording, which was made secretly and played on CNN llast night, Trump’s then-lawyer Cohen is heard discussing the matter with him and brings up the “financing” of the payoff with then-candidate Trump, who asks, “What financing?” When Cohen says, “Well, I have to pay –,” Trump interrupts and says, “Pay with cash.” Cohen quickly replies, “No, no, no, no, no.” Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis fed the tape to CNN’s Chris Cuomo and was on his Cuomo Prime Time show Tuesday to talk about it. He insists that they are talking about the payment to ex-Playmate McDougal made by longtime Trump friend and ally David Pecker, head of the National Enquirer’s parent company. Trump has denied not only the affair but knowledge that Pecker’s company paid her off then spiked its promised story about it in a so-called “catch and kill” move. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is on the record saying that it was Cohen who suggested paying off alleged former mistress Karen McDougal with cash — ostensibly to avoid a paper trail — but the tape clearly indictates it was Trump’s idea, one that Cohen nixed immediately. The tape then cuts off abruptly — a fact the president jumped on. “Can this be so?” | |
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| 07-27-18 09:57am - 2349 days | #937 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The changing face of truth: Has Donald Trump ever met a lie he didn't like? I'm referring to his own lies. He hates the lies (or facts) other people tell about him. Trump is the nicest man on earth: he will only stomp you from a sense of duty, or an effort to grab your dollars and coins. Trump loves money, and loves to boast how wealthy he is. -------- -------- HuffPost Trump Has Changed His Mind A Lot On What He Knew About The Trump Tower Meeting HuffPost Michelle Lou,HuffPost 1 hour 18 minutes ago President Donald Trump on Friday denied having prior knowledge of his son's President Donald Trumpon Friday denied having prior knowledge of his son’s highly scrutinized 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer, the latest in a string of conflicting explanations for what and when he knew about the encounter. Trump’s comments came a day after CNN reported that his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen had claimed that the president knew in advance that Donald Trump Jr. met with Natalia Veselnitskaya in an effort to get incriminating information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Though Trump has repeatedly sought to distance him from the problematic meeting, his and his team’s statements on what he knew have morphed considerably over time. The discrepancies have drawn increased attention as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign heats up. Here’s how the president’s claims have evolved over the past year. Trump said he didn’t draft his son’s initial statement about the meeting After the New York Times in July 2017 first exposed the meeting, Trump Jr. claimed its sole purpose was to discuss American adoptions of Russian children (which Russian President Vladimir Putin banned in 2012). A day later, though, the first son admitted in a highly publicized statement that he met with Veselnitskaya after being offered dirt on Clinton. According to the Times, Trump himself signed off on his son’s initial statement on the meeting. Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow, however, repeatedly denied that the president was involved at all. He was involved in drafting the statement but didn’t personally dictate it Later last July, the Washington Post reported that Trump had “personally dictated” Trump Jr.’s statement. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the story by acknowledging that the president had actually been involved in drafting the statement while insisting that the president did not personally dictate it. Trump’s legal team said that he personally dictated the statement In a Jan. 29 memo to Mueller, Trump’s attorneys John Dowd and Sekulow contradicted Huckabee Sanders by saying the president had indeed dictated Trump Jr.’s statement. The Times published a copy of that letter in June. Trump acknowledged that the initial statement was misleading, but said it didn’t matter because it was prepared for the Times. “That’s not a statement to a high tribunal of judges,” Trump said two weeks after the letter was made public. “That’s a statement to the phony New York Times.” Giuliani reverses course and says that Trump actually didn’t dictate the statement Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in June that Sekulow was “misinformed” when he wrote the letter to Mueller. “I think he was uninformed at the time just like I was when I came into the case,” Giuliani told NBC’s Meet The Press. “This is a point that maybe wasn’t clarified in terms of recollection and his understanding of it. And what Jay did was he immediately corrected it.” This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 07-28-18 09:09pm - 2347 days | #938 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Yahoo News Photo Staff •July 26, 2018 Trump flags: Made in China Flags for U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Keep America Great!” 2020 re-election campaign are seen at Jiahao flag factory in Fuyang, Anhui province, China July 24, 2018. (Photo: Aly Song/Reuters) The red, white and blue banners for U.S. President Donald Trump’s second-term campaign are ready to ship, emblazoned with the words “Keep America Great!” But they are made in eastern China and soon could be hit by punitive tariffs of Trump’s own making as he ratchets up a rancorous trade dispute with Beijing. (Reuters) See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr. | |
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| 07-29-18 09:09am - 2347 days | #939 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Donald Trump and Michael Cohen need to hire the finest lawyers. So the truth can come out. And justice be served. And that Trump can be impeached and removed from office. However, that leaves a major problem: Mike Pence would then become President of the US. Would that be any better than having Trump as President? Can we have a new election, to replace Trump with someone better? A slimeball Democrat who would fight to drain the swamp in Washinton? Go, Hilary! ------------ ------------ Politics Rudy Giuliani: Michael Cohen Has Been Warned To Keep His Mouth Shut HuffPost Mary Papenfuss,HuffPost 12 hours ago Donald Trump’s legal team has warned his former fixer Michael Cohen to stop speaking out and violating lawyer client confidentiality, the president’s attorney Rudy Giuliani told ABC News Saturday. The warning comes just six days days after the team waived lawyer client privilege concerning a recorded conversation between Cohen and his former boss about a former Playboy model. “We have complained” to Cohen’s lawyers that “he’s violated the attorney-client privilege, publicly and privately,” Giuliani told the network. Giuliani said Cohen is in “grave danger of being disbarred.” But Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis told Huffpost in a statement that Giuliani “seems to be confused.” He “expressly waived attorney client privilege last week and repeatedly and inaccurately — as proven by the tape — talked and talked about the recording, forfeiting all confidentiality,” Davis added. The secretly recorded conversation, obtained by CNN, appears to involve a discussion between Cohen and Trump about buying the rights to a story by former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who has claimed she had an affair with Trump. Giuliani has insisted that the tape clears the president of any wrongdoing. After the tape was released, Cohen launched a bombshell, saying that Trump knew in advance about the Trump Tower meeting during his campaign involving Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked attorney who was to provide damaging information on Hillary Clinton. If that’s the case, it could have serious repercussions in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia’s interference in the election. Trump has denied knowing about the meeting ahead of time. It may be this information that the legal team warned Cohen about, though Giuliani wasn’t clear in his ABC interview. Giuliani also told ABC Saturday that Trump’s team has hired multiple experts to analyze the recordings of conversations between Cohen and Trump. Giuliani has insisted that Trump told Cohen on the released tape “don’t pay with cash.” An expert used by CNN determined that Trump said “I’ll pay with cash.” Cohen also talks about apparently setting up some kind of shell operation to hide the payment. In any case, both men appear to be agreeing to pay to suppress the story that was reportedly purchased for $150,000 by the The National Enquirer — but never published. Giuliani said he’s aware of the subject matter of 13 Cohen tapes that have been seized by the government, but that only one affects the president. “There’s nothing on it that would concern us,” he said. The Washington Post reported that the FBI seized more than 100 recordings of Cohen conversations with a number of people. Giuliani also noted, in case anyone suspected otherwise, that the joint defense agreement between Trump and Cohen is over. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. ------------- ------------- Celebrity Rudy Giuliani's puzzling unfinished tweet brings out the best in Snark Twitter adam_rosenberg,Mashable 1 hour 2 minutes ago It's no "covfefe," but really, can anything ever beat that? Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Donald Trump's perhaps overly talkative lawyer, sent out a tweet on Sunday morning that quickly went viral. It was clearly a mistake, and may now be serving as a helpful distraction for the beleaguered Giuliani. But it's prompted some first-class responses. First, here's the tweet. It's the kind of accidental posting any of us could share, and get roasted for. Twitter did exactly that. Since signing on to represent Trump, Giuliani has gone on TV again and again to reinforce the president's lies. This past week he's been getting hammered in the news for saying that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen "has lied all his life," a sharp reversal from Giuliani's earlier claims dating all the way back to May that Cohen is "honest" and "going to tell the truth." That could be why "You" hasn't been deleted, especially after an unfinished Saturday night tweet from Giuliani also caught fire on social media. Tons of folks took "You" as a musical cue Others used it to rib Giuliani And of course, some folks just took the opportunity to dunk on Trump But the best of the tweeting just got real weird about "You" WATCH: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No. It's an inflatable Trump baby flying around London ------------- ------------- HuffPost Fox News Host Confronts Rudy Giuliani Over Michael Cohen 'Liar' Flip-Flop HuffPost Nick Baumann,HuffPost 39 minutes ago Rudy Giuliani can’t get his story straight on Michael Cohen — and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace is calling him out on it. On “Fox News Sunday,” Wallace confronted Giuliani, who serves as one of President Donald Trump’s attorneys, on his flip-flopping about Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer. In May, Giuliani called Cohen an “honest, honorable lawyer,” Wallace noted. “But now you say, quote, your words... ‘a pathological liar’ who’s been lying for years. So what happened?” Giuliani said his shift stemmed from the revelation that Cohen had been “surreptitiously recording his clients” — referring to the tape of Cohen and Trump discussing a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who’s alleged she had a long-running affair with Trump before he became president. The tape was released last week and initially aired on CNN. “Obviously if I knew that, I never would’ve said he was a reputable lawyer,” Giuliani said. “I would’ve said he was a scoundrel.” “I knew nothing bad about Michael Cohen until all of this started to happen in the past couple weeks,” Giuliani insisted. Giuliani must not have been following previous news accounts about Cohen, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer for more than a decade and was targeted by an FBI raid in April. Cohen had reportedly compared himself to Tom Hagen, the fictional consigliere of the Corleone crime family in “The Godfather.” His business ventures are the subject of considerable interest from federal investigators, The New York Times reported in May, while Giuliani was still defending him. And Giuliani months ago corrected a Cohen falsehood. Cohen claimed in February that he had paid Stormy Daniels, a porn actress who also has said she had a brief affair with Trump, $130,000 out of his own pocket, and Trump in April claimed he didn’t know about the payment. Giuliani later admitted that Trump had repaid Cohen. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 07-29-18 11:09pm - 2346 days | #940 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Trump tweet reveals that President Trump has sent his secret service agents to arrest Robert Mueller as a traitor to the United States of America. If Robert Mueller shows resistance, the secret service is authorized to shoot to kill, in self defence. Mueller is a dangerous, slime-ball Republican who has repudiated his Republican ideals, and is attacking the most glorious and grand leader the US has ever had. The KKK and the Nazi Party of America have also volunteered to help bring down the slime-ball, criminal Mueller. Americans, be proud, and support our great President for Life, Donald Trump. --------- --------- Trump opens window into his rage with Mueller attack Stephen Collinson Profile Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN Updated 1:08 AM ET, Mon July 30, 2018 Trump rails against Mueller in tweetstorm (CNN)Donald Trump is giving Americans a glimpse of the fury raging inside him as a pivotal moment nears for special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, and different strands of political and legal vulnerability swirling around the President become ever more threatening. Trump launched his most personal attack to date against Mueller in a tweet storm Sunday unleashed just two days before the special counsel's office takes its first prosecution -- that of the President's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort -- to trial in Virginia. "There is no Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!" Trump tweeted Sunday. Trump's tweets on Sunday represented his most specific attempt yet to discredit any findings of the Mueller investigation into alleged election collusion with Russians, following clear signs that his previous assaults have been effective in hardening the opinion of GOP voters against the probe. The attacks are not simply a window into his own rage, they also represent a coherent hardball strategy to unite his ever loyal political base and other Republicans behind him. With 100 days to go until midterm elections, that could be tough for the GOP. But they also have the effect of wresting attention from the President's best hope of averting a Democratic rout in the election, the building narrative that he has unleashed a period of national prosperity, highlighted by economic growth rate of 4.1% in the second quarter of the year. A week of drama related from Cohen and Mueller The President's Sunday outburst came days after CNN reported that Michael Cohen, the President's former lawyer, is willing to tell Mueller that Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump tower in which Russians were willing to hand over dirt on Hillary Clinton. The President has denied he knew about the meeting beforehand. RELATED: 20 times Trump and his allies denied he knew of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting Also last week, it emerged that Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has been subpoenaed in the federal criminal investigation into Cohen in a move that adds to a sense that a net is closing around the President's inner circle. And ironically, given the President's chosen method of attack Sunday, The New York Times reported last week that Mueller was examining Trump's tweets to see whether they show malicious intent to obstruct justice in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey. "Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as S.C.) & Comey is his close friend," Trump said in a second tweet. The President followed up with a third blast against Mueller. "...Also, why is Mueller only appointing Angry Dems, some of whom have worked for Crooked Hillary, others, including himself, have worked for Obama....And why isn't Mueller looking at all of the criminal activity & real Russian Collusion on the Democrats side-Podesta, Dossier?" Trump's trio of tweets were packed with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, but closely mirrored the conspiracy theories driven by his allies in conservative media that are designed to rough up Mueller and tarnish the credibility of his investigation to politicize any eventual allegations of wrongdoing he makes against Trump or members of his team. It was not immediately clear what the President meant when he claimed there were conflicts of interests involving Mueller. The New York Times reported in January that the President claimed a dispute over membership fees had prompted Mueller to leave a Trump golf club in Washington in 2011 when he was FBI Director. Ethics experts from the Justice Department determined last year when Mueller was appointed special counsel that his participation in the matters assigned to him is appropriate. Trump targets the press Trump's attacks on Mueller followed yet another extraordinary assault on the media by the President after he broke details of a private meeting he had with A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times on July 20. "When the media - driven insane by their Trump Derangement Syndrome - reveals internal deliberations of our government, it truly puts the lives of many, not just journalists, at risk! Very unpatriotic!" Trump tweeted on Sunday afternoon. Taken together with the Mueller offensive, the tweet represented an escalation of Trump's strategy to discredit the integrity and moral standing of any institution that will ultimately help to shape a national consensus on his conduct. Who has more credibility? There has been no publicly available evidence that Trump or his subordinates knowingly conspired with a Russian effort to help him win power in 2016. But Trump's constant attacks on Mueller will inevitably renew speculation about Mueller's position and whether the President will attempt to fire him. Such a move could trigger a crisis of governance in Washington and test whether Republicans, who have largely been unwilling to challenge Trump in the Russia election interference drama and will hold the President to account. Trump's allies also sought to shred the credibility of Cohen, after the President's former confidant turned against him, and following the airing last week of a tape obtained by CNN on which the two men discussed how they would buy the rights to a Playboy model's story about an alleged affair Trump had with her years before he turned to politics. In an interview on Fox News Saturday evening, the President's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said Trump's legal team was investigating the tape of Trump and Cohen and suggested it might have been doctored. On Sunday, on CBS "Face the Nation," Giuliani said, "I don't see how you can believe Michael Cohen," and accused Cohen of violating Trump's attorney-client privilege. Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis issued a statement calling Giuliani "confused." Giuliani once praised Michael Cohen as 'honest,' but now says Cohen has 'lied all his life' "Mr. Giuliani seems to be confused. He expressly waived attorney client privilege last week and repeatedly and inaccurately -- as proven by the tape -- talked and talked about the recording, forfeiting all confidentiality," Davis said. The cresting intrigue about Mueller, Cohen and the President's increasingly tetchy mood robbed the White House of a clean victory lap, following the positive economic data released Friday. The 4.1% GDP growth rate figure will form the centerpiece of Trump's midterm election argument to voters that he has unleashed a new age of American prosperity that Republicans hope will prove more important to their choice than the ominous developments in the Russia probe and the uproar perpetually whipped up by the President's convention-shattering style. "Policies matter a lot ... and I think the President deserves a victory lap," the President's top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." | |
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| 07-31-18 10:16pm - 2344 days | #941 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Trump says you need a photo ID to buy groceries While pushing for voter ID laws at a rally in Florida, President Trump claims that buying groceries requires an identification card. 'You need a picture on a card, you need ID' » Although Trump is not 100% correct, because I don't normally need a picture ID to buy groceries, I can say that as a proud member of the PU community, I have posted a picture of myself with my trusty service .45 ACP semi-automatic that holds 8 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. So I am able and ready to defend myself against any intruders in my house. However, I just read a news article today, where a homeowner killed an intruder in his house, and was then shot and killed by a cop (who thought the homeowner was the intruder). So, better to be safe than sorry: If you see a cop aiming a gun at you, shoot first, and then claim self-defense. Do not depend on the cop waiting to find out what the facts are before he starts firing. The best defense is a strong offense. (The news about the homeowner who was shot and killed by a cop is true.) | |
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| 08-03-18 09:10am - 2342 days | #942 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
World China unveils proposed tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods in latest trade war salvo Reuters By Se Young Lee and Christian Shepherd,Reuters 16 minutes ago BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China proposed retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods ranging from liquefied natural gas (LNG) to some aircraft on Friday, as a senior Chinese diplomat cast doubt on prospects of talks with Washington to solve their bitter trade conflict given current U.S. behavior. The Trump administration ratcheted up pressure for trade concessions from Beijing this week by proposing a higher 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. China immediately vowed to retaliate though at the same time urged the U.S. to act rationally and return to talks to resolve the dispute. The United States and China implemented tariffs on $34 billion worth of each others' goods in July. Washington is expected to soon implement tariffs on an additional $16 billion of Chinese goods, which China has already announced it will match immediately. China has now either imposed or proposed tariffs on $110 billion of U.S. goods, representing the vast majority of China's annual imports of American products. Last year, China imported about $130 billion of U.S. goods. China's finance ministry unveiled new sets of additional tariffs on 5,207 goods imported from the United States, with the extra levies ranging from 5 to 25 percent. Timing will depend on the actions of the United States, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a separate statement. "The U.S. side has repeatedly escalated the situation against the interests of both enterprises and consumers," the Commerce Ministry said in its statement. "China has to take necessary countermeasures to defend its dignity and the interests of its people, free trade and the multilateral system." Representatives for the White House and the U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately reply to requests for comment on China's retaliatory move. TENSIONS WEIGH ON CHINESE MARKETS The United States alleges that China steals U.S. corporate secrets and wants it to stop doing so, and is also seeking to get Beijing to abandon plans to boost its high-tech industries at America's expense. Washington also wants China to stop subsidizing Chinese companies with cheap loans, claiming that this allows them to compete unfairly. U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is determined to reduce the large U.S. trade deficit with China. Trump, who has accused China and others of exploiting the United States in global trade, has demanded that Beijing make a host of concessions to avoid the new duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods, which could be imposed in the weeks after a comment period closes on Sept. 5. China says the United States is deliberately creating the trade conflict, using bullying tactics, and ignoring international negotiating norms so that it can stop the rise of China as an competitor on the world stage. The rising tensions have weighed on Chinese stock and currency markets, with the Chinese yuan falling against the dollar. TOP DIPLOMATS MEET White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow warned China after it announced the latest retaliatory tariffs, saying Beijing should not underestimate Trump's determination to act on trade. "They better not underestimate the president," Kudlow said in an interview on Fox Business Network."He (Trump) is going to stand tough ... They better not assume anything. The president is not about to back down. And the best news, I think, is we are coming together with the European Union to make a deal with them, so we'll have a united front against China and, I think, most of our trade team would tell you, we're moving close on Mexico. So, this unifies NAFTA and U.S.-Europe, Australia, Japan - China is increasingly isolated with a weak economy." Kudlow added: "We will not let China steal our technology. We will not." China, however, shows no sign of bending to Washington's pressure. The two countries have not had formal talks on the trade dispute since early June. Still, two senior diplomats did meet earlier on Friday, on the sidelines of a regional summit in Singapore. China is willing to resolve differences with the United States on an equal footing, the Chinese government's top diplomat said after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but added they did not address their trade war too specifically. "We are willing to resolve the concerns of both sides via talks on the basis of an equal footing and mutual respect. He (Pompeo) was accommodating on this as a direction, and said that he does not want current frictions to continue," said State Councillor Wang Yi, who is also China's foreign minister. Answering a reporter's question about what was specifically said on trade, Wang said: "We did not speak in such details. But actually, as journalists have noted, how can talks take place under this pressure?" However, Kudlow said there has been some communication "at the highest level" on trade between the United States and China in recent days. CONDOMS AND COFFEE Among U.S. products targeted in the latest Chinese salvo were a wide range of agricultural and energy products, such as liquefied natural gas. LNG's inclusion marks a deployment by Beijing of one of its last major weapons from its energy and commodities arsenal in its fight with Washington. The market is not large by value compared with approximately $12 billion of U.S. crude that came to China last year, but LNG imports could shoot up as Beijing forges ahead with its plan to switch millions of households to the fuel away from coal as part of its battle against smog. Morgan Stanley has estimated annual Chinese imports of U.S. LNG could rise to as much as $9 billion within two or three years, from $1 billion in 2017. The amount could be even larger if the United States resolves a logistics bottleneck. "As the total value of goods under tariffs shoots up, China has little choice but to use LNG and others to top up the value," said Lin Boqiang, professor on energy studies at China's Xiamen University. "The U.S. gas industry will be much harder hit by this as China imports only a small volume whereas U.S. suppliers see China as a major future market." Other U.S. goods targeted by China in the latest list include semiconductors, some helicopters, small-to-mid-sized aircraft, condoms, iron ore, steel products, roasted coffee, sugar, foods containing chocolate, candies, and even car windscreens. The United States was the fourth largest supplier of foreign chocolate products to China in 2017, worth around $24 million, after Italy, Russia and Belgium, according to customs data. China's growing sweet tooth is seen as a big sales opportunity for international makers of cookies and chocolate bars like Mars and Hershey . Small and medium sized planes were on the list of goods that would be slapped with an additional 5 percent tariff. However, the list did not specify a weight range or other details on the aircraft. Helicopters with an empty weight of less than 2 tonnes were also on that list. China's biggest U.S. imports by value in 2017 were aircraft and related equipment, soybeans and autos. (Additional reporting by Beijing and Shanghai Newsrooms and Susan Heavey in Washington; writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie and Martin Howell) | |
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| 08-03-18 01:13pm - 2342 days | #943 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump has built a pyramid scheme of public fraud. It's a taxpayer-backed cash grab. Mindy Finn, Opinion contributor Published 10:49 a.m. ET Aug. 3, 2018 Donald Trump is pulling off a taxpayer-backed cash grab. It's an orchestrated, unprecedented scheme to enrich a president, his family and his friends. Even after warnings that tariffs would wreak havoc on the economy, Donald Trump has staked his presidency on a series of trade wars that are now coming home to roost. With economic ruin looming over American farmers — a key constituency — he refuses to change course. Instead, he’s mulling a policy of clientelism, a $12 billion cash handout to the victims of his own bad ideas. It’s a surprising development for many, especially the conservatives who have long lamented bailouts and subsidies, but it’s hardly out of character. On the contrary, it’s a natural fit for a White House that encourages corruption, exploitation and fraud in exchange for loyalty. As with his cabinet officials, he expects that the allure of taxpayer-funded kickbacks will be enough to keep farmers from holding him accountable for his own corruption and failures. It’s not an accident, it’s a strategy: grease the wheels of government so heavily that they spin in place. Far from draining the swamp, Trump and his coterie of grifters, fraudsters and co-conspirators have filled it in entirely, dividing the land into personal fiefdoms to exploit. Team Trump has been playing dirty The result has been an open season for public funds, private payoffs, and abuses of office. It’s almost quaint to remember that Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was fired for using private jets for official travel. The now-resigned Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt exclusively travels in first class, while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is fond of chartered flights. To say nothing of Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s use of military planes to see a solar eclipse with his wife. It isn’t just about luxury. Zinke’s involved in a land deal with Halliburton which is likely to benefit him directly. Pruitt reveled in petty grift, taking discounted rent from lobbyists and using his government security and employees as personal servants. Pruitt even used his position to try to find his wife a job. Following the president’s lead, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has been less than honest about divesting his assets. The man helming Trump’s global trade war is profiting from it, even short-selling his stocks in a Kremlin-backed shipping company when he learned reporters were writing a story about it. More: Who pays for Trump's contempt for ethics? USA. USA. USA. Would Kavanaugh be a check on Trump if he tried to abuse his power? Scott Pruitt removes his ethical swamp from EPA The taxpayer-backed cash grab radiates even outside government officials. Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski opened a business selling his access to the president, even potentially to foreign governments. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen did similarly, trading a direct connection to Trump for six-figure checks. All of this is not only permissible to the president, it’s encouraged. That’s what makes our current situation unprecedented. This is an orchestrated effort to enrich the president, his family, and his friends. That’s why the Trump hotel in Washington is now a favorite location for foreign emissaries, reaping tens of millions of dollars from those seeking audience with the president. Membership at Mar-a-Lago doubled in price, because lobbyists and influence peddlers will pay anything to catch the president’s ear. And Trump condos are flying off the market as foreign governments pay exorbitant prices to gain the president’s favor. Even his own party pays the piper. The GOP and affiliated political groups have spent over $3 million at Trump properties since he took office. In short, Trump has built a clearly organized machine for largesse and corruption. It’s a pyramid scheme of public fraud, and the president gleefully sits at its top, reaping the rewards and doling out the shares. A new level of corruption in Washington Still, the president and his defenders deny anything is wrong. Many throw up their hands and say “Washington has always been this way.” That’s certainly what Trump would have us believe. In truth, this level of corruption is rampant in dictatorships across the globe, but unprecedented here. It’s disturbing to see the president ripping this page from the authoritarian textbook, though entirely in character. All around him he’s traded his blessing of corrupt dealings for a weakening of the agencies which might hold some check on him. Now, as key voters threaten to rebel over his policies, it’s only natural that he’d seek the same bargain with them. But the American people aren’t so easily bought. We’ve already waged and won numerous battles against the president’s corruption, but our fight is far from over. We must reinvigorate the institutions of transparency and accountability in our government. We must hold our leaders to an even higher ethical standard. And, especially when it starts to feel fruitless, we must do so with Donald Trump. Mindy Finn, co-founder of Stand Up Republic and founder of Empowered Women, ran for vice president with Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin in 2016 and was an aide in the 2004 George W. Bush and 2012 Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. Follow her on Twitter: @mindyfinn | |
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| 08-03-18 08:30pm - 2341 days | #944 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Brett Kavanaugh, Republican man of principles and honor, is a fine choice for Supreme Court Justice. He will back President Trump, the greatest President the US has ever had. Because it's the right thing to do. And it's the conservative thing to do. Saving the nation from slime-ball Democrats and slime-ball unions and anyone who does not worship at Trump's feet. ------------ ------------ Politics Brett Kavanaugh Was Involved in 3 Different Crises of Democracy Esquire Charles P. Pierce,Esquire 8 hours ago From Esquire Of all the perilous nonsense involved in the Great Penis Hunt of 1998, the most singularly indecent episode was the relentless fishing expedition into the suicide of Vincent Foster, the first White House counsel of the Clinton administration. On July 23, 1993, Foster shot himself to death under a tree in Fort Marcy Park in Virginia. Prior to taking his own life, Foster told friends that he was being overwhelmed by depression in the wake of the uproar over the firings of certain press corps pets in the White House Travel Office, which was another early chapter in the By-Any-Means-Necessary pursuit of the Clintons that continues in certain feverish quarters even today. (In the note he left behind, Foster specifically mentioned The Wall Street Journal, the editorial page of which was at the time run by a conspiratorial nutball named Robert Bartley. I wonder if they have a copy of that note hanging on the wall of the editorial offices, next to Paul Gigot's Pulitzer.) However, over the next couple years, the Republicans in the Congress, and their media allies in newspapers and on radio and TV, heedless of the pain endured by Foster's family, and by his colleagues in the White House, kept digging up Foster's corpse and flogging the Clinton Administration with it. The late charlatan Jerry Falwell promoted a bit of political porn called The Clinton Chronicles, which argued that Foster was merely another person that the Clintons had murdered. Various rightwing journalists excavated the open wound with promiscuous glee; one of these was Christopher Ruddy, who has re-emerged as a Trump Whisperer over the past two years when he should have been mowing the Foster family's lawn for the rest of his life. Congressman Dan Burton, who had current Trump aide David Bossie on his staff, famously shot a melon in his backyard to "prove" that Foster couldn't have killed himself. Photo credit: David Hume Kennerly - Getty Images Subsequent investigations failed to stop the onslaught. The autopsy concluded that Foster had committed suicide, so did a ludicrous Senate Banking Committee investigation headed by the ridiculous Al D'Amato. And, most important, so did Robert Fiske, the original Whitewater special prosecutor. In fact, it was this conclusion that was partly responsible for Fiske's being replaced by Kenneth Starr, who, because he is Kenneth Starr and a hack, opened the investigation again and handed it off to an ambitious lawyer in his office named...Brett Kavanaugh. From The Washington Post (emphasis added): In early 1995, however, Kavanaugh offered his boss, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, the legal rationale for expanding his investigation of the Arkansas financial dealings of President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, to include the Foster death, according to a memo he wrote on March 24, 1995. Kavanaugh, then 30, argued that unsupported allegations that Foster may have been murdered gave Starr the right to probe the matter more deeply. Foster’s death had already been the focus of two investigations, both concluding that Foster committed suicide. “We are currently investigating Vincent Foster’s death to determine, among other things, whether he was murdered in violation of federal criminal law,” Kavanaugh wrote to Starr and six other officials in a memo offering legal justification for the probe. “[I]t necessarily follows that we must have the authority to fully investigate Foster’s death.” His handling of Starr’s Foster probe helped elevate Kavanaugh’s career, but the lengthy inquiry enabled conspiracy theories to flourish and add to the tumult of the Clinton presidency. Once the Foster matter was closed, Starr’s office continued to investigate the Clintons and eventually veered into the president’s relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Kavanaugh pursued the Foster inquiry at Starr’s request, even though he and others in the office soon came to believe that Foster killed himself, according to two people who worked with him at the time. Ultimately, Kavanaugh’s report in October 1997 affirmed earlier findings of suicide. The Foster component of Starr’s investigation cost about $2 million and lasted three years. (An aside-any Republican operative, whether they have their own cable TV show or not, who expresses surprise and shock that there are so many people who believe the fanciful conspiracy theories of the QAnon crowd should examine their own damn conscience and ask where they were when the Republicans in Congress and high-priced conservative lawyers thought the idea that the president had his White House counsel murdered worthy of not one, but two congressional investigations, and not one, but two special prosecutors. It didn't start with this president*, kids.) To me, the Post story is overly generous to Kavanaugh, using his involvement in the Foster investigation, and his subsequent statements asserting that presidents should not be pestered by special prosecutors while in office, as being indicative of an "evolution" in Kavanaugh's legal thinking. Me? I think it marks him as a jumped-up hack with a nice CV who will do whatever he's told. There were three crises in democracy immediately prior to the current one, and all of them benefitted Kavanaugh's political mentors and helped him build his career: the Great Penis Hunt, the burglary of the 2000 election, and the Bush administration's descent into the dark side. Brett Kavanaugh was involved in all three of them. That would be a no, then, on his nomination. | |
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| 08-05-18 10:10am - 2340 days | #945 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Real news: Although President Donald Trump says he did not know about his son's meeting with Russians at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign (a lie, because 1. Donald Trump lies all the time; 2, a lie, because President Trump does not want to admit to anything that might be illegal), Trump now says that his son's meeting with the Russians was totally legal. Isn't it wonderful how everything the Trump family does is totally legal, when if someone outside the Trump family did it, it might be considered criminal. Trump must have been blessed by Jesus Christ Himself, who gave the Trump family an unconditional pardon for any sins they might have committed. God bless President Donald Trump, the most wonderful, bestest President of the United States. ----------- ----------- Politics Trump Defends Son's Meeting With Russians as `Totally Legal' Ros Krasny, Nour Al Ali Ros Krasny, Nour Al Ali 4 hours ago U.S. President Donald Trump repeated that didn’t know about his son’s meeting with Russians at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign, while asserting that such meetings are a routine part of politics -- “totally legal and done all the time.” Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics - and it went nowhere. I did not know about it! Sent via Twitter for iPhone. View original tweet. Trump has said similar things about the June 2016 meeting. On July 27, Trump said on Twitter that “I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don jr,” in response to reports that his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was ready to tell authorities that Trump had known. “Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam,” Trump said of Cohen. CNN reported that Cohen was prepared to tell federal investigators that the president knew ahead of time about the meeting, at which a Russian lawyer with links to the Kremlin was expected to deliver damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Such testimony by Cohen, a longtime fixer for Trump, would contradict the testimony and public denials of the president, his son, and other campaign officials who’ve repeatedly said the president wasn’t aware of the meeting until more than a year later. The meeting was attended by the president’s son as well as Paul Manafort, then chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign; Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and several Russians, including the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and their representatives. | |
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| 08-06-18 11:16pm - 2338 days | #946 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Donald Trump says that California governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, is a criminal whose is responsible for the deadly wildfires in California. Jerry Brown, because he is a nutcase who favors the environment over human lives, has allowed water to be foolishly diverted to the Pacific Ocean. Thus, Jerry Brown is really a criminal, and should be in prison. Make America strong again. Put all slime-ball Democrats in prison, where they belong. Until Neo-Nazi Trump gains the power to have those slime-ball Democrats put up against a wall and shot. Hail Trump, Neo-Nazi President of the Great American Way. ---------- ---------- Politics Trump blames deadly wildfires on California governor Jerry Brown and 'environmental laws' The Independent Kimberley Richards,The Independent 7 hours ago Donald Trump has attacked California's "environmental laws", blaming them for the recent deadly wildfires. The president called for state governor Jerry Brown to allow the “free flow” of water he insisted was “foolishly being diverted” to the Pacific Ocean. Mr Trump addressed the wildfire tragedy on Twitter by weighing in on what he perceives to be the issues that have “magnified” the fires. “California wildfires are being magnified [and] made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilised,” he wrote. “It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!” Mr Trump went on to target his criticism at Mr Brown. "Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean," he wrote. He added that water “can be used for fires, farming and everything else.” Mr Trump’s comments were met with public backlash on social media by people who expressed confusion over the president’s statement that “readily available water” has been “diverted into the Pacific Ocean.” Scott McLean, a spokesperson for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection told The Independent that with bodies of water surrounding wildfires, access to water to battle the rapidly expanding fires has not been an issue. “So no, there’s no water issues – they’re having no issues to access to water,” he said. LeRoy Westerling, a University of California Merced professor specialising in wildfires and climatology told the San Francisco Chronicle that Mr Trump’s comments on the state’s diversion of water is mind boggling. “On the water side, it boggles the mind,” he said. “We do manage all of our rivers in California, and all the water is allocated many times over. So I’m not sure what he was recommending.” He added: “Even if we eliminated all habitat for riparian species and fish, and allowed saltwater intrusion into the delta and set up a sprinkler system over the state, that wouldn’t compensate for greater moisture loss from climate change.” The Medocino Complex Fire and the Carr Fire have destroyed more than 1,000 homes combined and forced thousands to flee. Officials have declared the Medocino Complex Fire as the second-largest wildfire recorded in the state, according to Reuters. The Carr Fire has claimed the lives of at least seven victims. In response to Mr Trump's tweets, many have taken to Twitter to address the grave effects of climate change and scientific consensus that the Earth's climate is warming. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey responded to Mr Trump's statements addressing climate change in a post published to Twitter. "Donald Trump can try to change the topic, but he won’t be able to divert our attention away from the fact that the hotter, drier weather magnifying the California wildfires is linked to climate change," he wrote. "And it will keep getting worse as long as we fail to act." | |
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| 08-07-18 12:13am - 2338 days | #947 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Wonderful news: Trump's wall could cost billions of dollars more than originally estimated. But the United States has plenty of cash to spend on the wall--all we need to do is borrow more. Go, Trump, leader of the Republican party, which demands a balanced budget. (The budget might be balanced by 3020, if we can have enough economic growth. Or maybe Trump will pull a magic rabbit out of the hat, and declare the US debt of $21,264,843,695,122 [21 trillion dollars] illegal and therefore non-payable.) "The Department of Homeland Security initially estimated the wall could cost about $21.6 billion, not including maintenance. But other estimates, including one compiled by Democrats, pegged the cost higher ― as much as $70 billion." ------------- ------------- Trump's Wall Could Run Up Billions In Unforeseen Costs, Watchdog Report Warns [HuffPost] Igor Bobic ,HuffPost•August 6, 2018 President Donald Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border could cost billions of dollars more than initially estimated, a watchdog agency warned on Monday. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, which is part of Congress’ oversight arm, said in a report released on Monday that the Trump administration failed to fully account for several factors in its estimate of the project, including how land ownership, varying topography, and the location of construction could affect the cost of putting up barriers along the border. As a result, the agency warned, the Department of Homeland Security “faces an increased risk” that the proposed wall “will cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or not fully perform as expected.” The Department of Homeland Security initially estimated the wall could cost about $21.6 billion, not including maintenance. But other estimates, including one compiled by Democrats, pegged the cost higher ― as much as $70 billion. “This report exposes what we have suspected would happen for over a year,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the senior Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, who requested the report, said in a statement. “The Trump Administration, fixated on campaign promises no matter the cost or consequences, is rushing the construction of the President’s completely unnecessary border ‘wall.’ In moving too fast, they have ignored necessary and established acquisitions protocols and plan to build a multi-billion dollar border wall where their own analysis shows it is not a priority.” A DHS spokesman said it would be “misleading and inaccurate for GAO to say that progress is not being documented or to imply that progress is not being tracked.” Trump promised hundreds of times on the campaign trail that Mexico would pay for the wall. Yet he has repeatedly threatened to shut down the government if Democrats do not agree to appropriate U.S. taxpayer funding to build it. Republicans have urged Trump not to shut down the government over wall funding before the November midterm elections, fearing that a government funding lapse could spark a backlash against the party, as with previous budget standoffs. Trump has also claimed ― falsely ― that construction of the wall has already begun. “We started building our wall. I’m so proud of it. We started. We started. We have $1.6 billion, and we’ve already started,” he said during a speech in April. A budget deal he signed this year, however, included funding to build only 33 miles of barrier and fencing along the border in areas that are currently unsecured. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 08-07-18 12:44am - 2338 days | #948 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Happy days are coming for President Donald Trump. The New York race for attorney general could mean more criminal investigations of Trump. But Trump is not worried, because he's not guilty of any crimes. -------- -------- New York race could spark new Trump investigation Hunter Walker 18 hours ago Letitia James, the public advocate in N.Y.C. and a candidate for attorney general in New York, plans to reform the criminal justice system. (Photo: David ‘Dee’ Delgado for Yahoo News) WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — While special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election could pose the most immediate threat to Donald Trump’s presidency, there’s another looming threat on the horizon. On Nov. 6, voters in the Empire State will select a new attorney general, and all of the leading Democrats running for the office are eager to take on Trump by either continuing Mueller’s work or mounting an entirely new investigation into the president. In an interview last Thursday, Tish James, the leading Democratic contender, told Yahoo News that she should be one of the president’s top fears, along with Mueller and the possibility that Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen could cooperate with federal prosecutors. “The president of the United States has to worry about three things; Mueller, Cohen, and Tish James. We’re all closing in on him,” James said. James, the New York City public advocate, is leading the pack of four Democrats who will face off in a primary on Sept. 13. The lone Republican in the race has decidedly slim chances in a state where Democrats have nearly double the number of voters and the attorney general hasn’t come from the GOP since the last century. The outcome of race could add a new layer of complexity for President Trump, who in the last month alone has sent out ten tweets about the investigation he calls a “rigged witch hunt.” Last week, Trump declared that the U.S. attorney general “should stop” it “right now, before it continues to stain our country any further.” However, even if Trump stops Mueller, the election in New York could create a new legal nemesis for the president. New York’s attorney general is in a unique position because the president’s real estate business and his campaign are both headquartered in the city, giving the state’s top prosecutor jurisdiction over many Trump properties as well as activities that took place during the 2016 election. That would potentially include the infamous meeting in Manhattan between the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked attorney who allegedly offered the campaign “dirt” on Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton. The candidates appeared at a forum in Westchester County last Thursday evening where Fordham University law professor Zephyr Teachout, another candidate, emphasized the New York attorney general’s jurisdiction over the president. “Yes, we open the paper … every day wanting to know what Mueller is doing, but there are things the New York State attorney general can do to take on the threat of Donald Trump that nobody else can do,” she said. Both James and Teachout have said they would want to bring suits against Trump under the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bars presidents from taking gifts or profits from foreign officials. “There’s a lot of property here in New York state that I believe the president of the United States has basically inured to his benefit, and I do believe that he’s engaged in self-enrichment,” said James. Trump is already facing three suits regarding emoluments. Attorneys general in Maryland and the District of Columbia have brought a case against Trump arguing the president is violating the law when foreign officials visit his hotel in the nation’s capital. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is also pursuing a similar case. And 200 Democrats in Congress have asked a federal judge to require Trump to obtain congressional approval before accepting emoluments. Teachout’s expertise is in anti-corruption law. She has already been involved in the current emoluments cases against the president. Teachout joined the board of CREW shortly after Trump was elected and worked on the group’s case. Her scholarship has also been cited in the Maryland and D.C. case. “I was one of two experts in the country in emoluments before he took office. I literally wrote the book on corruption and anti-corruption laws, and I’ve been advising attorneys general in other states on bringing this suit,” Teachout said at the forum. “But there’s a gaping hole in it. The victory could lead to the divestment of the Trump Hotel in D.C., but we need the divestment of all the businesses, and the businesses are located here in New York,” she continued. Before taking office, Trump and his attorneys announced he would turn over control of his company to his family. While he’s not involved in the daily operations of the business, Trump still collects on the companies’ profits. Rudy Giuliani, a former New York City mayor who is now on Trump’s legal team, dismissed the idea of an emoluments suit as a “wacky theory.” He called the Democratic attorney general candidates “a bunch of political yahoos” and said their threats of an emoluments suit where a “totally political” and “disgraceful” attempt to drum up votes. “It’s hard to respond to all that. It’s all political. Let’s see what they would do,” Giuliani said. There wasn’t supposed to be much of a race for attorney general in New York. Eric Schneiderman was expected to easily win a third term before he abruptly resigned in May following allegations he engaged in abusive behavior in romantic relationships with multiple women. In May, a New York City attorney made a court filing claiming Trump’s close allies were aware of some of Schneiderman’s issues before they became public. Yahoo News asked Teachout and James if they believed the previous attorney general didn’t fully confront Trump due to his personal problems. “I can say that there have been missed opportunities,” Teachout said of Schneiderman. James pointed to Schneiderman’s decision not to pursue an emoluments case. “There is a criticism of him that he did not pursue the emoluments case. Why that is, I don’t know. I can’t speak for him,” James said of Schneiderman. “But I can tell you this: that Letitia James as the next attorney general will be very aggressive and will not miss a beat. I wake up each and every day committed to serving justice.” Teachout also noted that Schneiderman’s replacement, acting attorney general Barbara Underwood, brought a case against Trump’s charitable foundation weeks after her predecessor resigned. Underwood’s suit accused Trump of engaging in a “pattern of illegal conduct,” including “willful self-dealing” by, among other things, using the foundation for a fundraiser that he touted during his presidential campaign. “I can’t speak for the prior officeholder at all. I can say that when Barbara Underwood took over, she brought a bombshell of a lawsuit in the Trump Foundation case basically within a month,” said Teachout. Both Teachout and James would keep Underwood on in the attorney general’s office if they won the election. Schneiderman may not have brought an emoluments case, but before his sudden downfall, the former attorney general pursued Trump on several fronts. Since Trump took office, Schneiderman filed a spate of lawsuits in conjunction with other attorneys general against Trump administration policies, including the travel ban, the repeal of DACA and rollbacks in environmental regulations. All of the Democrats vying to replace Schneiderman have said they hope to continue these efforts to oppose the president’s policy agenda. Schneiderman also had been cooperating with the Mueller probe. This collaboration between the New York attorney general and the special counsel is important because the president could pardon anyone charged by Mueller at the federal level, but has no power to stop state charges. All four Democrats vying to replace Schneiderman, who include attorney Leecia Eve, have said they want to continue his work with Mueller. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who’s also running, has argued he’s best suited to work with Mueller because of his Washington experience. “I am deeply immersed in the details of the Russia investigation and all of the issues before the Intelligence Committee in the house,” Maloney said at the candidates’ forum. Maloney, who did not respond to requests for an interview, suggested at the forum that he believed supporting Mueller is the major way the attorney general can take on Trump. “The No. 1 thing the next attorney general or any of us is going to do to hold Donald Trump accountable is keep Bob Mueller on the job,” Maloney said. While the New York attorney general may have jurisdiction over some activities related to the Mueller investigation, the state can’t bring charges against anyone who has been pardoned by Trump. As part of his efforts to work with Mueller, Schneiderman has backed a proposed law in New York that would close this so-called “double jeopardy” loophole. This is another effort that the Democrats running to replace Schneiderman hope to continue. James has gone a step further than her rivals and promised she could get the law passed soon after she takes office by virtue of her relationships and experience in the state capital. “I am confident that when Letitia James becomes attorney general, that bill will be passed in the first 100 days,” she said at the forum. | |
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| 08-07-18 12:46am - 2338 days | #949 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
James told Yahoo News said she has already discussed the bill with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the speaker of the state Assembly. She explained that there are some Democrats who are against the legislation in its current form and said she is eager to work with them on a “compromise bill.” “There have been some individuals who have concerns — particularly, believe it or not, coming from the black, Puerto Rican and Asian caucus, who believe it’s too broad and they want to carve out categories,” said James. Both James and Teachout have also said they are also prepared to take over if Trump moves to stop Mueller entirely. “You could imagine an effort to fire Mueller. You could imagine an effort to strip the staff,” Teachout told Yahoo. “You don’t know with Trump, but nothing is off the table.” Giuliani, the president’s attorney, dismissed the idea Trump would move to stop Mueller. “He’s not going to step in. If he was going to step in, he would have done it a long time ago,” Giuliani said. “The Mueller probe hopefully will end, because they haven’t found any evidence he did anything wrong. You can only investigate an innocent man so long.” Giuliani also said he’s “totally unconcerned” about the possibility of New York’s attorney general taking up the Mueller investigation. “They’d have the same problem that Mueller has. They’d have to figure out what the heck [Trump] did wrong,” Giuliani said. “He didn’t do anything wrong.” For now, James has emerged as the frontrunner in the race, with endorsements from a wide array of local unions and state officials. While James and her allies tout her Albany connections as an asset, her rivals have painted her as overly tied to the state establishment. In recent years, a slew of local officials in New York have faced corruption charges, including top aides to the governor. At the forum last week, Maloney argued the state’s voters should back someone “who’s independent” to take on the political misconduct in the state. In a scathing interview with the local publication City and State published on Thursday, Maloney attacked James as “propped up by insiders and the political machine.” But Maloney is also under fire in the race because, while putting himself forward as a potential rival to Trump, while in Congress he voted with the president 35 percent of the time — more than any other New York Democrat in Congress, according to FiveThirtyEight. In his interview with City and State, Maloney called the survey a “bulls*** metric.” Maloney and James are “people who in different ways have deep entanglements w the political establishment,” says Teachout, who first came to political prominence when she mounted a shockingly successful primary challenge to Cuomo in 2014. In this race, she has tried to frame herself as part of the progressive insurgency running against incumbent Democratic interests. On the campaign trail, James has pointed out that as public advocate, she has sued both Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. At the forum on Thursday, James also said she wants to “tear down” a state ethics commission that’s widely seen as closely tied to Cuomo, and “rebuild it as an independent entity” with “no ties to the governor.” All four Democratic candidates are cutting pioneering paths. If elected, James or Eve would be the first African-American woman elected to statewide office in New York. Maloney would be the state’s first openly gay official. And Teachout has been mounting her campaign while pregnant. A Siena College poll released last Tuesday showed James with 25 percent of the vote, followed by Maloney with 16 percent and Teachout with 13 percent. The fourth Democrat, Eve, had the support of just four percent of primary voters in the poll. The winner of the primary will face Manhattan attorney Keith Wofford, who is the Republican nominee and did not respond to requests for comment on this story. In the meantime, the race is on Trump’s mind, and he has asked allies in New York for opinions about the candidates, according to a source who has recently spoken to the president. For his part, Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, said none of the Democratic attorney general candidates are inspiring. “None of them impress me as a lawyer I would ever have represent me or hire,” Giuliani said. “They hardly have distinguished legal backgrounds.” _____ | |
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| 08-07-18 01:17am - 2338 days | #950 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump, the greatest President we've ever had, has done a wonderful thing: Exposing the Fake News the public is bombarded with. And also exposing the bias and lies of the Justice Department, the FBI, and any other organization that might be investigating Trump. Donald Trump, a man of the people. Go, Donald. We love you to pieces. ------ ------ Trump appears to change story on son’s meeting with Russian lawyer Posted 6:52 AM, August 6, 2018, by Associated Press BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Donald Trump appears to have changed his story about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that is pivotal to the special counsel’s investigation, tweeting that his son met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer to collect information about his political opponent. “Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,” Trump wrote in a Sunday tweet. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!” That is a far different explanation than Trump gave 13 months ago, when a statement dictated by the president but released under the name of Donald Trump Jr., read: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.” The misdirection came amid a series of searing tweets sent from his New Jersey golf club, in which he tore into two of his favorite targets, the news media and Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into possible links between the president’s campaign and Russia. Trump unleashed particular fury at reports that he was anxious about the Trump Tower meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and other senior campaign officials. Trump’s critics immediately pounced on the new story, the latest of several versions of events about a meeting for which emails were discovered between the president’s eldest son and an intermediary from the Russian government offering damaging information about Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Betraying no surprise or misgivings about the offer from a hostile foreign power, Trump Jr. replied: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” Sunday’s tweet was Trump’s clearest statement yet on the purpose of the meeting, which has become a focal point of Mueller’s investigation even as the president and his lawyers try to downplay its significance and pummel the Mueller probe with attacks. On Sunday, Trump again suggested without evidence that Mueller was biased against him, declaring, “This is the most one sided Witch Hunt in the history of our country.” And as Trump and his allies have tried to discredit the probe, a new talking point has emerged: that even if that meeting was held to collect damaging information, none was provided and “collusion” — Trump’s go-to description of what Mueller is investigating — never occurred. “The question is what law, statute or rule or regulation has been violated, and nobody has pointed to one,” said Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, on ABC’s “This Week.” But legal experts have pointed out several possible criminal charges, including conspiracy against the United States and aiding and abetting a conspiracy. And despite Trump’s public Twitter denial, the president has expressed worry that his son may face legal exposure even as he believes he did nothing wrong, according to three people close to the White House familiar with the president’s thinking but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Sekulow acknowledged that the public explanation for the meeting has changed but insisted that the White House has been very clear with the special counsel’s office. He said he was not aware of Trump Jr. facing any legal exposure. “I don’t represent Don Jr.,” Sekulow said, “but I will tell you I have no knowledge at all of Don Jr. being told that he’s a target of any investigation, and I have no knowledge of him being interviewed by the special counsel.” Democrats hammered away at the president’s admission. “The Russians offered damaging info on your opponent. Your campaign accepted. And the Russians delivered,” tweeted Rep. Adam Schiff, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “You then misled the country about the purpose of the Trump Tower meeting when it became public. Now you say you didn’t know in advance. None of this is normal or credible.” Trump’s days of private anger spilled out into public with the Twitter outburst, which comes at a perilous time for the president. A decision about whether he sits for an interview with Mueller may also occur in the coming weeks, according to another one of his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani. Trump has seethed against what he feels are trumped-up charges against his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, whose trial began last week and provided a visible reminder of Mueller’s work. And he raged against the media’s obsession with his links to Russia and the status of Michael Cohen, his former fixer, who is under federal investigation in New York. Cohen has indicated that he would tell prosecutors that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting ahead of time. Despite a show of force from his national security team this week as a warning against future Russian election meddling, Trump again deemed the matter a “hoax” this week. And at a trio of rallies, he escalated his already vitriolic rhetoric toward the media, savaging the press for unflattering coverage and, he feels, bias. “The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!” The fusillade of tweets came from Bedminster, Trump’s golf course, where he is ensconced in a property that bears his name at every turn and is less checked in by staffers. It was at the New Jersey golf club where a brooding Trump has unleashed other inflammatory attacks and where, in spring 2017, he made the final decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, the move that triggered the Russia probe. Trump was joined for his Saturday rally in Ohio by former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who departed the administration earlier this year. Her unannounced presence raised some eyebrows as Hicks has been interviewed by Mueller and was part of the team of staffers that helped draft the original statement on the Trump Tower meeting. Multiple White House officials have been interviewed while still working at the White House and have remained in contact with the president. | |
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