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| Porn Users Forum » WHY DOESN'T POTUS ARREST BILL CLINTON, HILARY CLINTON, AND OBAMA? |
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| 08-07-18 01:27am - 2338 days | #951 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User  Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Question: Is President Trump a criminal? Answer: Do bears shit in the woods? ================== Politics Rick Gates Shows Why Trump Is So Worried About Witness Flipping Tessa Berenson / Alexandria, Virginia Time August 6, 2018 When Rick Gates took the stand in Paul Manafort’s Virginia trial Monday, he quickly showed the power Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team can wield if they can get witnesses to “flip” against former friends and colleagues, a particular obsession of President Donald Trump’s as the Russia investigation grinds on. By Monday, the jury in Manafort’s trial had heard from an FBI agent, high-end menswear salesmen, accountants and financial experts, among other witnesses, to testify about the tax and bank fraud that Trump’s former campaign chairman had been charged with. But court watchers had been eagerly awaiting Gates, who both the prosecution and defense seem to be hoping will be at the center of their case. Gates, who was also a senior Trump campaign official, was Manafort’s righthand man for years. The defense signaled in opening arguments that they’ll try to pin the tax and bank fraud crimes at issue in this case on him. Gates has already pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy against the U.S. and one count of making a false statement to investigators in the course of Mueller’s investigation. Gates’s appearance in court marked a dramatic moment in the probe: the first visible case of a witness flipping, or turning on friends or colleagues in a case. Trump’s former adviser George Papadopoulos has reportedly been cooperating with Mueller, but the public hasn’t learned what he may have divulged. Trump is obsessed with loyalty in his inner circle, famously even demanding it of former FBI Director James Comey. His preoccupation with the idea that confidantes or associates might turn on him came to the foreground recently when he fed rumors that his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen might flip, tweeting in April that journalists “are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me in the hope that he will “flip”” and that “most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if….it means lying or making up stories.” In early July, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani also suggested Cohen might flip: “If he believes it’s in his best interest to cooperate, God bless him, he should cooperate,” Giuliani said at the time. Weeks later, when Cohen released damaging information about Trump, Giuliani abruptly changed his tune, saying Cohen doesn’t have any “credibility” and “he’s lied all his life.” The government did not “let Gates out of trouble” for his cooperation, but prosecutors did agree to certain terms in a plea deal. Gates, who is facing five to 10 years in prison, testified Monday that as part of his plea deal he agreed to turn over evidence to the government and testify. In exchange, the government promised not to bring additional charges against him and drop a second indictment against him on tax and bank fraud charges. The power for the prosecution of having a formerly close associate flip on a defendant immediately became clear when prosecutor Greg Andres started asking him questions. “Did you commit any crimes with Mr. Manafort?” Andres asked. “Yes,” Gates replied. Gates, who typically sports a beard but appeared in court clean-shaven, said he had conspired with Manafort to underreport Manafort’s income on his tax returns and hide overseas accounts. He was explicit at multiple points about Manafort’s agency in the crimes, saying he lied to accountants “at Mr. Manafort’s request,” that he told those accountants Manafort didn’t control any foreign bank accounts (which the prosecution says he did) “at Mr. Manafort’s direction,” and that Manafort “directed” him to categorize some income as loans in order to reduce his taxable income. The importance of Gates’ appearance wasn’t lost on the onlookers crammed into the uncomfortable wooden benches in the back of the courtroom. When journalists heard that Gates would be next to testify, many of them fled the room to get the news out. (There are no phones or computers allowed in the court.) So many people jumped up that it caused a commotion, and Judge T.S. Ellis threatened to have people “excluded” if in the future they didn’t leave the court in a “quiet, orderly way.” Ellis tried to hurry the prosecution along throughout the day, at one point scolding Andres as he asked Gates about Manafort’s political work in Ukraine. “I certainly hope you don’t mean to offer a history of Ukrainian politics,” Ellis snapped. Prosecutors still said they estimate having about three more hours of questions for Gates on Tuesday before cross examination can begin. As Gates testified in a calm, dispassionate way about the crimes he says he and Manafort committed together (as well as crimes he says Manafort didn’t know about, including embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from him), Manafort appeared to be looking directly at his former colleague. Gates studiously avoided Manafort’s gaze and looked only at Andres, the judge or the jury. At one point Gates, still without meeting Manafort’s eye, testified that his former boss is “probably one of the most politically brilliant strategists I’ve ever worked with.” Even a flipped witness, it seems, can still have a nice word to say for his old boss. | |
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| 08-07-18 02:50am - 2338 days | #952 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Today (August 7, 201 is Robert Mueller's birthday.He was born on August 07, 1944. Will Mueller invite President Trump to his birthday party to celebrate President Trump's close relation to the FBI and the Justice Department? | |
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| 08-07-18 07:48am - 2338 days | #953 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump's lawyer admits he had bad information. A round-about way of suggesting that President Donald Trump lied, not just to the public, but also to his own lawyers. Who you gonna trust? The President, of course. The leader of our country. He has all the facts. Even if he has a problem in communicating the facts. Lies are easier than facts, for the President. Lies make the President look better, stronger, more of a true leader. "I've done nothing wrong." Echoes of President Richard Nixon. Except Nixon didn't lie as often as Donald Trump. -------- -------- Trump’s lawyer suggests Trump lied to his own legal team about his role in covering up collusion "I had bad information." Aaron Rupar Aug 6, 2018, 12:22 pm During an interview on Sunday’s edition of This Week, Jay Sekulow — one of President Trump’s lawyers — admitted he was wrong last year when he claimed Trump “wasn’t involved” in dictating a misleading statement for his son about the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his campaign and Kremlin-connected Russians who offered political dirt on Hillary Clinton. After initially denying Trump was involved at all, Trump’s legal team — including Sekulow — sent the special counsel’s office a memo early this year acknowledging Trump had in fact dictated a statement for Donald Trump Jr. claiming the meeting he arranged was “primarily” about Russian adoptions — not, as revealed by emails Trump Jr. subsequently released, to obtain damaging information about Clinton. Donald Trump and Don Jr. at a January 2017 press conference Trump dictated statement his administration claimed he didn’t draft On Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos pressed Sekulow on the disconnect between what he said last summer and what he now acknowledges to be the case. Advertisement “You said the president ‘wasn’t involved’ in any way at all. Later Sarah Sanders changed that, she said the president ‘weighed in’ but he didn’t dictate anything, and then in January of this year the president’s legal team, including you, sent a memo to Robert Mueller saying this: ‘You have received all of the notes, communications and testimony indicating that the President dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times article on behalf of his son, Donald Trump, Jr.,'” Stephanopoulos said. “So why did you deny President Trump’s involvement? When do you learn that the denial wasn’t true?” Sekulow pinned blame for his false statement on “bad information” that was fed to him. “Well let me tell you two things on that one. Number one, as you know George, I was in the case at that point, what, a couple of weeks, and there was a lot of information that was gathering, and as my colleague Rudy Giuliani said, I had bad information at that time,” Sekulow said. “I made a mistake in my statement, I’ve talked about that before. That happens when you have cases like this.” Sekulow continued, “As far as when did we correct it, the important part is the information that we’ve shared with the office of special counsel — I’m not going to get into the details — but we were very clear as to the situation involving that trip, and the statements that were made to The New York Times. So, I think it’s very important to point out that in a situation like this, you have, over time, facts develop.” Sekulow’s comments indicate Trump’s lies about the true purpose of the Trump Tower meeting weren’t limited to the statement he dictated for his eldest son falsely claiming it was “primarily” about Russian adoptions. They suggest Trump also mislead his legal team about a meeting which the president himself now admits represented his campaign’s willingness to collude with a foreign adversary. Trump has repeatedly denied knowing about the Trump Tower meeting in advance, including in a tweet posted Sunday. But there are strong indications that Trump hasn’t told the truth about that either. As ThinkProgress detailed, a speech Trump gave on June 7, 2016 — two days before the Trump Tower meeting — teased a forthcoming speech in which he promised to detail dirt about the Clintons. Advertisement “I am going to give a major speech on — probably Monday of next week — and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons,” Trump said. “I think you’re going to find it very informative, and very, very interesting.” Trump says he didn’t know about Trump Tower meeting. His speech 2 days before it suggests otherwise. When Trump made those comments, Trump Jr. had already exchanged emails with Rob Goldstone, a publicist who coordinated the Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a “Russian government attorney” who promised to provide him and other top Trump campaign officials with information about Clinton. Though Trump Jr.’s emails prove that he took the meeting in hopes of obtaining useful dirt on Clinton, he later claimed the Russian attorney didn’t have the goods. The “major speech” Trump teased was never delivered. In recent days, Trump and his legal team have started pushing the talking point that “collusion is not a crime.” Trump debuts new, incoherent talking point about collusion with Russia Sekulow isn’t the only member of team Trump who has had a hard time explaining comments they made in the summer of 2017 about the misleading statement Trump dictated for his son. In the wake of the New York Times breaking news in June about the memo acknowledging Trump dictated Don Jr.’s statement, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was grilled about a statement she made on August 1, 2017 about how Trump “certainly didn’t dictate” anything for Don Jr. Sanders refused to explain her own comments, and instead referred reporters to “outside counsel.” She wouldn’t even say if her comment from last August was “still operative.” | |
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| 08-07-18 10:52am - 2338 days | #954 | |
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biker (0)
Active User  Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
I've been keeping up with this. Now Rudy is saying collusion isn't a crime. I would think by now Trumps real lawyers would have had Rudy fired. I guess he isn't making any worse then Trump is doing to himself. Warning Will Robinson | |
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| 08-07-18 12:55pm - 2338 days | #955 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
@biker, I think Trump and Rudy are on the same page. Rudy is acting as Trump's attack dog, and he changes his story and opinions almost as fast as Trump. At one time Rudy was a respected for his thoughts and actions, especially after 9/11. But he's lost almost all credibility with his current role as Trump's attack dog. And lately Trump seems to be having a melt-down, where he attacks others because he thinks it might save him from Mueller and whatever other charges he will face. Not that the attacks are new, but they are even more wild and fanciful than ever. | |
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| 08-07-18 02:47pm - 2338 days | #956 | |
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biker (0)
Active User Posts: 632 Registered: May 03, '08 Location: milwaukee, wi |
At his age this radical changing of "facts" could be the start of dementia or Rudy is just being Trump's lapdog for the pay. I would think the other lawyers would have say about Rudy being allowed to speak to the media, Fox news, I call it news only for the humor, but just as none of Trumps advisors can take away his Tweeter account, the lawyers haven't the ability to tell Trump what is good for his case. It appears they continue to hang on for the money they're bringing in, even if it hurts their careers. Can't imagine what trump is paying these guys. I certainly would be charging an enormous fee for this case. It would be my retirement fund. Warning Will Robinson | |
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| 08-08-18 04:06pm - 2337 days | #957 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: President Donald Trump celebrates the powers of Saudi Arabia. He wants the same powers. He has held talks with his closest advisors and his closest family members (including most-favored daughter Ivanka Trump) to discuss when would be the best time to crucify Mueller for crimes against the Trump family. Stay tuned for further developments: Vote for when Donald Trump can declare himself King of the United States of Trumpland. (Time magazine has already had a cover of Trump as king. Now Trump wants to make that a reality.) Vote for when Donald Trump can declare a state of national emergency, and assume the powers that God Himself has promised to Trump. ------------ ------------ Bloomberg politics Saudi Arabia Crucifies Myanmar Man for Theft and Murder By Abbas Al Lawati August 8, 2018, 1:49 AM PDT Saudi Arabia executed and crucified a Myanmar man in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday in a rare form of punishment reserved for the most egregious crimes. Elias Abulkalaam Jamaleddeen was accused of breaking into the home of a woman from Myanmar, firing a weapon in it then repeatedly stabbing her, which led to her death, the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an Interior Ministry statement. He was also accused of stealing weapons and trying to kill another man whose home he broke into, as well as attempting to rape a woman. The ruling was supported by the country’s supreme court and endorsed by the king. Crucifixions in Saudi Arabia entail hanging a body in public after an execution, and are unusual. A Yemeni man was crucified in 2010 for raping and killing a girl and shooting dead her father. | |
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| 08-08-18 07:12pm - 2336 days | #958 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Republicans are the moral leaders of the United States. They would never commit a crime. That is why Trump is not guilty of any crimes: because of his high ethical standards. A Trump supporter, Republican U.S. Rep. Christopher Collins of New York was arrested today on charges he tipped his son and family and friends inside information that allowed them to dodge hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses in the stock market. Collins said he was innocent and the charges were part of a witch hunt (shades of Donald Trump). "I believe I acted properly and within the law at all times," he said. "I will mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name. I look forward to being fully vindicated and exonerated." If you firmly believe in Trump's honesty, and the honesty of all Republicans, then Collins will be cleared of all charges against him. However, if you believe that trading on inside information in the stock market, which is illegal, is illegal, then maybe Collins and his family are guilty. But only maybe. Because you are innocent until found guilty in a court of law. And this is a supporter of Donald Trump. So maybe he can get a pardon if things don't turn out so well at his trial. Because Trump admires and respects people who can make money in the stock market. ------------- ------------- Associated Press GOP congressman from New York charged with insider trading Associated Press TOM HAYS,Associated Press 59 minutes ago NEW YORK (AP) — Republican U.S. Rep. Christopher Collins of New York was arrested Wednesday on charges he fed inside information he gleaned from sitting on the board of a biotechnology corporation to his son, helping family and friends dodge hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses when one of the company's drugs failed in a medical trial. Collins, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump who was among the first sitting members of Congress to endorse his candidacy for the White House, pleaded not guilty to an indictment unsealed at a court in Manhattan. The indictment charges Collins, his son and the father of the son's fiancee with conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud and making false statements to the FBI. Speaking to reporters in Buffalo hours after his release on bail, Collins, 68, professed his innocence and said he would remain on the ballot for re-election this fall. "I believe I acted properly and within the law at all times," he said. "I will mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name. I look forward to being fully vindicated and exonerated." Prosecutors said the charges stem from Collins' decision to share with his son insider information about Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., a biotechnology company headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with offices in Auckland, New Zealand. Collins was the company's largest shareholder, with nearly 17 percent of its shares, and sat on its board. According to the indictment, Collins was attending the Congressional Picnic at the White House on June 22, 2017, when he received an email from the company's chief executive saying that a trial of a drug the company developed to treat multiple sclerosis was a clinical failure. Collins responded to the email saying: "Wow. Makes no sense. How are these results even possible???" the indictment said. It said he then called his son, Cameron Collins, and, after several missed calls, they spoke for more than six minutes. The next morning, according to the indictment, Cameron Collins began selling his shares, unloading enough over a two-day period to avoid $570,900 in losses before a public announcement of the drug trial results. After the announcement, the company's stock price plunged 92 percent. Prosecutors said the son passed the information to a third defendant, Stephen Zarsky. Their combined trades avoided more than $768,000 in losses, authorities said. They said Zarsky traded on it and tipped off at least three others. U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, a Republican, said Collins was supposed to keep the trial results secret. "Instead, he decided to commit a crime," he said. "Representative Collins, who, by virtue of his office, helps write the laws of this country, acted as if the law did not apply to him." Collins, a conservative first elected in 2012 to represent parts of western New York between Buffalo and Rochester, has vehemently denied wrongdoing. When the House Ethics Committee began investigating the stock trades a year ago, his spokeswoman called it a "partisan witch hunt." All three defendants pleaded not guilty and were freed on $500,000 bail. In his Buffalo news conference, Collins acknowledged being disappointed that Innate's drug trials didn't go well. "We firmly believed we were on the verge of a medical breakthrough," he said. But he said that even after learning of the setback, "I held on to my shares rather than sell them" as the law required. He said the decision not to sell cost him millions of dollars. "That's OK," he said. "That's the risk I took." Collins has remained a vocal Trump supporter, most recently calling for an end to special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into possible campaign collusion and blaming Barack Obama's administration for failing to push back on Russia. On Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, said he was removing Collins from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, calling insider trading "a clear violation of the public trust." In a written statement Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the charges against Collins "show the rampant culture of corruption and self-enrichment among Republicans in Washington today." Collins ran unopposed in the Republican primary and holds what's largely considered a safe Republican seat in a state that went to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. He's being challenged in November by Democrat Nate McMurray. McMurray said Collins has brought shame to the region, but he stopped short of saying he should resign. "That's his decision to make. I'll leave it up to him, but I know what I would do if I was in his place," said McMurray, the town supervisor in the Buffalo suburb of Grand Island. The advocacy group Public Citizen filed a request for an investigation of Collins' stock dealings with the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2017. Tom Price, who was Trump's first secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, also came under scrutiny for his purchases of Innate stock while he was a Republican member of Congress from Georgia. Democrats made an issue of Price's purchase at his Senate confirmation hearings in early 2017, after the Wall Street Journal reported that company officials had said Price was allowed to buy the stocks at a low price. Price, who bought about 400,000 shares of the stock, said he'd learned of the firm through Collins but said the price he received was available to any investor. Price resigned as health secretary last September under criticism for taking pricey charter flights at taxpayers' expense. ___ Associated Press writers Alan Fram in Washington, Larry Neumeister in New York, David Klepper in Albany and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo contributed to this story. ___ This story has been corrected to show Collins was first elected in 2012, not 2014. Comment Guidelines | |
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| 08-08-18 07:50pm - 2336 days | #959 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Republicans and the Trump administration are fighting to protect US consumers from deadly health threats. Asbestos, a known danger to health (lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis) is now under the approval of the EPA. The EPA wants to pass a rule stating that importers and manufacturers of asbestos must get approval from the EPA for new uses. Thus, the EPA would, at its discretion, allow greater use of asbestos. And since the EPA is responsible for protecting the health of US citizens, the EPA would only allow asbestos to be used if its use made commercial sense. (Allowing for increased risk of disease and death from asbestos.) Go, Trump, protector of the US health care industry, and the US chemical industry. -------------- -------------- CBSN CBS News August 7, 2018, 2:49 PM Critics outraged over EPA's proposal on asbestos Last Updated Aug 7, 2018 6:46 PM EDT Critics are speaking out against a proposal put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency under President Trump that could allow for new uses of asbestos, which is heavily restricted because of its links to cancer and other diseases. In June, the EPA under Scott Pruitt's leadership proposed a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) "for certain uses of asbestos (including asbestos-containing goods)." The rule would require importers and manufacturers to get approval from the EPA before resuming or starting asbestos manufacturing, importing or processing, according to a June 1 news release from the agency. While the EPA framed the proposal in a positive light, calling it "the first such action on asbestos ever proposed" and part of an "important, unprecedented action on asbestos," critics said it fails to recognize the dangers of the fibrous mineral, which has been associated with lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis. According to the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, the EPA also announced it will not review exposures from abandoned uses of asbestos. Documents the EPA released in June indicate that the agency will "dramatically scale back its safety evaluations for 10 chemicals under the revamped Toxic Substances Control Act," says the Environmental Working Group. In a June statement, the group accused the EPA of "doing the bidding of the chemical industry by giving it the green light to continue business as usual, and by signaling that even the most dangerous chemicals are unlikely to be restricted or banned." The EPA, however, says press reports on the matter are incorrect, and the EPA's proposal would keep companies from manufacturing, importing or processing for new uses of asbestos without EPA approval. "The press reports on this issue are inaccurate," EPA spokesman James Hewitt said in a statement. "Without the proposed Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) EPA would not have a regulatory basis to restrict manufacturing and processing for the new asbestos uses covered by the rule. The EPA action would prohibit companies from manufacturing, importing, or processing for these new uses of asbestos unless they receive approval from EPA." Linda Reinstein, president and co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, said that while an estimated 15,000 Americans die each year due to asbestos-related diseases that are preventable, "raw asbestos imports and use continue." "It is incredulous to know that the EPA has ignored the science, the history, and the carnage that asbestos has caused throughout the nation each year," Reinstein said in a June statement. "From the World Health Organization to the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, there is global consensus that there is no safe level of asbestos exposure or controlled use of asbestos." Chelsea Clinton echoed that safety concern in a tweet Tuesday. "No amount of asbestos is safe," she said. "Yet, the Trump administration is #MAGA or making asbestos great again." The proposed rule for asbestos use is available for public comment until August 10.  2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. | |
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| 08-09-18 10:13am - 2336 days | #960 | |
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Ergo Proxy (0)
Active User  Posts: 52 Registered: Dec 22, '07 Location: Germany |
"SINCE TRUMP BELIEVES BILL CLINTON AND OBAMA CAUSED MANY OF THE PROBLEMS THE US IS FACING TODAY, WHY DOESN'T HE HAVE THEM ARRESTED?" Is this even a serious question? I am still reading "Trumpocracy", perhaps when I am finished I will say yes too, but until now I say "Really"? All hail to the hypnotoad! | |
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| 08-09-18 10:36am - 2336 days | #961 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
It's difficult to understand what you are saying, since you are saying it in a brief, concise style. You know what you mean, but I don't. Is this a serious question? Trump claims, again and again, that Clinton and Obama caused and are responsible for many of the problems the US is facing today (shifting the blame from his administration onto Bill Clinton and Obama). And he has stated many times (especially during the presidential campaign) that Hilary Clinton belonged in jail. So, yes, Trump indicates that Obama and Hilary Clinton (and probably Bill Clinton, as well) belong in jail. Is he serious when he indicates this? Or is it just more campaign rhetoric? You can't read Trump's mind. So what is serious or fantasy or wishful thinking or hot air coming out of Trump is debatable, since you can't read his mind, and he can change his opinion on many matters in a heartbeat. I don't care how many books you read on Trump, you will never be able to know exactly what is in his mind. Even if he wrote 100 books himself, on what he believes, you will never know what he believes, because he is a serial liar. If you don't believe he is a serial liar, then you haven't been paying attention to what he says. | |
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| 08-09-18 11:04am - 2336 days | #962 | |
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Ergo Proxy (0)
Active User Posts: 52 Registered: Dec 22, '07 Location: Germany |
There is still hope there will be a wave election in November and Trump will be impeached for treason, bribery and misdemeanors right thereafter. I kind of root for this scenario. All hail to the hypnotoad! | |
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| 08-09-18 01:25pm - 2336 days | #963 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
@Ergo Proxy, The problem is: if you get rid of Trump, Vice President Mike Pence is not an improvement. Pence won't be guilty of the crimes that Trump is, but he's a conservative Christian who will probably follow most of Trump's policies: anti gay-lesbian, anti immigration, anti environment, anti civil rights, etc. | |
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| 08-10-18 09:34am - 2335 days | #964 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Federal Court is guilty of treason against Donald Trump. Says that EPA must revoke permission to use dangerous pesticides that cause health problems in children. This is not right. Let children suffer, maybe even die, as long as farmers have the inalienable right to use whatever poison they want to protect their crops. And let workers and consumers beware: because if the pesticide is dangerous, there are warnings that can be used. The purpose of the EPA is to protect the American public from health hazards. But under Trump's administration, the EPA fights for the rights of businesses to pollute the environment as their God-given right to make money, and fuck the peons whose health might suffer. God save Donald Trump, President for life of Trumpland. -------- -------- Federal court says EPA must revoke pesticide connected to health problems in children ABC News STEPHANIE EBBS,ABC News 15 hours ago Federal court says EPA must revoke pesticide connected to health problems in children originally appeared on abcnews.go.com A federal court on Thursday ordered the EPA to stop allowing a pesticide to be used that advocates and the agency's own review have said causes health issues in children. The pesticide chlorpyrifos is used on crops including corn, fruits, and nuts. Research and EPA evaluations have said it is harmful to children and farmworkers who are exposed to it, but the government opted to allow some levels of the chemicals and previously denied petitions to ban it completely. In a 2-1 decision a federal appeals court in California said the EPA had to reverse that denial and revoke all accepted levels and registrations for the pesticide in 60 days, essentially prohibiting it from being used. The ruling is a big win for groups that represent farm workers who have said they and their families are being made sick by working with the pesticide. PHOTO: A worker on a farm wears a Tyvek chemical protective suit as he sprays a field with a herbicide after the broccoli harvest, July 25, 2013. (Andrew Holbrooke/Corbis via Getty Images) "We applaud the court ruling,” said Hector Sanchez Barba, executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, one of the groups that brought the case. “Chlorpyrifos affects everyone who comes in contact with this toxic chemical,” he continued. “Allowing the use of this toxic chemical is not only irresponsible, it is a crime." "Our agricultural fields should be a source of life, not sickness, and we will continue pushing for a safe environment for our farm workers all over the nation." The court said the EPA did not properly justify its decision to allow some levels of chlorpyrifos in 2017, even after the EPA's own risk assessment showed that it caused health problems in children. PHOTO: Farmer spraying toxic pesticides is seen in this undated photo. (STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images) The EPA said in 2016 that the levels of the pesticide on food and in drinking water are not safe and that it is also risky for workers who apply the pesticide, but denied a petition asking the agency to revoke its recommended safe levels. Some studies have found increased rates of autism and developmental issues among children in areas where pregnant women were exposed to chlorpyrifos. An EPA spokesman said the agency has questions about one of the major studies cited as a major source in the EPA's previous recommendation to ban the pesticide in 2015. He said EPA's scientific advisors and scientists at other agencies expressed concern about the study because they did not have access to the raw data the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health used in its research. "EPA is reviewing the decision," EPA spokesman Michael Abboud said in a statement. "The Columbia Center’s data underlying the Court’s assumptions remains inaccessible and has hindered the Agency’s ongoing process to fully evaluate the pesticide using the best available, transparent science." (MORE: Pruitt wants EPA to stop basing rules on what he calls 'secret science'  Chlorpyrifos kills pests by blocking signals in the nervous system and causing it to break down, but it can break down and causes problems with humans' nerve systems if they are exposed to it, according to the National Pesticide Information Center. The judges also condemned the EPA for delaying a decision on chlorpyrifos, District Judge Jed Rakoff wrote that the EPA has denied the court's authority to review the petition without defending its decisions, saying "the time has come to put a stop to this patent evasion." Chlorpyrifos is only used for agricultural crops and is restricted in how it can be used in people's homes. The EPA has previously set buffer zones to prevent the sprayed pesticide from drifting toward schools or other sensitive areas and said that it can't be used on some crops, such as tomatoes, and required that labels for the chemical warn workers of the effects if it is not used properly. Environmental advocacy groups and groups that represent farm workers have appealed the EPA's decisions and later sued the agency for delaying its response to those petitions. Marisa Ordonia, an attorney who worked on the case with the group Earthjustice, said EPA did not defend the merits of their decision in court. "This court ruling is a major victory for children and farmworkers, who for too long have been exposed to a sickening brain-damaging chemical,” said Earthjustice attorney Marisa Ordonia, who worked on the case. “But that will soon come to an end. Soon our fields, our fruits and vegetables will be chlorpyrifos free." Editor's Note: This story has updated to reflect the removal of a photo that incorrectly included the herbicide Roundup, a product not connected to the pesticides in this story. | |
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| 08-10-18 10:08am - 2335 days | #965 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Trump pledged to drain the swamp in Washington. It seems like Trump and his associates have had a lot of experience with the swamp before Trump was elected President. Republicans hate illegal immigrants for being rapists and murderers. Never trust a Mexican illegal. However, Republicans can trust people who have moved on from certain illegal activities, if the people are truly good. Here is Roger Stone, a wealthy, prominent Republican. He is the godfather of Kristin Davis' son. Stone calls the woman, Kristin Davis, a brilliant business woman. To run an escort service with 10,000 wealthy clients, you have to be pretty smart, I guess. ------------ ------------ 'Manhattan Madam' set to testify before Mueller grand jury Friday afternoon Kristin Davis, an associate of ex-Trump aide Roger Stone, is scheduled to testify Friday afternoon as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. by Anna Schecter / Aug.10.2018 / 7:43 AM ET Kristin Davis, the "Manhattan Madam" who says she provided prostitutes to New York's elite, is set to testify before a grand jury in Washington Friday afternoon as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. "[I’m] feeling good," said Davis Thursday. "Not worried at all. Ready for it to be over and moving on with my life." Last week an investigator on Mueller’s team questioned Davis about Russian collusion, said a person with knowledge of the matter. Davis, 41, is a long-time associate of former Trump adviser Roger Stone, doing graphics and office tasks for his political consultancy. She was in prison until May 2016, and said she would not know much about the Trump campaign. "I didn't work for Roger in 2016," Davis told NBC News Thursday. "I still don't know the scope of what they're going to ask me." Davis said that a former aide of Stone's named Andrew Miller was in charge of maintaining Stone's schedule during the presidential campaign. She said she took over that task in August 2017. Davis told NBC News in July that someone in Mueller's office called her attorney to ask her to speak to investigators. A member of Mueller's team interviewed her last week, said a person with knowledge of the matter. Davis's lawyer, Miller and a spokesman for Mueller's office did not immediately respond to requests for comments. In a statement to NBC News, Stone said: "Kristin Davis has been a friend and has worked on and off for me. She is a brilliant business woman who paid her debt to society and has remade her life. She is a single parent of a 2-year-old son who is my godson, Carter Stone Davis, who my wife and I love very much." "She is most certainly not involved in any illegal activity today and is not seeking a media circus surrounding her testimony while she tries to raise a child and launch a cosmetology business in New York. Kristin Davis was not working for me in either 2015 or 2016 — during the preparation and conduct of Donald Trump’s campaign." Davis was arrested in 2013 after allegedly selling drugs to an FBI cooperating witness. She pleaded guilty to a charge of selling prescription drugs. Sentenced to two years in prison, she was released in May 2016. Davis had previously spent several months in New York's Rikers Island jail for procuring prostitution. She earned the nickname the "Manhattan Madam" in New York's tabloids after saying publicly that her escort service had about 10,000 well-heeled clients. | |
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| 08-10-18 04:48pm - 2334 days | #966 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
This is not right. Cincinnati police policy says tasers can be used on people who are at least 7 years old. However, are illegal immigrants people? They are rapists and murderers, so tasers and .357 Magnums and .44 Magnums should be legal. No age restrictions. If they can move, they can be shot. Hail, Trump, source of all power and wealth in the United States of Trumpland. Note: the police say the 11-year-old girl was stealing from a Kroger store? Do they have any evidence? Police can sometimes make mistakes. Some people even claim that police can even lie. To protect themselves, of course. All in the public good. The charges of theft and obstruction of justice against the girl have since been dropped. That is suspicious. Why drop the charges against the 11-year-old girl, until the off duty officer has been cleared of any suspicion he might have done something wrong? Obstruction of justice? Didn't the girl know that if the off-duty cop did anything, he was acting with full knowledge and authority of the law? He should have shot her with a .44 Magnum for godless disrespect of his authority. Clean the streets with the blood of illegal immigrants and other slime-ball creatures working to bring down America the Greatest Country in the World. ------ ------ Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac has opened an investigation. According to the department's policy, Tasers can be used on people who are at least 7 years old. CBS/AP August 8, 2018, 10:49 PM Cincinnati police: 11-year-old girl stealing from Kroger market shocked with Taser CINCINNATI -- An 11-year-old girl who Cincinnati police say was stealing from a supermarket has been shocked with a Taser stun gun. Police say the incident happened around 9:30 p.m. Monday at a Kroger in Cincinnati. Authorities say the officer suspected the girl was using a backpack to shoplift when he approached her. Police say the girl resisted and fled before she was shocked. The girl was then taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital for evaluation and was released into a guardian's custody, CBS affiliate WKRC-TV reports. Police have charged the girl with theft and obstruction of justice. She will appear in juvenile court, however a date wasn't immediately announced. Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac has opened an investigation. According to the department's policy, Tasers can be used on people who are at least 7 years old. "We are extremely concerned when force is used by one of our officers on a child of this age," Isaac said in a statement. "As a result we will be taking a very thorough review of our policies as it relates to using force on juveniles as well as the propriety of the officers actions." Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman says there should be a "complete investigation." The officer involved has been placed on restricted duty, WKRC-TV reports, pending an outcome of that investigation. | |
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| 08-11-18 01:12pm - 2334 days | #967 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Real news: Republicans are the Moral Majority of the United States. Republican Representative Chris Collins Suspends Bid for Re-election After Insider Trading Charges. Although he has vowed that he is innocent of all charges, and will fight these false charges in a court of law to clear his name, he has decided, for the good of the entire country, that he will not run for re-election as a Representative of New York in Congress. That takes real guts. A lot of people who have been charged with crimes still run for office. Even people who have been convicted of crimes still run for office, and some are elected. So why would Chris Collins not run for re-election? Because he is a moral man, who wants to spare the people of New York, from the shame of voting for a man facing criminal charges. My hat is off to Chris Collins. And to Donald Trump, his elective Commander in Chief, who has guided the United States of Trumpland with a firm, moral hand since he was sworn in as President of the United States. God save Donald Trump. And send all slime-ball Democrats and Robert Mueller to where they belong: the prisons of Mexico, which is where all rapists and murderers belong. --------------------------- --------------------------- Representative Chris Collins Suspends Bid for Re-election After Insider Trading Charges New York Representative Chris Collins Suspends Bid for Re-election After Insider Trading Charges Image Representative Chris Collins leaving Federal Court in New York on Wednesday.CreditTimothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Shane Goldmacher Aug. 11, 2018 Days after federal prosecutors charged him with insider trading, Representative Chris Collins announced on Saturday that he was abandoning his re-election bid amid worries that his legal troubles could make vulnerable his otherwise solidly Republican district in western New York. How exactly the suspension of Mr. Collins’s campaign would play out was not immediately clear, as the process to get off the ballot can be onerous in New York, and Mr. Collins did not say how he would remove himself. Mr. Collins, who was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald J. Trump for president in 2016, had initially vowed to stay on the ballot this fall but said on Saturday that he had decided it was “in the best interests” of his district, “the Republican Party and President Trump’s agenda” to suspend his bid. Federal prosecutors have charged Mr. Collins with using his seat on the board of a small Australia-based drug company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, to tip off his son and others that the company had failed a critical scientific trial before that information was made public. His son and others allegedly dumped shares in a frantic rush and averted hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. “I look forward to having my good name cleared of any wrongdoing,” Mr. Collins said on Saturday, adding that he would stay in Congress through the rest of his term. His district, which covers the areas between Buffalo and Rochester, is one of the state’s most conservative, and one in which Mr. Trump had his strongest showing in New York, with nearly 60 percent of the vote in 2016. Mr. Collins’s indictment immediately thrust his seat onto the national battleground map. But if Republicans can successfully remove him, whoever they replace him with would have an edge given the district’s conservative tilt. Even after the indictment of Mr. Collins, nonpartisan political handicappers said winning the seat would be a steep climb for Democrats. One Republican official familiar with the discussions said the party would probably try to nominate Mr. Collins for a county clerkship somewhere else in New York, in an effort to meet the legal requirements to remove him from the congressional ballot. “The fact that Republicans are willing to even consider the embarrassment of nominating Collins — who has been indicted — for another local G.O.P. position, makes clear just how nervous national Republicans are about losing the House,” said Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Further complicating matters are New York’s byzantine election laws: Mr. Collins is slated to be on the ballot not just on the Republican line but also as an Independence Party candidate. That party, too, would have to agree and find a way to remove him. Mr. Collins is also the nominee of the Conservative Party. Michael R. Long, the party chairman, said on Saturday that he had spoken with Mr. Collins and would do whatever was necessary to remove him from the ballot. “If he so desires, that’s fine with me,” Mr. Long said. The Democratic candidate in the race, Nate McMurray, the town supervisor of Grand Island, had only $80,000 in his campaign account when the indictment was announced — far less than is typically needed to wage an aggressive challenge. Mr. McMurray had not been the preferred candidate of Democratic leaders in New York, led by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who had recruited Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul for the seat. She declined and instead ran for re-election. Mr. Collins’s decision to suspend his re-election bid set off an immediate scramble for the Republican nomination, with Stefan Mychajliw, the Erie County comptroller, announcing his candidacy within hours. In a preview of what will most likely be a polarized and partisan race over the next three months, Mr. Mychajliw called Mr. McMurray “radical” three times in a four-paragraph statement. If Mr. Collins is successfully removed, local party leaders, not the voters, will select the Republican nominee. Others candidates are expected to vie for the nomination. Democrats hope to use the details of the charges against Mr. Collins outlined in the indictment to help paint both the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress with the broad brush of a “culture of corruption.” “I respect Chris Collins’s decision to step down while he faces these serious allegations,” Representative Steve Stivers, an Ohio Republican and the chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, said in a statement. “As I’ve said before, Congress must hold ourselves to the highest possible standard.” While no other lawmakers in Congress have been charged with any wrongdoing related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, five other Republican congressmen also purchased stock in the company in January 2017: John Culberson of Texas; Michael K. Conaway of Texas; Doug Lamborn of Colorado; Billy Long of Missouri; and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. Mr. Long and Mr. Mullin serve on the same health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee as Mr. Collins. Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan who announced the indictment, declined to say if other lawmakers were currently under investigation. “No comment,” he said on Wednesday after the charges were announced against Mr. Collins. The issue of Innate first burst into public a year and a half ago, when it was revealed that Tom Price, Mr. Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, had received privileged shares of the drug company, in which Mr. Collins was the largest shareholder. Mr. Price resigned last September in an unrelated scandal about his use of chartered flights. In announcing the indictment of Mr. Collins, Mr. Berman said, “Congressman Collins, who by virtue of his office helps write the laws of our nation, acted as if the law did not apply to him.” Mr. Collins, who had previously faced an ethics investigation in Congress for his dual role as congressman and investor in Innate, had told investigators that he hoped the drug company, which was testing an experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis, would be a key part of his legacy in life. “Of all the things I will accomplish in my life,” Mr. Collins told investigators, “this will be No. 1 on my tombstone.” | |
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| 08-12-18 05:35pm - 2332 days | #968 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Former aide to President Trump guilty of treason. She has indicated she has secret recordings from her time in the Trump administration. She is a leaker, one of the lowest forms of creatures that deserve to be in prison, and then executed when Donald Trump assumes his post of President-For-Life-Of-The-United-States-Of-Trumpland. Sieg Heil, Donald Trump, Glorious, Bestest President of the United States!!!!!!!!!!! Read how White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders blasted the former staffer. Read how the aide says: "This is a White House where everybody lies ... you have to have your own back." Our President (and everyone around him) telling a lie? Shoot this traitor, before she destroys the purity of Donald Trump, the bestest president the US has ever had. ----------- ----------- Politics Ex-Trump aide Omarosa releases recording of White House firing Reuters Reuters 2 hours 1 minute ago FILE PHOTO: Omarosa Manigault, White House Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison, talks with aides prior to a news conference by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former White House aide and reality television participant Omarosa Manigault Newman played a recording in a TV interview on Sunday of her dismissal and indicated she had other recordings from her time in the Trump administration. "I have to protect myself and I have no regret about it," Omarosa said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Omarosa, usually referred to by only her first name, left the White House in December, and Sunday's interview coincided with the release of her book, "Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House," detailing her time there. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders blasted the former staffer after her appearance. "The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room, shows a blatant disregard for our national security – and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this former White House employee,” Sanders said in a statement. On the recording, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly can be heard talking to Omarosa in the Situation Room. "We want to talk to you about leaving the White House," Kelly said, as he cited integrity issues for her leaving. "It's important to understand that if we make this a friendly departure ... you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation." When asked on "Meet the Press" how often she made recordings during her time working for President Donald Trump, Omarosa said: "This is a White House where everybody lies ... you have to have your own back." Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway responded on ABC's "This Week" that confidentiality agreements in the White House exist for a reason. "You have a reasonable expectation of confidentiality and privacy in your conversations at your place of work," Conway said. "Why shouldn't we in the West Wing? Why shouldn't the president of the United States in the Oval Office indeed the few times that she was in there with him?" Omarosa was best known for her appearances on "The Apprentice" and its sister shows starring then-businessman Donald Trump. (Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir, additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Grant McCool and Cynthia Osterman) | |
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| 08-14-18 07:46am - 2331 days | #969 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The real news revealed: It was Hilary Clinton who colluded with the Russians to smear Donald Trump. Clinton's forces worked with Russia and the top levels of the FBI and the Department of Justice to entrap Donald Trump in a Russian plot to destroy Trump's credibility and honor. These are serious felonies. And the Obama administration was involved, as well. Once the entire truth is exposed, Donald Trump will be vindicated, and Hilary Clinton and her allies in the FBI, the Justice Department, and even the Supreme Court, could face jail time for their crimes. -------------- -------------- Investor's Business Daily Editorials Russian Collusion: It Was Hillary Clinton All Along 8/13/2018 Russia Investigation: It's beginning to look as if claims of monstrous collusion between Russian officials and U.S. political operatives were true. But it wasn't Donald Trump who was guilty of Russian collusion. It was Hillary Clinton and U.S. intelligence officials who worked with Russians and others to entrap Trump. That's the stunning conclusion of a RealClear Investigations report by Lee Smith, who looked in-depth at the controversial June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between officials of then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign staff and a Russian lawyer known to have ties with high-level officials in Vladimir Putin's government. The media have spun a tale of Trump selling his soul to the Russians for campaign dirt to use against Hillary, beginning with the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting. But "a growing body of evidence ... indicates that the meeting may have been a setup — part of a broad effort to tarnish the Trump campaign involving Hillary Clinton operatives employed by Kremlin-linked figures and Department of Justice officials," wrote Smith. Smith painstakingly weaves together the evidence that's already out there but has been largely ignored by the mainstream media, which have become so seized with Trump-hatred that their reporting even on routine matters can no longer be trusted. But he adds in more evidence that the Justice Department only recently handed over to Congress. And It's damning. Memos, emails and texts now in Congress' possession show that the Justice Department and the FBI worked together both before and after the election with Fusion GPS and their main link to the scandal, former British spy and longtime FBI informant Chris Steele. As a former British spook in Moscow, Steele had extensive ties to Russia. That's why he was picked as the primary researcher to compile the "unverified and salacious" Trump dossier, as former FBI Director James Comey once described it. Steele's dossier, for which Fusion reportedly received $1 million, was largely based on interviews with Russian officials. And who paid that $1 million? As we and others have reported, it was Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, then under Hillary's control. The media knew all this, of course, but largely ignored it. The great irony here is that, after more than two years of investigating, the only real evidence of collusion with Russians at all points to Hillary Clinton. It was she who hired Steele to dig up dirt on Trump using Russian sources. But now, it turns out, it goes even deeper than that. Events surrounding that now-famous June 2016 Trump meeting suggest it, too, was a concoction of Hillary Clinton and her deep-state allies. And that meeting was the basis for much of the later Russian collusion "investigation," if it can even be called that. Bruce Ohr, the No. 4-ranking official at the Justice Department, "coordinated before, during and after the election" with both Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson and with Steele, notes Smith. This shouldn't come as a surprise, given that Ohr's wife Nellie, a sometime employee of the CIA, was also working for Fusion GPS. The FBI fired Steele in October 2016 after it discovered that he leaked information to the press. But that meant nothing. Bruce Ohr merely continued as the conduit from Fusion GPS for information related to Steele's bogus Trump dossier. The FBI and Justice used information from that 35-page document as the pretense for the FISA wiretap on Trump aide Carter Page. Far from being limited in scope, those wiretaps in essence provided a backdoor key to the entire Trump campaign — and the basis for the Russian investigation. So far so good. But an earlier investigation by RealClearPolitics showed that as early as March 2016, the FBI, other Western intelligence sources and Clinton campaign operatives contacted the Trump campaign about potentially damaging information about Clinton. They were in effect live-trolling the campaign. This is significant. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Putin-connected lawyer who contacted the Trump campaign about having dirt on Hillary Clinton, was a client of Fusion GPS when she met with Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump campaign. And she was accompanied by a former Soviet military counterintelligence official, now working as a lobbyist, named Rinat Akhmetshin. Let that sink in for a moment. What's especially curious is that GPS' Glenn Simpson admits he had dinner with Veselnitskaya both the night before and the night after the Trump Tower meeting. Any possibility there was no discussion of the meeting between the two? Seems highly unlikely. Veselnitskaya herself subsequently claimed that the talking points for her meeting with the Trump people were provided to her by Simpson. Once in the meeting, she quickly dropped the promises of having dirt on Hillary Clinton and instead brought up Russia's long-standing desire to get rid of the Magnitsky Act, under which the U.S. imposed sanctions on a number of Russian moguls and government officials. In short, they were baiting a trap for the Trump campaign to make it appear as if they were colluding with Russian officials. Given the nonstop media coverage following leaks by the FBI and Justice, it seems the meeting served its purpose: It sowed the seeds of suspicion about the Trump campaign's supposed Russian collusion. The evidence goes even deeper than what we have summarized here. We suggest you read Smith's piece, linked above. Congress, using the documents it pried out of the Justice Department after repeated requests, is busy getting at what might turn out to be the scandal of the century. And Congress is now doing the work the Justice Department and FBI won't. "So here you have information flowing from the Clinton campaign from the Russians," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes told Fox News on Sunday. Was Hillary The Real Colluder? Nunes, who heads Congress' investigation into the matter, said it was likely that information "was handed directly from Russian propaganda arms to the Clinton campaign, fed into the top levels of the FBI and Department of Justice to open up a counterintelligence investigation into a political campaign that has now colluded (with) nearly every top official at the DOJ and FBI over the course of the last couple years. Absolutely amazing." We have to agree. If all that is true, it is absolutely amazing. After all, these are serious felonies, using the federal agencies to spy on a political opponent in league with a hostile foreign power. As we said, the only real collusion appears to be on the part of the Clinton campaign — aided by the Obama administration, CIA chief John Brennan and a handful of high-level officials at the Department of Justice and FBI. What's next? It's possible the collusion investigation soon will turn from Trump to Clinton. If so, it could lead to more resignations and possibly jail time for those involved. That includes perhaps even Hillary Clinton, who sits at the political epicenter of all this illegality. | |
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| 08-14-18 09:46am - 2331 days | #970 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Real news: This is the girl that Donald Trump should adopt and make his first daughter, replacing Ivanka Trump, whose time in the sun has passed. This girl is a scammer in the making, following in the footsteps of Neo-Nazi con man Donald Trump. And the girl is white, just like Donald Trump. --------- --------- Lifestyle 6-year-old is a 'scammer in the making' after she secretly orders $350 worth of toys off Amazon Yahoo Lifestyle Hope Schreiber,Yahoo Lifestyle 17 hours ago 6-year-old Caitlin stands next to her haul of toys after her mother left her unattended with her Amazon account. (Photo: Ria Diyaolu via Twitter) Like their first smile, their first steps, their first laugh — a child’s first scam is something a parent will cherish forever. In most cases, a kid’s first scam is entirely amateur, albeit adorable, like stealing cookies from the cookie jar, secretly staying up late to watch a scary movie, or maybe even hiding something they broke and feigning innocence when asked where it went. Six-year-old Caitlin, though? She’s a pro already, and it’s almost intimidating. If she’s pulling off scams at this level, it’s only a matter of time before they’re basing an Ocean’s 8 sequel on one of her jobs. For her birthday, Caitlin was allowed to order a Barbie doll using her mother’s Amazon account. Under supervision, she did just that. However, later, she asked her mom if she could return to the website to track her package. This is when Caitlin presumably discovered the joys of the “add to cart” button and “one-day delivery” option. The next day, boxes upon boxes arrived outside Caitlin’s home in Utah. Caitlin’s older cousin Ria Diyaolu told BuzzFeed, “Her mom went on her Amazon account and saw three pages of things she had ordered.” Caitlin, on a shopping spree that would make any kindergartner green with envy, purchased $350 worth of toys, video games, and board games. According to Ria, Caitlin was not grounded — but all the toys, except the Barbie doll, were returned to Amazon. Twitter users commented that Caitlin’s mother wasn’t alone in raising a fellow scammer. One mentioned that her son racked up a $473 bill on toys … and a white comforter. Why a white comforter? So he could sleep in his newly purchased bounce house, of course. Meanwhile, sometimes the whole neighborhood can benefit from children knowing how to log into their parent’s Amazon account. Wonder what that 10-year-old’s obsession with dishwashing soap was. Diyaolu did not immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment. | |
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| 08-15-18 05:26am - 2330 days | #971 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
How facebook was used to help Donald Trump become president. --------- --------- Facebook is ‘a surveillance system,’ sci-fi author Cory Doctorow says David Knowles 3 hours ago Mark Zuckerberg, White nationalists’ torch-lit march in Charlottesville. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Andrew Harnik/AP, Stephanie Keith/Reuters, Getty Images) SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook’s role in aiding Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 is widely misunderstood, according to a prominent science fiction author and internet critic. “Facebook spies on everyone,” Cory Doctorow told Grant Burningham, host of the Yahoo News podcast “Bots & Ballots,” adding, “It’s not a mind-control ray. It’s a surveillance system for locating people with hard to find traits.” It was that characteristic that enabled Russian bad actors and American enemies of Hillary Clinton to build Trump’s coalition on the platform, said Doctorow, the best-selling author of dystopian novels like “Little Brother” who also writes on politics and technology for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The trait that Facebook helped identify, Doctorow said, was racism. “There were, as it turned out, a bunch of Americans who were latent white supremacists who were willing to vote for a liar profiteer if he would promise to be mean to black and brown people,” Doctorow said. “They were pretty thinly distributed, but the electoral system was so gerrymandered and in such a fragile equilibrium that anyone who could even bring out a small number of nonvoters stood a pretty good chance of winning some key elections because things were really closely balanced and the only thing that guaranteed that balance was that most people never showed up and voted at all.” Download or subscribe on iTunes: “Bots & Ballots” by Yahoo News Likening Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to “a special kind of sociopath,” Doctorow sees the platform as a breeding ground of sorts. “Facebook’s primary value both to advertisers and to users is its ability to locate hard to find traits in large populations. So if you’ve got a rare disease or you want to track down people you went to high school with, or you want to find other people who will carry a tiki torch with you in Charlottesville, or you want to organize people who got to Standing Rock and protect the water from the pipeline, Facebook is a tool that will help you find these widely distributed but thinly distributed groups of people,” Doctorow said. He continued: “So that’s why advertisers like it because most people aren’t going to buy a fridge most of the time, so you need really fine-grain tracking to find people who have this very rare trait. And if you spy on people enough you can probably find people who have correlates with fridge purchasing, like, for example, they just bought a house, right, or just renovated a house, and so that’s a pretty good predictor for buying a fridge.” Facebook did not respond to a request to comment on Doctorow’s critique of its platform. To hear Burningham’s full interview with Doctorow, click here. ______ | |
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| 08-16-18 10:02am - 2329 days | #972 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
President Trump takes away the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan. Trump cleaning the swamp of Washington, DC. (Except that Trump has made the swamp even more stinky and slimy with his administration.) ---------- ---------- Brennan fires back at Trump: Claims of 'no collusion' are 'hogwash' Dylan Stableford 3 hours ago A day after President Trump revoked former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, the New York Times on Thursday published a blistering op-ed by Brennan, who disputes Trump’s assertion that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. “Mr. Trump’s claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash,” Brennan writes. “The only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of ‘Trump Incorporated’ attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets.” John Brennan, Donald Trump (Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP, Sadak Souici/Barcroft Media via Getty Images, Getty) Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia as well as Trump’s possible obstruction of the federal probe. On Wednesday, the White House announced Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearance of Brennan, a prominent critic of the president, and review the clearances of several other former Obama officials, including former director of National Intelligence James Clapper, ex-FBI Director James Comey, former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden, ex-deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, recently fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page, among others. Then-CIA Director John Brennan testifies on Capitol Hill in June 2016. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP) In announcing the move Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders read a statement from Trump saying Brennan’s “erratic” behavior was the reason his security clearance was revoked. “Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration,” Trump wrote. But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Wednesday night, Trump said he was revoking Brennan’s clearance and reviewing the others because they were the ones who gathered evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, which led to the Russia probe that has dogged his administration from day one. “I call it the rigged witch hunt; [it] is a sham,” Trump said. “And these people led it!” He added: “So I think it’s something that had to be done.” In his op-ed, Brennan accused Trump of trying to silence him. “Mr. Trump clearly has become more desperate to protect himself and those close to him, which is why he made the politically motivated decision to revoke my security clearance in an attempt to scare into silence others who might dare to challenge him,” Brennan writes. “Now more than ever, it is critically important that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and his team of investigators be allowed to complete their work without interference — from Mr. Trump or anyone else — so that all Americans can get the answers they so rightly deserve.” In an interview with CNN Thursday morning, Clapper called Trump’s admission in the Wall Street Journal “very disturbing.” “We were in compliance with a request of the then president of the United States to put into one document our insight and knowledge of the profound threat that Russia posed to this country,” Clapper said. “And now we’re apparently being punished for this.” Brennan has been criticized by some for his sharply worded attacks on Trump, a president who he predicted will go down “a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.” Brennan has also openly speculated about Trump’s reluctance to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I think he is afraid of the president of Russia,” Brennan said in March. “One could speculate as to why. The Russians may have something on him personally that they could always roll out and make his life more difficult.” In a recent interview on the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery,” CIA veteran Daniel Hoffman, who served as the agency’s station chief in Moscow, said that such public comments play into Putin’s hands, helping the Russian leader stoke political divisions within the country. “I found it quite disconcerting that he went as far as he did,” Hoffman said. “Basically, accusing the president of being subject to blackmail by Vladimir Putin is an extraordinarily strong statement to make, and carries with it a lot of damage.” | |
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| 08-16-18 10:31am - 2329 days | #973 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump and the Republican party exposed as shameless hypocrites. Read all about it: except that it would take years to read about all the crimes and misdemeanors the Trump administration have committed since taking office in their first 2 years. ------- ------- Politics If Omarosa Did Sign An NDA, Trump Might've Broken The Law Kurt Bardella HuffPost August 15, 2018 The White House may have broken the law and President Donald Trump just tweeted about it. “Wacky Omarosa already has a fully signed Non-Disclosure Agreement!” Trump tweeted on Monday as former White House senior aide Omarosa Manigault Newman unleashed a full-throttle media tour to tout her controversial tell-all book, Unhinged. This has included the release of audio recordings she secretly made during her White House tenure, including one made in the building’s Situation Room with chief of staff John Kelly. As the week has progressed, Manigault Newman is promising other recordings she made while talking with the president, his family and his staff. With his tweet, Trump has unwittingly corroborated the existence of these nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), breathing new life into the administration’s controversial and potentially illegal use of them to muzzle federal government employees. Reports have surfaced depicting White House counsel Donald McGahn urging White House aides to sign the NDAs in early 2017. Given the hasty nature in which these NDAs were crafted, it would not be surprising if these gag orders run afoul of existing federal law. It is illegal for anyone in the Trump administration to impose a nondisclosure agreement on a member of the federal government that limits their ability to communicate with Congress. For the better part of five years, I worked as the spokesman and senior advisor for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has primary jurisdiction of the federal government workforce. Since Trump came into office, the Oversight Committee is a shadow of what it was during the Obama years. These days, it seems the committee and its Republican members are more focused on protecting the president than on protecting government employees. But that was not always the case. In 2012, Congress unanimously passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), introduced by the Oversight Committee leadership, to prohibit agencies from implementing or enforcing “any non-disclosure policy, form or agreement” that did not specifically include the following language: “These provisions are consistent with and do not supersede, conflict with, or otherwise alter the employee obligations, rights or liabilities created by existing statute or Executive order relating to (1) classified information, (2) communications to Congress, (3) the presorting to an Inspector General of a violation of any law, rule or regulation, or mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety, or (4) any other whistleblower protection…” Simply put, it is illegal for anyone in the Trump administration to impose a nondisclosure agreement on a member of the federal government that in any way limits that person’s ability to communicate with Congress and expose waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. Once this bill was signed into law, the federal Office of Special Counsel issued a direct guidance that “this statement should be incorporated into every nondisclosure policy, form or agreement used by any agency.” If the Trump administration failed to incorporate this language in nondisclosure agreements, they are in clear violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act. And it’s not the first time the Trump administration has broken the law on this front. Cabinet-level departments have continuously failed to comply with the Whistleblower Protection Act. Just this week, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security released a report finding that “many of the settlement agreement templates and settlement agreements we reviewed included provisions that might constrain an individual from reporting fraud, waste, or abuse to permissible recipients… most did not contain the WPEA statement… in addition, omitting the WPEA statement runs counter to fostering an open and transparent environment that welcomes disclosures and protects whistleblowers.” This is the second time this year that the inspector general has found evidence of the Trump administration enacting policies to inhibit whistleblowers from communicating their concerns to Congress. These illegal NDAs make it incredibly difficult and risky for whistleblowers from within this administration to inform Congress and the American people about any illegal, unethical and shady activities they witness. Trump and his alleged NDAs essentially make it impossible for whistleblowers to help 'drain the swamp.' These NDAs allow the president to continue to operate with impunity while tweeting about it for all to see. I can tell you firsthand that investigations like “Operation Fast & Furious” and “Benghazi” that Trump-supporters and Republicans in Congress championed for years would not have been possible without whistleblowers coming forward to express their concerns. Trump and his alleged NDAs essentially make it impossible for them to help “drain the swamp,” and they allow him to continue to operate with impunity while tweeting about it for all to see. We need whistleblowers to hold our executive branch accountable and we need to do a better job of protecting them. For more than a year, Democrats on the Oversight Committee have been working to expose the illegal nature of the Trump administration’s NDAs. They have sent inquiries to the White House counsel and asked for Republican Chairman Trey Gowdy to issue subpoenas. Republicans have repeatedly blocked their efforts. These are the same Republicans who, when Barack Obama was president, crafted a “mission statement” declaring that they “will work tirelessly, in partnership with citizen-watchdogs, to deliver the facts to the American people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy.” Republicans on the Oversight Committee seem to spend all their time trying to obstruct any effort to question the illegal actions of the Trump administration. They have betrayed the principles of open government and accountability they championed during the Obama years. Their failure to live up to the standards of transparency they demanded from the previous administration has enabled corruption and mismanagement to overrun the federal bureaucracy. Republicans are not doing Trump any favors by looking the other way in the face of blatant wrongdoing. If Democrats retake one or both chambers of Congress in November, Trump and his entire administration will be subject to an unparalleled level of congressional scrutiny and oversight that could have a crippling effect on the rest of his presidency. Hearings will commence, subpoenas will be issued and the architects of these illegal nondisclosure agreements will be brought to account for their reckless actions. Kurt Bardella is a HuffPost columnist who served as the spokesman and senior advisor for the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform from 2009-13. Follow him on Twitter: @kurtbardella This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 08-16-18 10:48am - 2329 days | #974 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
This article says Trump has contempt for the intelligence community. Trump is a genius. The most genius President the US has ever had. As well as the most popular. And the BESTED president the US has ever had. Sieg Heil, Trump, President for life of the United States of Trumpland. --------- --------- Trump reportedly reverses Obama-era rules for US cyber operations Lawmakers are concerned that there isn't an adequate replacement. Timothy J. Seppala, @timseppala 2h ago in Politics The Trump administration has reportedly reversed an Obama-era framework for how and when the US can use cyber attacks against foes. President Trump undid Presidential Policy Directive 20 yesterday according to the Wall Street Journal's sources, and with it reversed a classified framework detailing a multi-agency process that must be followed before carrying out an attack. The directive was put in place to prevent against bungling multi-year cyber-espionage plans that may be in motion, thus having many agencies involved with the planning process of any attack. "It wasn't clear what rules the administration is adopting to replace the Obama directive," WSJ writes. "A number of current US officials confirmed the directive had been replaced but declined to comment further, citing the classified nature of the progress." The moves to undo the directive apparently began in April when John Bolton took up the mantle of national security advisor. The previous administration's cybersecurity coordinator Michael Daniel described the directive to the WSJ as "designed to ensure that all appropriate equities got considered when you thought about doing an offensive cyber operation." There's a worry that the directive was dismantled too quickly, and as a result people are concerned because the Trump administration hasn't outlined its replacement to those involved. Given this administration's history of putting laws into place seemingly without considering the consequences, coupled with Trump's contempt for the intelligence community, the lawmakers' concerns aren't unfounded. Source: Wall Street Journal | |
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| 08-16-18 12:08pm - 2329 days | #975 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
I am nominating Chris Watts as White House Spokesperson. This man has the credentials to speak for President Donald Trump. First, he is white: And Trump likes whites. Second, he has an honest smile: Which is important, when speaking for Donald Trump. The fact that he is accused of murdering his pregnant wife and 2 young daughters should have no effect on his candidacy: Trump is known for his warm heart and the ability to pardon criminals, so Trump should have no problem issuing a pardon to this fine, outstanding family man (or former family man, since he is accused of killing his pregnant wife and 2 young daughters). If you look at the photo of this man with his wife and 2 daughters: your heart will swell: The wife is attractive, and the 2 young daughters are cute. In the man's defense, maybe the daughters cried too much, or the wife cried too much. And that's why he wanted a new wife, to start a family with. ------ ------ Kansas City Star Logo He pleaded for return of his daughters, pregnant wife. He knew where the bodies were, cops say | The Kansas City Star Chris Watts, 33, of Frederick, Colorado, is accused of killing his pregnant wife and their two daughters He pleaded for return of his daughters, pregnant wife. He knew where the bodies were, cops say By Matthew Martinez mmartinez@mcclatchy.com August 16, 2018 09:16 AM Just two days ago, 33-year-old Chris Watts pleaded for the return of his pregnant wife, Shanann, and their two daughters in an interview with WMGH. “I just want them to come back,” he told the station. “If somebody has her, please bring her back.” Now he’s in the Weld County Jail, according to jail records, the primary suspect in the investigation into their disappearance from their home in Frederick, Colorado, and their murder. He was booked early Thursday on three counts each of first degree murder and tampering with evidence. He is being held without bond. Investigators found Shanann’s body, and two more they believe to belong to the two girls, on a plot of land belonging to Anadarko Petroleum Corp., John Camper, director of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, told the Associated Press Thursday. Chris Watts previously worked for Anadarko, one of Colorado’s largest oil and gas drilling companies, a company spokeswoman told reporters during a news conference. He confessed some level of involvement in his family’s disappearance, police say, according to KCNC, but the specifics of the alleged confession had not been released as of Thursday morning. Chris Watts told investigators he could lead them to the bodies of his wife and daughters, according to an updated report from WMGH. Shanann and the couple’s two daughters, Celeste and Bella, have not been heard from since Monday. Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant, and the couple were planning to find out the gender of their third child soon, according to KDVR. Shanann was from North Carolina and went to Pinecrest High School in the town of Southern Pines, about 25 miles west of Fayetteville, according to WSOC. Her family still lives in North Carolina. Bella was 4 years old. Celeste, whom family called “Cece,” was 3. The FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation joined Frederick police in the search for all three on Wednesday, according to The Denver Post. Late Wednesday night, investigators could be seen towing a truck marked with evidence markers, which was reported to be Chris Watts’ work truck. | |
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| 08-17-18 12:31pm - 2328 days | #976 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Real news: President Trump defends Paul Manafort as "a very good person" while Manafort is on trial for tax fraud. My impression is that Trump (who has refused to release his income tax reports to the public, unlike most modern presidents) feels that rich people should not have to pay taxes. That's why he pushed his tax reform bill that saved billionaires billions of dollars in taxes, even though he said, before the bill passed, that billionaires would not benefit. Con man Trump lies easily, and keeps repeating his lies and making new lies. People need to look at Trump and his lies, and then decide to put him in prison, as a disgraced thief and con man. It was a day of national shame when Trump was elected President of the US, and his administration is the most corrupt in modern history of the United States. ------- ------- Politics Trump defends ex-aide Manafort as jury weighs verdict Reuters By Nathan Layne and Karen Freifeld,Reuters 18 minutes ago Scroll back up to restore default view. By Nathan Layne and Karen Freifeld ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) - Weighing in even as a Virginia jury deliberates for a second day, U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday called the bank and tax fraud trial of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort "very sad" and described the defendant as a "very good person." Manafort's trial in federal court in Alexandria is the first stemming from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 15-month-old investigation of Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. election. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis, presiding over the case, said he personally had received threats related to the trial and was being protected by U.S. marshals. The judge also refused to make public the names of the jurors, saying he was concerned about their "peace and safety." "I had no idea this case would excite these emotions ... I don't feel right if I release their names," the judge said. In remarks to reporters at the White House, Trump again called Mueller's investigation, which had cast a cloud over his presidency, a "rigged witch hunt," but sidestepped a question about whether he would issue a presidential pardon for Manafort. "I think the whole Manafort trial is very sad, when you look at what's going on there. I think it's a very sad day for our country," Trump said. "He worked for me for a very short period of time. But you know what? He happens to be a very good person. And I think it's very sad what they've done to Paul Manafort." Trump made his comments while the jury of six women and six men deliberated behind closed doors on Friday morning. The jurors met for about seven hours on Thursday without reaching a verdict on 18 criminal counts with which Manafort is charged. As president, Trump has the power to pardon Manafort on the federal charges. He has already issued a number of pardons, including for a political ally, former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. Asked by a reporter on Friday if he would pardon Manafort, Trump said, "I don't talk about that now." The charges largely predate Manafort's five months working on Trump's campaign during a pivotal period in the 2016 presidential race, including three months as campaign chairman. Manafort, 69, faces five counts of filing false tax returns, four counts of failing to disclose his offshore bank accounts and nine counts of bank fraud. If convicted on all counts, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. Jurors in the trial are not sequestered but have been instructed not to watch news reports or talk to others about the matter. It is unusual for a U.S. president to make comments about the character of a defendant in an ongoing trial and criticize the legal proceedings. But it was not the first time Trump has weighed in since the Manafort trial began on July 31. On the first day the jury heard testimony, Trump said Manafort had been treated worse than 1920s gangster Al Capone. Trump has made previous comments criticizing various federal judges and courts and has been harshly critical of Mueller. On Friday, he accused Mueller of having "a lot of conflicts," but said the special counsel should be allowed to finish a report on Russia's role in the 2016 election. 'HUMAN NATURE' Prohibitions on jurors reading about a case they are deciding are difficult to enforce in the smartphone era, said Jens David Ohlin, a professor of criminal law at Cornell University. "We trust jurors to be on their best behavior and wall themselves off but that kind of goes against human nature," Ohlin said. "I think it was very ill-advised for the president to do this. He should have kept his mouth shut," Ohlin added. The prosecution could request a mistrial, but such a maneuver was very unlikely, Ohlin said. Prosecutors accused Manafort of hiding from U.S. tax authorities $16 million in money he earned as a political consultant for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine to fund an opulent lifestyle and then lying to banks to secure $20 million in loans after his Ukrainian income dried up and he needed cash. "I think we are optimistic the case might end soon with some sort of verdict," Ellis said in open court after the jury resumed deliberations on Friday morning. The judge made the comment before telling spectators including journalists that he did not want them running out of the courtroom while the jury announces its verdict on the various counts. He did not indicate he had inside knowledge of their deliberations. The jury sent a note on Thursday afternoon asking Ellis four questions including one about defining "reasonable doubt." In a criminal case, a jury must find a defendant guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." (Reporting by Nathan Layne and Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe and Ginger Gibson; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Alistair Bell, Toni Reinhold) | |
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| 08-17-18 12:50pm - 2328 days | #977 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Former Trump aide Omarosa reveals that Trump is rotting from the inside. This is a modern horror story, where the President of the United States is a lying slime-ball who is sinking Washington DC into a swamp of lies, crimes, and graft. Trump calls Omarosa a “crying lowlife” and a “dog” for revealing the truth about White House affairs. Trump is now revealed as a lowlife dog who is visibly rotting from the inside out. Trump, first Neo-Nazi President of the United States. ----------- ------------ Omarosa 'Unhinged' book review: In this inflated, bizarre and horrifying book, Trump's presidency might have found its ultimate document The Independent Andrew Griffin,The Independent Thu, Aug 16 9:04 AM PDT Unhinged by Omarosa hopes to offer “an insider’s account of the Trump white house”, according to its subtitle. As a book, it is exaggerated, dramatic, sometimes given to outright lies and never fails to be entertaining even in its abject horror – which is to say it could be the ultimate document of the Trump presidency. The facts as we know them are this: Trump first met Omarosa when she was a contestant on The Apprentice and since then they have had a rocky relationship, which continued into a job at the White House. Now she has written a book claiming to tell that story – and Trump has called her a “crying lowlife” and a “dog” for having done so. The fallout between the two has led to a series of disputes about the accuracy of the book. Some claims are not precise enough to actually fact check – the famous suggestion that there is a recording of Trump using racial slurs, for instance – while others appear to be patently false. But the book isn’t meant to be about anything so dull as the truth. She and Trump are creatures of the world of scripted reality; what matters isn’t what really happened, but what’s really entertaining. Almost everything in the book is either well-known or ill-considered. At one point, Omarosa takes to simply listing out the events that took place during a particularly busy period in the White House, with no more insight than someone would have watching from the outside. Those indulgences are mostly broken up with some wild and unsubstantiated claim, such as the fact that there is tape of Trump saying the N-word, that he had a black and female member of staff for failing to deal with his tanning bed properly, or that his mental and physical health is degenerating. She spends plenty of time on that last point, laying out the ways that she believes the president’s mind and body is rotting from the inside. The prose itself is written in the same slightly dazed, matter-of-fact tone that has come to dominate the books written by those inside the White House. Whether it is the rush to publish, the fact that all rely on recollections given to ghost writers, or simply the fact that everything in the White House is too bizarre to properly relate, each of the books are written like a diary, given to simply relating the dates and facts. That vacillates between sobering and soporific – it makes for scary and shocking reading when it relates to the secrets of the Trump White House, but can become very dull when it relates to Omarosa’s life before The Apprentice, for instance. Unfortunately all of these books are given to indulging that a little more than expected, perhaps because they know the connection with Trump means these books are probably the only chance to have their life stories read. The book, of course, is also a very long CV and pitch for the TV appearances and media coverage that will follow. Every book offering insight into the White House is just one part of a vast and now well-worn path to becoming a talking head, and Omarosa’s is no different. Everything about it is cynical: the Trump digs are calculated (and they have of course worked), the analysis is simple, the politics are uncontroversial enough for her to sit comfortably on any of the US news stations. But there are moments of guilt, even flashes of something like remorse or apology. She spends much of her time justifying the fact that has joined a White House that has flirted with white supremacy as one of the few members of staff who aren’t some oleaginous combination of male, pale and stale. Omarosa is clearly aware that she was exploited by Trump as a way of diversifying his White House and appealing to African-American voters; sometimes, she even seems to regret that fact, before realising that she exploited the situation just as cannily in return. If the book has an overarching narrative or idea, it is the gradual movement towards realising Trump is actually a racist, which just so happens to take place right as she is kicked out of the White House and falls at the end of the book. And that is the reason that Omarosa’s book is probably the most fitting of the post-Trump memoirs – why it seems far more appropriate than James Comey’s superior and sometimes sinister treatise on ethics, or Sean Spicer’s bitter, bilious attack on the press. Comey is unable to deal with specifics or practicalities and instead chose to waffle about the failures of principle and ideology that Trump had committed; Spicer is too stupid to realise he has been played by everyone around him, or perhaps too smart to admit it. Omarosa is the only person as cynical, scheming, vengeful and shrewd as Trump himself – perfect to tell his story, even when it isn’t true, given that falsehoods have become such a central part of that White House. Because Omarosa clearly was not a central part of the White House herself. Even in her account, her relationship with Trump seems a little strange and sometimes estranged; she says that Donald and other members of the family frequently call her a friend and tell her they love her, but there is little evidence of them actually embracing her. But even that exaggeration is classically Trumpian, and the greatest trick of the book might be in taking the president’s knack for inflation to let the air out of him. Unhinged is the literary equivalent of the confessionals that serve as a peek into the mind of reality TV show contestants. As with those emotional chats to the camera, they are less about what is actually said than that they are being said at all; less about insights, more about infights. Omarosa isn’t here to make friends, she’s here to win. But “here” just so happens to be the White House, and we’re all going to lose. | |
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| 08-17-18 01:06pm - 2328 days | #978 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The truth about Omarosa revealed: And it gets kind of ugly: This is why she is able to fight with Donald Trump: Omarosa and Trump are egoists of the highest order, who eagerly put people down on their way to the top. ------- ------- DRAMA Inside Omarosa’s Ugly War Over Actor Michael Clarke Duncan’s Estate After the ‘Armageddon’ actor’s passing, it was revealed that Omarosa and Duncan had secretly got engaged. Then things got very, very messy. Amy Zimmerman 08.17.18 4:50 AM ET Omarosa Manigault-Newman earned her fair share of enemies long before she took her talents and tape recorder to Washington. She was one of the greatest reality-TV villains of all time, infamous for butting heads in Donald Trump’s televised boardroom on The Apprentice. But on a March 2013 episode of All-Star Celebrity Apprentice, Omarosa met her match in La Toya Jackson. After what was seen as a shocking firing, Jackson let loose post-elimination with a harsh Omarosa takedown, reportedly calling her ex-teammate a “conniving, scheming, cut-throat, (who) probably pulled the cord on Michael Duncan Clarke [sic],” adding, “Omarosa’s fiancé passed away not long ago. He had a heart attack, I’m sure she gave it to him.” Michael Clarke Duncan, the Green Mile and Armageddon actor, suffered a heart attack in July 2012 and died two months later. It was revealed after the star’s death that Omarosa and Duncan were secretly engaged. In response to Jackson’s rant, Omarosa announced plans to sue the singer over the “false, vicious and defamatory” comments. In a statement to Radar Online, Omarosa’s attorney wrote, “La Toya Jackson’s statement on the March 17, 2013, episode of All-Star Celebrity Apprentice, that the Reverend Omarosa Manigault caused her fiancé Michael Clarke Duncan to die, is false, vicious and defamatory.” “Rev. Manigault has been heralded as a life saver for her actions on the evening that her fiancé suffered a life-ending heart attack,” the statement continued. “It is because of her bravery that Mr. Duncan—the love of Rev. Manigault’s life—was able to live for months beyond that tragic night. Mr. Duncan passed away from natural causes.” It concluded, “As her counsel, we have been directed to pursue these defamatory statements to the fullest extent of the law with La Toya Jackson and any other participating publications or media outlets who repeat or repost these statements.” During a visit to Howard Stern’s radio show, Omarosa elaborated on her litigious plot. “She said really nasty things about Michael,” she told Stern, reflecting on her on-screen nemesis. “She said, he had a heart attack and I know that she caused it. He was on life support and she went and pulled the plug.” While the radio host questioned if Omarosa had a case, the Apprentice star was unfazed, saying, “It is only actionable if [Jackson] repeats it; it’s called a reckless disregard for the truth.” Omarosa insisted, “She said it back in October when she first taped the show. She’s repeated it subsequently on all of these talk shows.” She further maintained that she obviously did not pull the plug on her husband-to-be, saying, “God no, I loved that man.” Omarosa deemed Jackson “sick and demented,” and told Stern that, “The lawsuit is going forward. We gave her the time to retract it and now we’ll both be spending money on lawyers.” But according to an E! News article at the time, when asked for comment, “La Toya’s rep said they had no knowledge of any such lawsuit.” (The Daily Beast could not reach La Toya Jackson or Omarosa for further comment.) Also in March, another Celebrity Apprentice star, Claudia Jordan, shared some thoughts on Omarosa’s behavior in the wake of Michael Clarke Duncan’s passing. During an appearance on The Wendy Williams Show, Jordan didn’t hold back when discussing Duncan’s funeral. Williams mentioned that Omarosa had previously called Jordan out for sharing a photo from the ceremony on social media. “For her to have an issue with me putting a picture, a tribute to Michael, who was my friend, when this woman had a red carpet at her fiancé’s funeral, I think that’s a little bit more despicable,” Jordan responded. “She was doing press at the funeral.” Jordan added another dig: “And she didn’t cry, so she didn’t need any makeup touch-ups.” “There was a photographer by the body, OK?” she continued. “So please don’t let Omarosa fool you with this ‘woe is me’ thing, because this is the first time I’ve ever heard she was upset about this. I have the utmost respect for Michael Clarke Duncan.” “I called a friend of mine after the funeral, I said this was a mockery of a funeral. This was a press opportunity.” Jordan also had allegations about behind-the-scenes Celebrity Apprentice behavior, telling Williams, “We have money-raising challenges on the show, and Omarosa told myself, Brandy, La Toya, several of us, that she had access to some of the money from the charity that Michael Clarke Duncan had, and if she needed it, she would use it. This is what she told me. And we were all like, I don’t think that’s even, you’re able to do that!” She concluded, “When I’m hearing you bragging every day about the money he left behind and the mom didn’t get this and that and you got everything, I’m like, why are we talking about his money? Why are we not talking about how much you miss him?” The plot thickened in April when TMZ reported that Michael Clarke Duncan’s sister, Judy, had “questions” about “whether the late actor’s fiancée unduly influenced him into re-writing his will months before he died and leaving almost everything to her.” Judy Duncan told TMZ that, “She’s hired a lawyer to investigate the circumstances surrounding the change to the actor’s will in April 2012, making Omarosa the main beneficiary. Judy believes MCD was not of sound mind when he made the changes... because as early as December 2011, the actor was not himself, slurring words and stumbling around.” The post continues, “Judy says her suspicions about Omarosa intensified when MCD was hospitalized following his heart attack... telling us Omarosa was fixated on MCD’s money when he was on life support. Another thorn in Judy’s side... Omarosa has already sold a bunch of MCD’s personal effects (watches, cars, his ‘Green Mile’ director’s chair, awards, etc.). Judy says Omarosa sold the stuff without the family’s knowledge... and she’s pissed.” In response to the allegations, Omarosa told the gossip website, “I don’t control the estate or the finances and Judy knows it. If you saw all of her emails and texts to me, you would see that she is just trying to get money from me, and threatened going to press if I did not give it to her and that is a crime!” In December 2013, Omarosa went after Duncan’s relatives again, blaming “family infighting” for the fact that “Michael Clarke Duncan has been lying in an unmarked grave for more than a year.” According to a Daily News article, “Reality TV star Omarosa Manigault said she visits her late fiancé’s unmarked tomb at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills on a weekly basis and was so heartbroken over its anonymity, she finally stepped in with the trustee of his estate.” Omarosa told the Daily News that she had had a “beautiful memorial plaque” ordered, saying, “I tried to do it immediately, but his sister, niece and cousins could not decide on what to put down. I finally had to step in and tell them to come to some consensus.” She further alleged that the actor’s family “does not visit him.” During an appearance on an April 2016 episode of Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry, Omarosa finally made peace with all of the drama surrounding Duncan’s passing—after first wondering if Henry would be able to tell her “if Donald Trump is going to become President of the United States.” Omarosa and Henry talked about Duncan’s sister and the interfamily feuding, with Omarosa explaining, “She has his mother. There’s nothing I can do... he did not want his mother with her.” But when Henry implied that Duncan had moved on from past squabbles, Omarosa replied, “He’s over it? Then I’m over it.” During post-contact reflection, she concluded, “For me, this session meant that love conquers all, and that you should love your family and your man, and your siblings, while you have the chance.” | |
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| 08-17-18 03:18pm - 2328 days | #979 | |
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Drooler (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 1,831 Registered: Mar 11, '07 Location: USA |
Let's celebrate with asbestos "snowflakes" floating down in the oval office -- the same kind that were actually used in some movie sets many years ago. I wanted something new, so I left England for New England. | |
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| 08-20-18 09:44am - 2325 days | #980 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The truth revealed: Truth is not truth. Monday is not Monday. It's really Friday in disguise. Also: The sky is not blue. (Sometimes it's gray, because of smog.) (Sometimes it's orange or red, because the sun is setting). Also, water is not wet. Haven't you heard of dry ice? Well, there is dry water, as well. Also, and what is most important, the truth is not the truth. Is there such a thing as truth? Does it matter? What really matters is what Donald Trump and his allies preach. The New Bible tells us that Donald Trump was anointed by God to lead America to becoming great again. So if Trump wants to shoot somebody in New York, or Washington DC, let him. Trump will only act to make America great again. Hail Trump, Neo-Nazi racist leader of the Great Moral Majority. ---------- ---------- TheHill.com CNN anchor mocks Giuliani: 'The sky is not blue. Water isn't wet. And truth is not truth' By Joe Concha - 08/20/18 09:09 AM EDT CNN anchor John Berman mocked President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Monday for his declaration that “truth isn’t truth.” “I want to make one correction to something you just said,” Berman said to co-anchor Alisyn Camerota on Monday after she began their “New Day” program by stating the day and date. “It's not Monday. You said it is Monday. I’m declaring it is not Monday, and it’s not because I say it’s not,” Berman said. “I’m giving myself this new presidential power that Rudy Giuliani just created yesterday,” Berman continued. “Monday isn't Monday. The sky is not blue. Water isn't wet. And truth is not truth.” “The president's lawyer actually declared this in the latest edition to the ‘Things Said Out Loud’ file,” Berman said. “He said it trying to explain why he doesn’t want the president to testify to the special counsel.” Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City who joined the Trump legal team in April, made the “truth isn’t truth” comment while appearing Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press" with Chuck Todd on Sunday. In an effort to explain why the president hasn’t sat for an interview with investigators in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, Giuliani said he doesn’t want Trump to be “trapped into perjury.” “And when you tell me that he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well that’s so silly because that’s somebody’s version of the truth, not the truth,” Giuliani said. “Truth is truth,” Todd responded. “No it isn’t,” Giuliani replied. “Truth isn’t truth.” Giuliani attempted to clarify the comment on Monday, explaining he was laying out a “he said, she said” scenario. “My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic ‘he said, she said’ puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn’t,” Giuliani tweeted. Giuliani's comment dominated cable news on Monday morning, particularly on CNN and on MSNBC's “Morning Joe.” | |
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| 08-20-18 05:33pm - 2324 days | #981 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, wanted President Bill Clinton to answer detailed sex questions about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. This would help Congress determine whether Clinton was fit to be president. As a Conservative, Kavanaugh wanted to know details on what kinds of sex Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky: oral sex, vaginal stimulation, masturbation, phone sex. My take: Kavanaugh, as a Republican who had worked for the Bush administration, wanted to embarrass Clinton as much as possible, to make the scandal even more salacious: all in the name of "Fair Play" and "Defending the Constitution". How times have changed: Trump, who has more sex scandals and graft and corruption scandals than Clinton ever had, is a fit and wonderful president, according to Kavanaugh. But Trump is a Republican. So a Republican can shit in public, and that is honorable. But if a Democrat sneezes, that is shameful and even criminal. -------------- -------------- Oral sex, vaginal stimulation: What Brett Kavanaugh wanted President Bill Clinton to be asked in 1998 Memo: Kavanaugh sought explicit Clinton queries Author: Richard Wolf, USA TODAY Published: 1:10 PM EDT August 20, 2018 Updated: 2:55 PM EDT August 20, 2018 Current Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, center, walks alongside independent counsel Ken Starr in 1997 during their investigation of President Bill Clinton. Associated Press WASHINGTON – Twenty years ago this month, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh urged fellow investigators in the independent counsel's office to ask President Bill Clinton extremely graphic questions about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The point, Kavanaugh said, was to help Congress "decide whether the interests of the presidency would be best served by having a new president." While the general nature of Kavanaugh's memo was previously reported, the National Archives and Records Administration on Monday released the two-pager following a Freedom of Information Act request from the judicial transparency group Fix the Court. Kavanaugh wanted colleagues preparing to interview Clinton to ask about such details as oral sex in the Oval Office, vaginal stimulation, masturbation and phone sex, all as a way of determining if the president would deny what Lewinsky had told investigators. "The president has disgraced his office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles – callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle," Kavanaugh wrote. Kavanaugh saw things differently when it came to issuing independent counsel Ken Starr's final report, urging that it not be so salacious. And more than a decade later, he wrote that presidents should be spared from responding to civil lawsuits or criminal investigations while in office. "A president who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as president," he wrote in the Minnesota Law Review. | |
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| 08-20-18 08:23pm - 2324 days | #982 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
True and real news: There are aliens out there. A Republican House candidate says she was abducted by aliens (aliens from outer space, not aliens from Mexico) and communicates with extraterrestrials. Welcome to the Republican party, which will re-shape the real world in the image of Neo-Nazi Donald Trump. -------- -------- U.S. Republican House candidate who says she was abducted by aliens and communicates with extraterrestrials wins big endorsement Yahoo Lifestyle Hope Schreiber,Yahoo Lifestyle 2 hours 42 minutes ago Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera is running to replace retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., in 2018. (Photo: Roberto Koltun/El Nuevo Herald/TNS via Getty) When I was 7, I was positive that Bigfoot not only existed but also lived in the very woods behind my childhood home (and that I would be the one to befriend him). So who am I to judge Republican House candidate Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, who believes she was abducted by aliens at that same age? Over the weekend, Rodriguez Aguilera won an important endorsement from a major newspaper, the Miami Herald, to replace Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Congress, representing the 27th District of Florida. With that endorsement, the news of her intergalactic journey spread. The Miami Herald wrote, “We realize that Rodriguez Aguilera is an unusual candidate. Last year, she told the Miami Herald — and several Spanish-language media outlets — that she believes in extra-terrestrials. She says when she was 7, she was taken aboard a spaceship and, throughout her life, she has communicated telepathically with the beings, which remind her of the concrete Christ in Brazil. There you have it.” Perhaps we have our first possible leader of President Trump’s proposed space force? She apparently already has allies. According to Rodriguez Aguilera, three large, blond aliens visited her when she was 7. In a 2009 interview on the Spanish-language station América TeVé, the congressional candidate said, “I went in [to the spaceship]. There were some round seats that were there, and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship — not like airplanes.” Rodriguez Aguilera, who did not immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment, claimed the extraterrestrials also told her that the Coral Castle, a large structure made of limestone in Miami-Dade County, is an ancient Egyptian pyramid. Coral Castle was built by reclusive Edward Leedskalnin, who, using only hand tools, moved more than 1,100 tons of coral several miles and then sculpted them into a series of stone tributes to his wife. (Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images) “For years people, including presidents like Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and astronauts have publicly claimed to have seen unidentified flying objects and scientists like Stephen Hawking and institutions like the Vatican have stated that there are billions of galaxies in the universe and we are probably not alone,” she told the Herald. “I personally am a Christian and have a strong belief in God, I join the majority of Americans who believe that there must be intelligent life in the billions of planets and galaxies in the universe.” Man, 2018 is a weird time, right? Makes you miss 2010, when a Republican senatorial candidate had to create an ad campaign that explained she wasn’t a witch. | |
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| 08-20-18 08:32pm - 2324 days | #983 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Opinion piece on why Ken Starr (and most Republicans) are the biggest hypocrites you will ever meet: --------- --------- Politics Ken Starr Just Produced the Most Incredible Hypocrisy in the History of Cable News Esquire Charles P. Pierce,Esquire 5 hours ago Photo credit: Cooper Neill - Getty Images From Esquire Not much can amaze us any more but, you have to admit, this is pretty damn amazing. Flagged by lawandcrime.com: “The mandate that Bob Mueller received has some broad language, including ‘related-to’ type of language, which tends to open the door, but there are some checks and balances,” Starr continued to say, “We don’t want investigators and prosecutors out on a fishing expedition.” How does this sanctimonious hack have the guts to show his face in public, let alone spout the most incredible, back-flipping hypocrisy in the history of cable news? His alleged nonfeasance in office at Baylor while his athletic department was burying cases of sexual assault should have been enough to run him out of the company of decent people. And his direction of the Great Penis Hunt of 1998 should have been enough to keep him from getting hired at Baylor in the first place. The decades-long pursuit of Bill and Hillary Clinton remains one of the worst things that ever happened to American electoral politics, and Ken Starr was the ringmaster of most of it. Remember that, when Robert Fiske tried to close the book on Whitewater, TravelGate, FileGate, and the death of Vince Foster, Republican senators engineered Fiske's dismissal on the grounds that he wasn't enough of a Republican tool. Enter Kenneth Starr. He not only went back into those cases again, while running a sieve of an office, it was he who decided that the president's liaison with Monica Lewinsky should be part of his investigation into a failed Arkansas land deal. What is really ironic in what Starr said to CNN on Monday was the fact that an awful lot of the bogus information he chased during his own fishing expedition came from an actual bait shop in the Ozarks, run by one Parker Dozhier. Photo credit: David Hume Kennerly - Getty Images (Starr tried to quit in the middle of his probe when Pepperdine offered him a sweetheart deal running its law school, but the Republicans on whose behalf he'd been hired raised hell, and so Starr turned down the gig above Malibu Beach in favor of rooting around further in the president's underwear.) It has become increasingly clear that the revelation in The New York Times that White House counsel Don McGahn gave 30 hours of testimony to Robert Mueller's investigators has set off some serious fibrillations at the White House, and among the members of the president*'s party. The president’s lawyers said on Sunday that they were confident that Mr. McGahn had said nothing injurious to the president during the 30 hours of interviews. But Mr. McGahn’s lawyer has offered only a limited accounting of what Mr. McGahn told the investigators, according to two people close to the president. That has prompted concern among Mr. Trump’s advisers that Mr. McGahn’s statements could help serve as a key component for a damning report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which the Justice Department could send to Congress, according to two people familiar with the discussions. McGahn, it is said, has emphasized to the president* that his client is the presidency itself, and not its current, temporary occupant. I will bet serious cash money that the president* doesn't understand this, but it's the way things work whether he understands it or not. McGahn has declined to be sold down the river by someone who stiffs landscapers and is confused by time zones. This was a serious turn in events, as is evidenced by the fact that Rudy Giuliani now regularly goes completely bananas on national television. It seems that it has dawned on whatever lawyers there are who still will work with him that the president* has been lying to them, too. Still, though, when you've got the likes of Ken Starr out there making your case, you've discovered that there is no bottom to the barrel. | |
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| 08-20-18 09:14pm - 2324 days | #984 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Brett Kavanaugh: a perfect Republican hypocrite: Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, once urged independent counsel Kenneth Starr to grill President Bill Clinton about his affair with Monica Lewinsky until he either confessed to perjury or resigned from office. Does Kavanaugh support the impeachment or resignation of Donald Trump? Of course not: Trump is a hero to Kavanaugh, a clean-cut American leader who has committed adultery, continuously lied to the American public, has engaged in graft and corruption for personal benefit. And a bunch of other un-ethical and illegal acts. But Trump is a Republican, so Trump should get away with these things. As Trump himself has boasted, Trump could shoot someone in the middle of a crowded street and not lose any voters. The article below was written by someone who appears to be an idiot. It asks if Kavanaugh would have the courage to support impeachment against the man (Trump) if it is proved that he did indeed do something dastardly. Why is the author an idiot? Because to prove that Trump did something dastardly, to Kavanaugh, God himself could come down to earth and swear that Trump was a slimeball, and Kavanaugh would rule that there was insufficient evidence to prove God's words. ------------- ------------- Kavanaugh memo: Trump’s SCOTUS nominee pushed Lewinsky scandal to run Bill Clinton out of office Trump’s appointee to the Supreme Court wanted to grill Clinton with lewd questions until he resigned in disgrace Matthew Rozsa August 20, 2018 7:11pm (UTC) Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, once urged independent counsel Kenneth Starr to grill President Bill Clinton about his affair with Monica Lewinsky until he either confessed to perjury or resigned from office. Kavanaugh, who is currently the United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has been a controversial choice given how his defenses of Trump clash with his aggressive stance toward Clinton during the latter's impeachment scandal nearly twenty years ago. Nowhere is that contradiction more apparent than in an Aug. 15, 1998 memo sent by Kavanaugh, then working as an associate counsel to Starr, about why no "slack" should be given to the president in their questioning. "After reflecting this evening, I am strongly opposed to giving the President any 'break' in the questioning regarding the details of the Lewinsky relationship — unless before his questioning on Monday, he either (i) resigns or (ii) confesses perjury and issues a public apology to you," Kavanaugh wrote to Starr in the memo recently published by The Washington Post. After claiming that he could not think of any "reasonable defenses" for the president's behavior and that "the idea of going easy on him at the questioning is thus abhorrent to me," Kavanaugh began outlining "the sheer number of his wrongful acts." These included having an affair with a 22-year-old intern "and turning her life into a shambles," committing perjury, imposing on the Supreme Court, filing frivolous privilege claims and lying to his aides and the American people. Kavanaugh then included a list of questions, many of them explicit, that he wanted the president to answer: If Monica Lewinsky says that you inserted a cigar into her vagina while you were in the Oval Office area, would she be lying? If Monica Lewinsky says that you had phone sex with her on approximately 15 occasions, would she be lying? If Monia Lewinsky says that on several occasions in the Oval Office area, you used your fingers to stimulate her vagina and bring her to orgasm, would she be lying? If Monica Lewinsky says that she gave you oral sex on nine occasions in the Oval Office area, would she be lying? If Monica Lewinsky says that you ejaculated into her mouth on two occasions in the Oval Office area, would she be lying? If Monica Lewinsky says that on several occasions you had her give her oral sex, made her stop, and then ejaculated into the sink in the bathroom off the Oval Office, would she be lying? If Monica Lewinsky says that you masturbated into a trashcan in your secretary's office, would she be lying? To understand why this memo presents such a conundrum for both Trump and Kavanaugh, it's important to remember that Kavanaugh's past hardline stance on impeachment raised doubts among Trump's advisers as to whether he would be a sound pick to join the Supreme Court. There were especially acute concerns over sections of the Starr Report (which was co-authored by Kavanaugh) that cited as potentially impeachable offenses lies told by Clinton that were not under oath — an argument that could be extended to accuse Trump of obstructing justice, as The New York Times explains: The report laid out 11 possible grounds for impeachment, two of which are drawing scrutiny in the context of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is looking into whether Trump associates aided Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — in an investigation that has been expanded to include whether the president tried to obstruct the inquiry itself. First, the Starr report said that Mr. Clinton lied to his aides about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, “knowing that they would relay those falsehoods to the grand jury.” Second, it said he lied to the American public, and that senior officials, including the press secretary, then relied on those denials in their own misleading public statements. “The president’s emphatic denial to the American people was false,” the prosecutors wrote. “And his statement was not an impromptu comment in the heat of a news conference. To the contrary, it was an intentional and calculated falsehood to deceive the Congress and the American people.” It is unclear whether there are any other positions held by Kavanaugh which could run athwart not only Trump's agenda but the interests of the American people. Earlier this month the National Archives announced that they would not be able to meet an Aug. 15 deadline to provide all documents pertaining to Kavanaugh's service as a White House lawyer under President George W. Bush to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Because the Senate intends to confirm Kavanaugh before the 2018 midterm elections regardless of whether it knows everything about his record, there could be other opinions expressed by Kavanaugh that are of interest which won't be known to the public before he is likely confirmed to the court. To be fair to Kavanaugh, he did seem to backpedal on his aggressive view of impeachment questions prior to Trump taking office. In 2009 he wrote that it would probably be a bad idea to indict a sitting president since it "would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national-security crisis," according to The New York Times. He also suggested that Congress pass laws to protect presidents from civil and criminal lawsuits until they have left office, arguing that "if the president does something dastardly, the impeachment process is available." The question now, of course, is whether Kavanaugh — a man who will only serve on the Supreme Court because he was nominated by Trump — would have the courage to support impeachment against the man if it is proved that he did indeed do something dastardly. | |
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| 08-21-18 01:42am - 2324 days | #985 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Is Trump stupid or just crazy? Says he can run the Mueller probe if he wants to. Can Mueller demand the US President be placed in a straight jacket during his interview? --------- --------- Trump defender Michael Mukasey grimaces on CNN at Trump's 'zany' claim he can 'run' the Mueller probe 3:11 a.m. ET President Trump told Reuters on Monday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of the Trump campaign and Russian election interference has "played right into the Russians — if it was Russia — they played right into the Russians' hands," and he blamed the probe for hindering his ability to strengthen ties with Moscow. "I can go in, and I could do whatever — I could run it if I want," he said of the investigation. "I'm totally allowed to be involved if I wanted to be. So far, I haven't chosen to be involved." On CNN Monday night Chris Cuomo asked former Attorney General Michael Mukasey about Trump's assertion. Up to that point in the interview, Mukasey, who served during George W. Bush's last year in office, had defended Trump's conduct in the Mueller investigation, saying the president's fear of a "perjury trap" was "not entirely unreasonable" and White House Counsel Don McGahn's decision to cooperate extensively with Mueller "was helpful" to Trump and suggested no crimes were committed by the president. But when Cuomo asked if Trump could really take over the Mueller investigation, Mukasey rolled his eyes. "Of course not, it's ridiculous," he said. Cuomo noted that Trump says he can. "He says a lot of things," Mukasey said. "You're here to defend that proposition, by the way," Cuomo said, laughing. "Come on," Mukasey said, sighing and trying to formulate a legal rationale. "But it would be zany. We would be living in an even more unreal world than we're living in now." Watch below. Peter Weber ------------------ ------------------ CNN's Chris Cuomo explains what Trump gets wrong about 'perjury traps,' drags in Brett Kavanaugh 4:30 a.m. ET President Trump's lawyers really don't want Trump to sit down with Special Counsel Robert Mueller for an interview in Mueller's investigation of Russian election interference and possible collusion or obstruction of justice by Trump or members of his team. Specifically, lead lawyer Rudy Giuliani argues that Mueller is setting a "perjury trap" for Trump. Trump made his own version of that argument on Monday. "So if I say something and [former FBI Director James Comey] says something, and it's my word against his, and he's best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: 'Well, I believe Comey,' and even if I'm telling the truth, that makes me a liar," he told Reuters. "That's no good." On CNN Monday night, Chris Cuomo explained why Trump and Giuliani are wrong. "Perjury traps" are a form of entrapment where prosecutors bring you in just to get you to lie, with no legitimate fact-finding objectives, Cuomo said. That's not the case with Mueller. "Perjury is what they're really worried about," he said, and perjury — "a material representation of fact for the purposes of deception" — is a crime, meaning it must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Giuliani knows this, Cuomo said, but he's intentionally spinning a narrative where Trump is being victimized. To illustrate what the Trump team is afraid of, he showed the newly released memo that Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's Supreme Court pick, wrote when he was part of the independent counsel's team prosecuting President Bill Clinton. The questions he wrote for Clinton are "salacious and disgusting" and "raunchy," but Kavanaugh also phrased them in a way would ensnare "someone like Trump," Cuomo said. "That's what his folks are worried about — not what will be done to Trump, but what he will do to himself when he's confronted by smarter people who are motivated to show that he has lied and falsely disparaged the special counsel." | |
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| 08-21-18 01:56am - 2324 days | #986 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
This man is perfectly qualified to be Trump's Chief of Staff. He has no problems with the truth. And he is able to speak convincingly. Plus, he is white, which always helps. So what if he is alleged to have killed his pregnant wife and 2 young daughters. Trump is a moral man, who can forgive criminals with a pardon. Is Trump saving a pardon for himself? Stay tuned, for further updates. --------- --------- U.S. Chris Watts Was Allegedly Cheating on Wife Shanann with Coworker Before Murdering His Family: Authorities People Steve Helling,People 6 hours ago Colorado triple murder suspect Chris Watts was “actively involved in an affair with a coworker” before killing his family last week, according to allegations in court documents obtained by PEOPLE. Watts, who has been charged with the first-degree murders of his 15-weeks-pregnant wife, Shanann, and their two children — 4-year-old Bella and 3-year-old Celeste — had allegedly denied the affair to police, an arrest affidavit shows. Authorities said they carried out a two-day investigation and confirmed the infidelity, however. Investigators have redacted several lines of the affidavit in the paragraph pertaining to the alleged affair. The coworker has not yet been identified. Chris’ marital impropriety was one of many blockbusters in the affidavit, which was released on Monday. He also allegedly admitted he killed Shanann — but only after, he claimed, he “went into a rage” when she strangled one of their daughters. In addition to murder, prosecutors have charged Chris, 33, with three counts of tampering with a dead body and unlawful termination of a pregnancy in the first-degree. He was taken into custody on Wednesday night, two days after Shanann, was reported missing by a friend about 12 hours after they got back from a business trip. Her body and the bodies of her girls were found on Thursday. In the intervening days, as investigators worked on what appeared to be a missing persons case, Chris initially said that he had talked to Shanann on Monday after waking up about 5 a.m., after she got home from her work trip just before 2 a.m., and he told her he wanted to separate, the arrest affidavit alleges. RELATED: Expectant Mom Missed Doctor’s Appointment to Hear Baby’s Heartbeat — as Husband Fell Under Suspicion Shanann Watts (right) and her daughters Chris said that while he and Shanann “were emotional,” the conversation was “civil,” according to the affidavit. Speaking with authorities later, Chris again said that he saw Shanann on Monday — this time around 4 a.m. — and “informed her he wanted to go through with a separation and they were both upset and crying,” police said in the arrest affidavit. Chris claimed Shanann “told him she was going to a friend’s house that day.” Finally, in another police interview, after law enforcement allegedly uncovered the affair and after he asked to speak with his father, Chris said he would “tell the truth.” He contended that he and Shanann had in fact talked about him wanting to separate after she got back from her trip early Monday but then he “walked downstairs for a moment” and when he got back to their bedroom he saw, via a baby monitor, that daughter Bella was “sprawled” and “blue” on her bed — apparently already dead — while Shanann was allegedly “actively strangling Celeste,” the affidavit states. RELATED VIDEO: Pregnant Mom & 2 Daughters Likely Killed at Home — Allegedly by Husband — Before Bodies Were Dumped Chris Watts (left) after his arrest At that point, Chris claimed, he “went into a rage and ultimately strangled Shanann to death” before loading “all three bodies onto the back seat of his work truck,” according to the affidavit. He then allegedly took them to an oil site owned by the company he was working for (he has since been fired) and then buried Shanann and hid his daughters’ bodies in oil tanks, where they stayed for roughly four days. RELATED: ‘I Am Living in a Nightmare,’ Said Husband a Day Before His Arrest Causes of death in the three killings have not yet been released. Authorities have not confirmed their suspected motive, though in charging Chris with murder they dismissed his account of what happened. He is next set to return to court on Tuesday. He has not entered a plea and his public defender has not responded to PEOPLE’s multiple requests for comment. “It’s really sad. It’s beyond belief, really,” a friend of the couple, Kris Landon, tells PEOPLE. “And it makes you wonder about other people you know. If this couple who seemed so perfect was like this, what are the other couples like?” | |
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| 08-21-18 02:46am - 2324 days | #987 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump allows a disgraced Robert Mueller to stay out of jail. Why is Trump so generous? Because Trump is a moral white Christian. Trump loves everyone, even his enemies. ----------- ----------- CBS News August 20, 2018, 9:03 AM Trump says "disgraced" Robert Mueller is "looking for trouble" in Russia probe President Trump is once again calling into question Special Counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing Russia probe, suggesting the former FBI director is "just someone looking for trouble." The president's Monday morning tweets follow a series of weekend Twitter tirades about the investigation amid reports by the New York Times that White House Counsel Don McGahn has cooperated "extensively" with Mueller's team. The president asserted that he'd given McGahn "approval" to meet with investigators and sought to discredit Mueller and his team. "Disgraced and discredited Bob Mueller and his whole group of Angry Democrat Thugs spent over 30 hours with the White House Councel [sic], only with my approval, for purposes of transparency. Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no Russian Collusion is just someone.... looking for trouble," Mr. Trump tweeted Monday. The president expressed outrage on Sunday over the Times' reporting that McGahn had been in talks with investigators over the last nine months and had submitted to a series of three interviews totaling 30 hours. Mr. Trump insisted that he "allowed" McGahn and other White House staffers to sit down with Mueller's team, adding that he has "nothing to hide" in the probe. He added on Monday that the special counsel's team was "enjoying ruining people's lives," claiming that they refuse to "look at the real corruption on the Democrat side." Mr. Trump also claimed that Mueller — a Republican who was named FBI director by President George W. Bush — was "looking to impact" the upcoming midterm elections, and he slammed the team of investigators and litigators as a "national disgrace." Mr. Trump once again denied the suggestion that his campaign colluded with the Russian government in the 2016 election, calling it a "made up phony crime." "When there was no Collusion they say there was Obstruction (of a phony crime that never existed). If you FIGHT BACK or say anything bad about the Rigged Witch Hunt, they scream Obstruction!," he added. 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. | |
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| 08-21-18 06:08pm - 2323 days | #988 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Paul Manafort found guilty on 8 charges: tax fraud, hiding foreign bank accounts, and bank fraud. But not to worry: President Trump says Manafort is "a very good person". And good young men deserve a pardon. So Republicans can breathe a sigh of relief, that Manafort will not turn on Trump and expose any graft and corruption that Trump has done. ---------- ---------- Paul Manafort guilty on 8 charges, mistrial declared on remaining 10 David Knowles 3 hours ago Paul Manafort, former campaign manager of President Trump, was found guilty Tuesday on eight of the 18 counts brought against him by special counsel Robert Mueller. Manafort was found guilty of five counts of tax fraud charges, one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud. In total, the guilty counts could carry a lengthy prison sentence for Manafort, who is 69 years old. On the fourth day of deliberations following a two-week trial in Alexandria, Va., the jury notified judge T.S. Ellis shortly before 4:30 p.m. ET that it had reached a verdict on eight of the 18 counts. Ellis then polled the jury on the likelihood of their reaching a verdict on the remaining 10 counts against Manafort, and ruled a mistrial on the remaining counts. Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort talks to reporters at the Republican National Convention, July 17, 2016. (Photo: AP/Matt Rourke) Prosecutors now have until Aug. 29 to decide whether they will seek a retrial for the charges on which the jury deadlocked. Manafort will remain in custody and faces another trial on Sept. 17 in a Washington courtroom, where he will be tried on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Earlier in the day, the Alexandria jury sent Ellis a note that asked, “If we cannot come to a consensus on a single count, how should we fill out the jury verdict sheet for that count, and what does that mean for the final verdict?” The guilty verdict comes as another blow to President Trump, whose former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty earlier in the day to multiple charges, including campaign finance fraud stemming from hush-money payments to two of Trump’s alleged mistresses. In a Manhattan federal court, Cohen admitted to violating campaign finance law at the direction of “the candidate” and to having acted for the purpose of influencing the election. Trump, who was traveling from Washington, D.C., to Charleston, W.V., for a rally, boarded Air Force One about 10 minutes before the verdict was reported by news networks. Although the president often decries the Mueller investigation into Russian election meddling as a “WITCH HUNT,” it has so far yielded five guilty pleas in addition to the Manafort verdict. Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last October. Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI two months later. Richard Pinedo pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February. Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who worked with Manafort and former Trump campaign adviser Rick Gates, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators in February. That same month, Gates himself pleaded guilty to financial fraud and lying to investigators, and became a star witness in the case against Manafort. After landing in Charleston, W.V., Trump shared his thoughts on the verdict with reporters. “It doesn’t involve me, but I still feel, you know, it’s a very sad thing that happened,” Trump said. “This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion. This has absolutely nothing to do — this is a witch hunt and it’s a disgrace.” At a campaign rally Tuesday night for Republican Senate candidate Patrick Morrisey, Trump largely avoided talking about the day’s legal developments. “Fake news and the Russian witch hunt,” Trump told his audience. “We’ve got a whole big combination. Where is the collusion? You know they’re still looking for collusion. Where is the collusion? Find some collusion. We want to find the collusion.” But many Democrats saw just that. “Today’s guilty verdict makes it absolutely clear that the Mueller probe is a serious investigation that is rooting out corruption and Russian influence on our political system at the highest levels,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) tweeted shortly after news of the verdicts in the Manafort trial were released. — Dylan Stableford contributed to this article. | |
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| 08-22-18 03:02pm - 2323 days | #989 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Interesting opinion piece. Why Trump supporters believe Trump is not corrupt. Possibly explains why people who believe in Trump believe he is not corrupt. ------ ------ The Atlantic Ideas Why Trump Supporters Believe He Is Not Corrupt What the president’s supporters fear most isn’t the corruption of American law, but the corruption of America’s traditional identity. Peter Beinart 10:47 AM ET Leah Millis / Reuters On Wednesday morning, the lead story on FoxNews.com was not Michael Cohen’s admission that Donald Trump had instructed him to violate campaign-finance laws by paying hush money to two of Trump’s mistresses. It was the alleged murder of a white Iowa woman, Mollie Tibbetts, by an undocumented Latino immigrant, Cristhian Rivera. On their face, the two stories have little in common. Fox is simply covering the Iowa murder because it distracts attention from a revelation that makes Trump look bad. But dig deeper and the two stories are connected: They represent competing notions of what corruption is. Cohen’s admission highlights one of the enduring riddles of the Trump era. Trump’s supporters say they care about corruption. During the campaign, they cheered his vow to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. When Morning Consult asked Americans in May 2016 to explain why they disliked Hillary Clinton, the second-most-common answer was that she was “corrupt.” And yet, Trump supporters appear largely unfazed by the mounting evidence that Trump is the least ethical president in modern American history. When asked last month whether they considered Trump corrupt, only 14 percent of Republicans said yes. Even Cohen’s allegation is unlikely to change that. The swamp isn’t easy to drain. The answer may lie in how Trump and his supporters define corruption. In a forthcoming book titled How Fascism Works, the Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley makes an intriguing claim. “Corruption, to the fascist politician,” he suggests, “is really about the corruption of purity rather than of the law. Officially, the fascist politician’s denunciations of corruption sound like a denunciation of political corruption. But such talk is intended to evoke corruption in the sense of the usurpation of the traditional order.” Fox’s decision to focus on the Iowa murder rather than Cohen’s guilty plea illustrates Stanley’s point. In the eyes of many Fox viewers, I suspect, the network isn’t ignoring corruption so much as highlighting the kind that really matters. When Trump instructed Cohen to pay off women with whom he’d had affairs, he may have been violating the law. But he was upholding traditional gender and class hierarchies. Since time immemorial, powerful men have been cheating on their wives and using their power to evade the consequences. The Iowa murder, by contrast, signifies the inversion—the corruption—of that “traditional order.” Throughout American history, few notions have been as sacrosanct as the belief that white women must be protected from nonwhite men. By allegedly murdering Tibbetts, Rivera did not merely violate the law. He did something more subversive: He violated America’s traditional racial and sexual norms. Trump’s supporters honor the American tradition of discrimination. Once you grasp that for Trump and many of his supporters, corruption means less the violation of law than the violation of established hierarchies, their behavior makes more sense. Since 2014, Trump has employed the phrase rule of law nine times in tweets. Seven of them refer to illegal immigration. Why were Trump’s supporters so convinced that Clinton was the more corrupt candidate even as reporters uncovered far more damning evidence about Trump’s foundation than they did about Clinton’s? Likely because Clinton’s candidacy threatened traditional gender roles. For many Americans, female ambition—especially in service of a feminist agenda—in and of itself represents a form of corruption. “When female politicians were described as power-seeking,” noted the Yale researchers Victoria Brescoll and Tyler Okimoto in a 2010 study, “participants experienced feelings of moral outrage (i.e., contempt, anger, and/or disgust).” Cohen’s admission makes it harder for Republicans to claim that Trump didn’t violate the law. But it doesn’t really matter. For many Republicans, Trump remains uncorrupt—indeed, anticorrupt—because what they fear most isn’t the corruption of American law; it’s the corruption of America’s traditional identity. And in the struggle against that form of corruption—the kind embodied by Cristhian Rivera—Trump isn’t the problem. He’s the solution. Peter Beinart is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and an associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York. | |
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| 08-22-18 03:44pm - 2323 days | #990 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
A shameful story of the US government and the US Marine Corp poisoning US civilians and hiding the truth. ------- ------- https://psmag.com/environment/what-happened-at-camp-lejeune What Happened at Camp Lejeune I grew up drinking and bathing in the toxic waters around a military base in North Carolina. Thirty years later, I went back to investigate. Lori Lou Freshwater Aug 21, 2018 A crew chief with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 167, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, rides in the back of a UH-1Y Venom as it approaches a landing zone during a training exercise near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on June 17th, 2016. A crew chief with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 167, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, rides in the back of a UH-1Y Venom as it approaches a landing zone during a training exercise near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on June 17th, 2016. (Photo: Lance Corporal Aaron K. Fiala/U.S. Marine Corps) In the autumn of 1980, a contractor showed up to grade a parking lot. He had no idea he was about to start digging up the radioactive bodies of dead beagles. But the forked bucket on his bulldozer started pulling up more than soil, and it turned out he was digging in a pit of strontium-90 and dog carcasses that had been buried in an ash-gray tomb: a nest of dead dogs and laboratory waste labeled "Radioactive Poison." The new parking lot was on the site of the former Naval Research Laboratory dump and its associated incinerator in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina—and it was just one of many areas contaminated by an assortment of hazardous waste and chemicals on the base. About half a mile away from the dump, soon to be known as Site 19, my friends and I were living in our neighborhood, called Paradise Point. We spent our time putting other girls' bras into freezers at slumber parties, playing the Telephone Game, riding our bikes all over the place: to the golf course to steal a cart, to swim at the pool, to play soccer on Saturdays. ADVERTISEMENT During the same autumn the dead beagles were found, I was sitting in front of a fake backdrop of rusty colored leaves, a slight 11-year-old girl with spaces between my teeth and freckles spritzed across my nose and cheeks, to take my school photo. The author's fifth-grade photo. The author's fifth-grade photo. (Photo: Lori Lou Freshwater) Under normal circumstances, this entirely unremarkable fifth-grade photo, in a plaid shirt and fragile gold necklace, would have likely ended up where most school photos do, in an old album or a drawer or simply lost to time. Instead, the photo would become a marker in the medical history of my family and my community, a reminder of the crime that was being committed on the day the photo was taken—and also for decades before, and for years after. The place was Camp Lejeune, a United States Marine Corps base wrapped around the New River in Onslow County that served as an amphibious training base where Marines learned to be "the world's best war fighters," picking up skills that would allow them (for example) to make surprise landings on the shores of far away countries. From the 1950s until at least 1985, the drinking water was contaminated with toxic chemicals at levels 240 to 3400 times higher than what is permitted by safety standards. There may never be a true accounting of the suffering caused at Lejeune. As with many other hometown environmental disasters, the Marines and family members poisoned on this military base were not born here, nor did they settle here to make a permanent life and raise their children. Instead, they were often here just for a short time, literally stationed at Lejeune for weeks, months, or, at most, a few years. From the 1950s through at least 1985, an undetermined number of of residents, including infants, children, and civilian workers and personnel, were exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, and other contaminants in the drinking water at the Camp Lejeune. These exposures likely increased their risk of cancers, including renal cancer, multiple myeloma, leukemias, and more. It also likely increased their risk of adverse birth outcomes, along with other negative health effects. Now the sick and the dying are all over the world, and an untold number will never be notified about what happened. Instead, we are left to rely on scientific models and data trickling out of public-health agencies and the slow process of adding one story at a time, person-by-person, to the cold data representing an environmental and public-health disaster. section-break In 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency placed 236 square miles of North Carolina's coastal soil and water on the list of toxic areas known as Superfund sites. The agency cited "contaminated groundwater, sediment, soil and surface water resulting from base operations and waste handling practices" as reasons for including it on the National Priorities List. Camp Lejeune remains a sprawling Superfund site, and it is also the place where my mom and I spent years drinking a terrible mix of chemicals from our faucet. In the book A Trust Betrayed: The Untold Story of Camp Lejeune, author Mike Magner gives special attention to my mother's story: "A woman with the ironic name of Mary Freshwater may have had the most ghastly experiences at Camp Lejeune." Of course, I share her ironic name, which can still seem like more of a curse. Nearly my entire childhood was consumed by tragedy. The chemical contamination can be linked to the deaths of my two baby brothers, Rusty and Charlie, and to my mom's own difficult final years, when she was dying from two types of acute leukemia. My mother also suffered from mental illness, which was intensified—understandably—by our family's brutal losses. Sometimes it seems that, behind me, there is nothing but inescapable grief. section-break My middle school was called Tarawa Terrace II, named for the famous World War II Battle of Tarawa. I rode a Marine-green bus every day instead of a yellow one, on a base that had expanded during World War II to claim rivers, creeks, swamps, and mile after mile of Atlantic oceanfront. Early in the unfolding tragedy, the Army sent a note to Marine leadership about water-testing results. It was sent the same month that my mother wrote on the back of my fifth-grade photo: October, 1980. Army Laboratory Service Chief William Neal scrawled on the bottom of the lab results: "Water is highly contaminated with low molecular weight halogenated hydrocarbons." The U.S. Army lab (USAEHA) from Fort McPherson conducted water testing on samples taken from the Hadnot Point water distribution system. USAEHA Army Laboratory Service Chief William Neal warned Navy officials with a handwritten caption at the bottom of the lab results: "Water is highly contaminated with low molecular weight halogenated hydrocarbons." The U.S. Army lab (USAEHA) from Fort McPherson conducted water testing on samples taken from the Hadnot Point water distribution system. USAEHA Army Laboratory Service Chief William Neal warned Navy officials with a handwritten caption at the bottom of the lab results: "Water is highly contaminated with low molecular weight halogenated hydrocarbons." (Photo: Mike Partain) It was an early warning about the drinking water on the base. But the Marines didn't take any action that month or the next, and even after several warnings—including another handwritten note that exclaimed merely "Solvents!"—the Marine Corps waited five years to start shutting down contaminated wells. After that first memo, issued only days before the radioactive beagles were found, the poisoned drinking water kept flowing for several more years. Camp Lejeune has been characterized as a candidate for the worst water contamination case in U.S. history—and I am one of up to a million people who were poisoned. The tragedy, though, is hardly all in the past. According to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the military's failures are continuing today; mistakes are being repeated at our bases overseas, and, in foreign cases, it took a whistleblower to prompt action on contaminated water. A 2013 investigative report produced by the Navy inspector general, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveals "shortfalls in the oversight and management of drinking water for Navy personnel stationed overseas—even in wealthy, developed countries." The report concludes that "not a single Navy overseas drinking water system meets U.S. compliance standards" or the Navy's own governing standards," according to POGO. How the Water Became Toxic An important part of Marine culture is always being squared away—a code of personal cleanliness and etiquette that requires a pressed and starched uniform and a lot of shoe polishing. One of the dry cleaners that the Marines frequented to service their uniforms was ABC Cleaners, which operated out of a small, red- and white-painted building just across the highway from the base. Word traveled fast that they had the lowest prices, but the business produced more than money. Like any dry-cleaning outfit, it also produced tons of waste from the solvent used to clean the uniforms. According to a court deposition, ABC Cleaners used two to three 55-gallon drums of the solvent a month. That's about three gallons of muck a day. This dry-cleaning business is across the street from the entrance to my school. The owner used the toxic muck to fill potholes in his parking lot, and threw the rest into the drains. (CONTINUED ON NEXT POST  | |
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| 08-22-18 03:47pm - 2323 days | #991 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
(CONTINUED) In other areas on the base, waste was generated and discarded into empty lots, forests, roads, waterways, and makeshift dumps. That toxic waste was then taken by the Carolina rains and summer thunderstorms down toward sea level, into water wells, and into the barracks, houses, trailers, offices, and schools—and finally into the bodies of thousands of Marines and their families: into our cells, into our bones. An animated timeline of the Lejeune contamination as it unfolded. An animated timeline of the Lejeune contamination as it unfolded. (Image: Alana Pipe) In 2014, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), issued a position on the water at Camp Lejeune. The ATSDR found that "past exposures from the 1950s through February 1985 to trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, and other contaminants in the drinking water at the Camp Lejeune likely increased the risk of cancers." In addition to those toxins, there was also benzene, a clear, colorless, and highly flammable chemical. When you put gas in your car, that smell you notice is benzene—an important petroleum byproduct that is also used in industrial solvents. In the universe of environmental contamination, language can be complex, murky, and often confusing. When it comes to benzene, though, the language is like the chemical itself, perfectly clear: Benzene is a carcinogen. Benzene is a well-established cause of cancer in humans, and benzene causes acute myeloid leukemia. The EPA has established a maximum contaminant level goal of zero parts per billion for benzene in public drinking water systems. In 1980, Naval Facilities Engineering Command testing showed that one of the wells at Camp Lejeune measured 380 parts per billion. In 2010, the Associated Press found that a contractor "dramatically underreported" the level of benzene found in Lejeune's tap water. Per the AP's reporting, in 1992, when ATSDR visited Camp Lejeune to start its public health assessment, they found that a contractor had erroneously documented the 1984 level of benzene in one well was 38 parts per billion—when the actual measurement had been 380 parts per billion. The same contractor's final report, issued in 1994, conveniently omitted the benzene altogether. "The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which was traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast, according to recently disclosed studies," the AP reported. The chemical stew found at Lejeune is made of volatile organic compounds. They are able to vaporize, and, with ultimate stealth, to enter soil and air as gases, which then become your invisible companions. Finally, they come for the ones you love. When the Water Becomes Vapor A friend of mine describes the humid days in North Carolina as feeling like you are in a dog's mouth. It can be brutal. Take a shower and walk outside and you need another shower. The only thing to do is drink lots of water and search for shade. Our school had an open plan, no enclosed hallways or air-conditioning, so on hot days teachers marched us to the old metal water fountains after recess. Then there were the "black flag days," which meant that it was too hot for recess. In the cafeteria, we lined up for strange-tasting meat patties on plastic trays that were still warm and damp from the wash cycle. I can still smell all that dirty steam coming from the industrial dishwashers. We were breathing it, the toxic vapors, but the cafeteria ladies serving us were right there in a fog of it all day long, wearing hairnets and gloves out of what is, in retrospect, a heartbreaking concern for the students' health and safety. In homes across the country, vaporized poisons from underground can also be stealth killers. The dry-cleaning business down the road might be accidentally responsible for polluting the air in someone's home. This is because of something called soil vapor intrusion, the process by which chemicals migrate from contaminated soil and groundwater into the air of indoor structures where it then sits, essentially trapped. The EPA issued its first guidance on vapor intrusion in 2002. In 2003, the George W. Bush administration ended that guidance. President Barack Obama then made it a priority—and the EPA released its final Vapor Intrusion Technical Guide in 2015. Mike Magner, author of A Trust Betrayed, says that he thinks vapor intrusion is "the next big firestorm for the Pentagon, not just at Camp Lejeune but at military bases and former bases around the country." "There is plenty of evidence that the air is or has been toxic inside some of Lejeune’s buildings—there are test results being covered up but that will eventually come out—and there is a good possibility that either legislation or litigation will force the government to address this problem," Magner says. "If the Marines are worried about their liabilities for the water contamination at Camp Lejeune, they ain’t seen nothin’ yet." Some years ago, I became a member of the Community Assistance Panel, a group mandated by congress to represent the Lejeune community working with the scientists at the CDC and with bureaucrats at the Veterans Administration. Through this work, I've learned more about the military's cover-up of the water contamination, and how the culture that says "Stay Marine" also ensures that some problems remain entombed in secrecy. The Community Assistance Panel has obtained more than 22,000 documents from an in-progress vapor intrusion study on the buildings at Camp Lejeune up to the present time. The study documents a clear and ongoing risk of exposure, as the groundwater plumes and utility lines—the pathways of exposure—are still located under the buildings. This summer, a report to the CDC said that a recent test, at a building used as a barracks, had revealed the "highest recorded on-base indoor air TCE [trichloroethylene] detection due to vapor intrusion" since the EPA issued its guidance. This measurement exceeds both state and federal screening levels, which can cause health problems for those exposed, especially women who are in the first trimester of pregnancy. Which brings me back to my mother. The Damage Is Done My mother grew up poor on a farm, traumatized (she said) from having to break chicken's necks, and dropped out of high school mid-way through. But Mary Freshwater knew her powers, and they were a force when she conjured them. In 2007, the National Academy of Sciences convened a panel to talk about the water at Lejeune. It took place at the Jacksonville USO, the oldest USO building in the country, which sits on banks of New River under old Carolina shade trees. My mother was sitting in the audience while experts went on about statistics until it was time to hear from the people affected by the poisoned water at Camp Lejeune. Mom was there to tell them about Rusty and Charlie, the two babies she'd lost: one born with an open spine, the other with no cranium. Behind my mom, the Marines and family members were there to listen and tell their own stories. Mary Freshwater in the late 1980s at The Pamper Room, her hair salon in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Mary Freshwater in the late 1980s at The Pamper Room, her hair salon in Jacksonville, North Carolina. (Photo: Lori Lou Freshwater) Wearing a light pink turtleneck, her hair an uncharacteristic mess, she stepped up to the microphone and placed a small cardboard box on the podium in front of her. In black marker in small letters on the top of the box was the word Baby. This was all my mom had left of Rusty, my brother who had lived a month and died on New Year's Eve in 1978. As she spoke, she opened the baby box and unpacked it, eventually holding up a dingy bottle with the nipple still on it and liquid still inside, and a blue onesie, with a yellow stain which she would explain was her son's vomit that she had not been able to wash. "We are not numbers in a study. We are human beings that have had great tragedies," she said. After my mom died, this same baby box was one of the things I knew I had to find and keep. She had it with her all the time, even as we moved all over the place. It was my family history, but it was also now something public—a part of the country's history too. My mom's leukemia, and her unwillingness to give up the fight, made her extended illness one of terrible suffering. After her death, my mother's much younger husband fell apart and fell into the bottle again. One night I got a call saying that he hadn't paid the rent and that the landlady was putting all my mom's stuff in the old barn out back. Some cousins had already shown up and taken things. I was living in Rhode Island and had to drive down to rural North Carolina overnight. By the time I could get there the place was a mess. After a few minutes of walking around the house, I was able to find the baby box. It was sitting with junk, looking like the next candidate for the trash. I went into the kitchen to get some water; it was hot already and I was thirsty. On the counter there was another box, and this one stood out because it was new and had no name. I opened it. Inside was a clear bag of ash and small fragments of bone. It was what was left of my mama. It was the first time I had seen someone's ashes like that. It was not what I expected, not elegant ash like the kind the Kennedys would puff into the air from their boat and watch settle into the sea. Instead, it was undeniably the remnants of a human being, heavy with bits of stubborn bone. I went and got my little brother's box and sat it on the counter too. Right next to her. And then, after packing up as much as I could, I took them both home. | |
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| 08-22-18 06:37pm - 2322 days | #992 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
United States government says a young boy is to blame for having a poison trap contaminate him. The poison trap was mistakenly placed near the boy's home. The poison trap killed the boy's dog, and injured the boy. But the US government, like most people, does not want to admit its mistakes, and places the blame on the boy. Our US govt, protecting the lives of citizens by refusing to pay damages to young boys it poisons. (See the previous 2 posts how the US government kept hidden knowledge of the cancerous chemicals under the grounds near military and civilians--allowing the health of the military personnel and civilians to be placed at risk.) ---------- ---------- US Denies Liability After Boy Is Sprayed by Its Cyanide Trap The U.S. government says an Idaho family is to blame for any injuries it alleges a boy received after he was doused with cyanide by a predator-killing trap that a federal worker mistakenly placed near their home. Aug. 22, 2018, at 5:12 p.m. US Denies Liability After Boy Is Sprayed by Its Cyanide Trap The Associated Press File - This March 16, 2017, file photo released by the Bannock County Sheriff's Office shows a cyanide device in Pocatello, Idaho, The cyanide device, called M-44, is spring-activated and shoots poison that is meant to kill predators. The U.S. government says an Idaho boy and his parents are to blame for any injuries to the boy claimed in a lawsuit contending he was doused with cyanide by a predator-killing trap a federal worker mistakenly placed near their home. The U.S. Department of Justice in documents filed Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, in U.S. District Court says any injuries were caused by the negligence of the parents and child, and the lawsuit should be dismissed. (Bannock County Sheriff's Office via AP, File) The Associated Press By KEITH RIDLER, Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. government said an Idaho family is to blame for any injuries it alleges a boy received after he was doused with cyanide by a predator-killing trap that a federal worker mistakenly placed near their home. Any injuries were caused by the negligence of the parents and child, the U.S. Department of Justice said in documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court, and asked for the family's lawsuit to be dismissed. Mark and Theresa Mansfield of Pocatello sued in June seeking more than $75,000 in damages and more than $75,000 for pain and suffering. They say their son, Canyon Mansfield, was playing with his dog in March 2017 when the then-14-year-old triggered the trap that the U.S. Department of Agriculture placed to kill coyotes. The dog died, and the teen still has headaches from the poison, the lawsuit said. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads In its response, the government "expressly denied" any "alleged negligence by defendant or its agencies or employees." The devices, called M-44s, are embedded in the ground and look like lawn sprinklers but spray cyanide when they are set off. They are meant to protect livestock but sometimes kill pets and injure people. The traps drew increased scrutiny after The Associated Press reported that the teen was injured months after the government decided to stop using the devices on federal lands in Idaho. The lawsuit contends that an Agriculture Department worker acknowledged to law enforcement officials placing the trap in error on land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The court document filed by the Justice Department does not acknowledge such an error. It responded to an emailed inquiry from The Associated Press on Wednesday by asking for an outline of questions but didn't respond to those questions. The agency said in court documents that "defendant admits that two M-44 devices placed by (a federal) employee were discharged in the incident involving CM and his dog." The lawsuit mentions only one M-44 activating, and law enforcement officials who responded last year didn't mention additional devices discharging. The reason for the discrepancy is not clear. The Justice Department didn't respond to that question. The lawsuit describes the boy encountering the device and says he thought it looked like a sprinkler head. "When he reached down and touched the pipe, it exploded with a loud bang, knocking CM to the ground and spewing an orange powdery substance," the lawsuit says. The Justice Department throughout its response disputes that there was an explosion, noting that M-44s are spring-activated and contain no explosive material. Reed Larsen, an attorney for the Mansfields, didn't return calls left his office and his cellphone. In a separate but related lawsuit by environmental and animal welfare groups, U.S. officials in March agreed to complete a study on how two predator-killing poisons could be affecting federally protected species. A settlement requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to complete consultations with the Environmental Protection Agency by the end of 2021 on the poisons that federal workers use to protect livestock on rural lands. One of the poisons is the cyanide used in M-44s. Andrea Santarsiere, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which is involved in the settlement and ultimately hopes to get M-44s banned entirely, said the federal government's response to the Mansfield lawsuit was disappointing. "Rather than apologize for having a poisonous device on public lands that injured a young boy and killed his dog, the government instead is using a tactic to blame the boy," she said. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. | |
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| 08-22-18 07:03pm - 2322 days | #993 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Republicans are the party of liars, hypocrites, and leaders of the Moral Majority. So what if the people working for Trump are criminals? Does that make Trump a bad person? Of course not. Trump is the greatest President we've ever had. Just ask Trump. ------ ------ GOP offers muted response after jury convicts Manafort and Cohen pleads guilty. Leading Republicans on Wednesday reacted to the legal drama involving Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager, and Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, with what seemed to be a collective shrug. “Naturally it makes you very concerned,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters. “But the president shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of people that he’s trusted.” Manafort was found guilty Tuesday on eight of the 18 counts brought against him by special counsel Robert Mueller: five tax fraud charges, one charge of hiding foreign bank accounts, and two counts of bank fraud. Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, including violating campaign-finance laws by making hush-money payments to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. Cohen acknowledged that the payments were meant to influence the 2016 presidential election by keeping the allegations out of the news, and that they were made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” referring to then-candidate Trump. “He’s pled guilty,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said. “So what is there about him to worry about?” Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said on Wednesday that his client has information that would be “of interest” to Mueller’s Russia probe. “Mr. Cohen’s credibility is going to be challenged,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., mirroring the response from Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who in a statement said, “Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.” Michael Cohen leaves federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. (Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP) “It’s a mess,” Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday afternoon. “I honestly don’t know what to believe at this point. Mr. Cohen has been very inconsistent in his statements. The president hasn’t been terribly consistent in some of the things he has said.” But Stewart also said he isn’t sure the hush money payments constitute a campaign finance violation. Republican leadership on Capitol Hill was mostly silent. A spokesman for Paul Ryan said the House speaker was aware of Cohen’s plea to “these serious charges” but needed “more information than is currently available at this point.” Representatives for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not respond to a request for comment. Several Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said that Trump’s implication in the Cohen case should delay the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, the president’s Supreme Court nominee, set for September. Others would not rule out the start of impeachment proceedings against Trump. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said that “every single remedy, including indictment of the president, should be on the table.” Most Senate Democrats, though, said that talk of impeachment was premature. No one on the GOP side, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., would touch the subject. “Campaign finance violations — I don’t know what will come from that, but the thing that will hurt the president the most is if, in fact, his campaign did coordinate with a foreign government like Russia,” Graham said. That wasn’t the case in 1999, when Graham, then a member of the U.S. House that impeached President Bill Clinton, said it didn’t take a conviction or even a crime to impeach the president. “You don’t have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional Republic,” Graham said at the time, “if this body determines your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds.” He added: “Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.” Perhaps the closest thing to a fresh rebuke of Trump among leading Republicans came from Mitt Romney, the former GOP presidential nominee and current candidate for the U.S. Senate in Utah. Romney dismissed Trump’s assertion that the legal blows were part of a “witch hunt” by the Justice Department. “The events of the last 24 hours confirm that conduct by highly-placed individuals was both dishonorable and illegal,” Romney tweeted on Wednesday. “Also confirmed is my faith in our justice system and my conviction that we are a nation committed to the rule of law. On Tuesday, moments after the news about Manafort and Cohen broke, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said, “People who do bad things, who break the law, need to be held accountable.” But according to the Associated Press, Cornyn “quickly made clear his statement wasn’t aimed at Trump.” | |
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| 08-23-18 07:05am - 2322 days | #994 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Donald Trump, Master of the Universe: "If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash" So to save America and its stock market, we must protect Donald Trump. No matter what shame and corruption he brings to America. ---- ---- Trump: 'If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash' Julia La Roche 1 hour 49 minutes ago President Donald Trump believes the market wouldn’t react well if he were to be impeached. “If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash,” Trump told Fox News. “I think everybody would be very poor. Because without this thinking you would see, you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse.” On Tuesday, Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty on charges of tax evasion and bank fraud. Also on Tuesday, Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to 8 counts of illegal campaign contributions made “at the direction of a candidate for federal office.” These campaign violations involve payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, women who claim to have had affairs with Trump. As a result, some see the likelihood of Trump’s impeachment increasing. On political prediction site PredictIt, the odds of a Trump impeachment hit a three-month high, with the current odds of it happening by the end of 2019 sitting at 37% and the probability of it happening sometime within his first term at 45%. Volatility is far from a sure thing But Wall Street experts like JPMorgan’s John Normand aren’t convinced that a bumpy presidency would mean trouble for markets, saying that to think a Trump impeachment would derail the markets seems “hasty.” “Fiscal stimulus, which has been the most-material driver of this year’s step up in US growth and corporate earnings, would not be reversed if the mid-term elections delivered a Democratic Congress, an impeachment process or eventually a guilty verdict,” Normand wrote in a note to clients. “Neither has the Trump Administration been proposing a deregulatory agenda comparable to Reagan and Clinton’s that requires legislation to deliver transformational change. The agenda is advancing more through personnel, priorities, rules and executive orders, which are important at the sectoral level (Financials, Energy) but not at the macroeconomic one. Thus, rethinking the direction of the economy or financial markets on the prospects for less deregulation under a preoccupied or a different President seems hasty.” Certainly, there’s a case to be made that markets would nevertheless experience volatility in the near-term. However, there are bigger things out there driving the market in the long run. “Perhaps there is a tactical case for reducing overweights in Equities versus Bonds this Fall, on a view that a high P/E market is typically vulnerable to drawdown before an event risk,” Normand added. “But the case for strategically underweighting stocks or shifting to long duration is poor unless one believes that prospects for US growth, earnings and the Fed in 2019 rest on this aspect of domestic politics.” What about Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton? In the note, Normand emphasized that impeachment “is a process rather than an event, involving several judicial and institutional phases.” And while there have been past examples of disgraced presidencies, they need to be examined individually. Normand noted that Nixon’s impeachment process began shortly after the First Oil Shock in late 1973 that resulted in recession and rising inflation. Nixon resigned in August 1974. Elsewhere, Clinton’s impeachment in December 1998 was “almost a non-event for the markets” as stocks and credit had already experienced the Asian Crisis, the Russian default, and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management that summer. The “wildcard,” according to Normand, is trade. Trump has authorized tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods. “If, at some point, Trump’s Presidency ends prematurely like Nixon’s, the lingering question for EM – or at least the China complex – will be whether the new boss Vice President Pence will be the same as the old boss.” Yahoo Finance’s senior columnist Rick Newman has made the case for why President Pence “could turn out to be better for markets and the economy than Trump.” — Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter. | |
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| 08-23-18 07:33am - 2322 days | #995 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The truth revealed: Donald Trump shoots Michael Cohen. Claims immunity because America would be damaged and the stock markets would fail. Republicans rally round the flag in support of the greatest president the US has ever had. Greater than Washington, more popular than Lincoln. Trump, leader of the Moral Majority. God save Trump!!! --------- --------- Politics If Trump shot Michael Cohen in broad daylight, here's what Republicans would say The Guardian Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George,The Guardian 6 hours ago You can just imagine the tweets, denials and equivocating that would follow a murder committed by Trump on Fifth Avenue, can’t you? chalk line ‘It’s not quite as far fetched as it seems, is it?’ Photograph: Chip Simons/Getty Images The New York Times: Breaking news: in an eerie echo of Donald Trump’s infamous campaign trail remark – “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” – many witnesses report, and CCTV footage obtained by the Times confirms, that early this morning the president drew a handgun on his former lawyer Michael Cohen and shot him dead on a street in midtown Manhattan. House speaker Paul Ryan: “If these reports are true – I emphasize IF – then yes, I’m very concerned. I don’t think the president should be killing people in broad daylight in front of Tiffany’s. But I’m not a legal expert, I could be wrong.” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders: Associated Press: “Ms Sanders, did the president shoot his former lawyer in an effort to stop him from testifying against the president?” Sarah Sanders: “No, he did not.” AP: “Are you saying that the shooting was not motivated by Mr Cohen’s recent plea deal, or rather that the president did not shoot him?” SHS: “You’ve got my answer, Jim. No, no, no.” AP: “Ms Sanders, I’m still not clear what –” SHS: “The answer is no. No as in no. N. O. It’s these kinds of questions that have turned the American people against the press.” CNN: Anderson Cooper: “We’re seeing incredible images here. The president being taken into custody. Kellyanne, what can you tell us?” Kellyanne Conway: “I’m not going to comment on rumors, Anderson.” AC: “Kellyanne, these are not rumors. The president has handcuffs around his wrists. You’re seeing the same footage we are.” KC: “You’re free to see things your way. I have an alternative perception.” AC: “But how can you possibly –” KC: “Let’s agree to disagree, Anderson!” Senator Mitch McConnell: “People die every day in this country. I’m not going to let myself get sidetracked by these distractions.” Tweet from @realDonaldTrump: “Back from GREAT chat with members of NYPD--the finest! Brand new police station. Very NICE. They want a wall too. Was NEVER taken into custody. FAKE NEWS cooked up by Crooked Hillary and FAILING NYT and CONFLICTED Mueller! Keep our borders strong – JUST SAY NO to murdering and raping Mexicans.” Rudy Giuliani, president’s attorney: “Let’s get our facts straight. The president was never taken into custody except for maybe around six hours. He has not been charged with murder and won’t be charged with murder because murder isn’t always murder. The constitution is very clear on this: charging the president with a crime is a crime.” White House press briefing points: “First of all the president was not in Manhattan at the time of the shooting. Second, he was watching TV on the 26th floor of Trump Tower when the shots were fired. Third, while he didn’t have the opportunity to save the students at the Parkland school, this time the president was able to rush into a busy city street and thereby save dozens of lives from a distraught and possibly deranged lawyer.” Words on Target umbrella held by Melania Trump, first lady: “I really do care.”  Homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: “At this moment I can confirm that one of the alleged eyewitnesses to the shooting is a tourist from Mexico. Certainly we need to ask what a tourist from Mexico was doing in front of Tiffany’s at the time of this alleged incident. Now can I please eat my taco in peace?” Alex Jones, Infowars: “What I want to know is why hasn’t anyone mentioned that Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton were NOWHERE to be seen at the time of the shooting? Are you telling me that’s mere coincidence? C’mon! And why haven’t the NYPD and the DEEP STATE FBI looked into this? What else aren’t they looking into?” Sean Hannity: “What about the thousands of bills that Chuck Schumer has killed? What about Hillary’s murder of Vince Foster? And the Democrats dare talk about justice?” Paul Ryan: “I never said the president couldn’t kill in broad daylight. I just said I hope the president stays focused on all the great things we’re doing for the American people.” Tweet from @realDonaldTrump: “Michael Cohen said he would take a bullet for me. So NO MURDER! And NO COLLUSION!! WITCH HUNTS! Worse than SALEM!!! Never should have let CRIMINAL Comey (lousy writer to! book sales DOWN!) talk me out of executing KILLIN’ Hillary…” Tweet from @realDonaldTrump: “…and JIHAD Brennan and LEPRECHAUN Sessions. FAKE NEWS hates Trump because I built a Beautiful Wall. And brought PEACE to England! Now I’m PARDONING myself for NO CRIME! Also pardoning…” Tweet from @realDonaldTrump: “…extended family, all former campaign managers, present and future cabinet members. MAGA! #DraintheSwamp” Lawrence Douglas is the James J Grosfeld professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought, at Amherst College. Alexander George is the Rachel and Michael Deutch professor of philosophy at Amherst College in Amherst | |
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| 08-23-18 07:57am - 2322 days | #996 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Donald Trump says Cohen's cooperation with prosecutors "almost ought to be illegal". Trump also says that the prosecutors are on a witch hunt. That Trump is being persecuted unfairly. Trump never knew about the payments to women he allegedly had sex with. Except that he was later forced to admit that he did know about the payments. Forced because Trump is a moral man, who can only speak the truth. God save Donald Trump, the greatest president we will ever have. --------- --------- Trump: Cohen's cooperation with prosecutors 'almost ought to be illegal' Dylan Stableford 1 hour 13 minutes ago President Trump continues to fume over the betrayal by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, with the president suggesting Cohen’s cooperation with prosecutors should be illegal. “It’s called flipping, and it almost ought to be illegal,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt in an interview that aired Wednesday. “They make up things, and now they go from 10 years [in jail] to they’re a national hero. They have a statue erected in their honor. It’s not a fair thing, but that’s why he did it.” Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges, including violating campaign-finance laws by making hush-money payments to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. Cohen acknowledged that the payments were meant to influence the 2016 election by keeping the allegations out of the news, and that they were made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” referring to then-candidate Trump. “He makes a better deal when he uses me, like everybody else,” the president said. “This whole thing about flipping, they call it, I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they — they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It — it almost ought to be outlawed.” Michael Cohen leaves federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. (Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP) A pardon for Manafort? Trump would not say whether he is considering a pardon for his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was found guilty Tuesday on eight counts of tax and bank fraud in a case brought against him by special counsel Robert Mueller. “I have great respect for what he’s done in terms of what he’s going through,” Trump said of Manafort. “I would say what he did, some of the charges they threw against him, every consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does.” The president also complained of the way federal agents carried out a search warrant on Manafort. “They raid his home at like five in the morning,” Trump said. “I think on a weekend and his wife is in bed. And they go in with guns. This isn’t Al Capone.” ‘I always put justice now with quotes’ Trump renewed his criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia shortly after he was appointed attorney general. “Jeff Sessions recused himself, which he shouldn’t have done. Or he should have told me,” Trump said. “Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldn’t have put him in. He took the job and then he said I’m going to recuse myself. I said, ‘What kind of a man is this?’” Trump said the “only reason” gave Sessions the nation’s top law enforcement officer post was because he worked on the president’s campaign and was the first sitting senator to endorse him. “You know the only reason I gave him the job,” Trump said. “Because I felt loyalty. He was an original supporter.” Trump said he wants to stay “uninvolved” with Mueller’s probe, but that he may act because of what he sees as bias at the Justice Department against him. “Everybody see’s what going on in the Justice Department,” Trump said. “I always put justice now with quotes. It’s a very, very sad day.” President Trump and Ainsley Earhardt. (Photo: Courtesy “Fox & Friends”) ‘Later on I knew’ In a portion of the “Fox & Friends” interview that aired Wednesday afternoon, Trump said he knew “later on” about Cohen’s payments to women alleging they had affairs with him. He didn’t specify when he found out, but as recently as April he claimed to a reporter aboard Air Force One that he knew nothing about them. “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen,” he said at the time. The president also insisted the payments to his alleged paramours did not constitute a campaign finance violation because “they didn’t come out of the campaign, they came from me.” “In fact, my first question when I heard about it was did they come out of the campaign because that could be a little dicey,” Trump said. “But they weren’t — that’s not a — it’s not even a campaign violation.” Trump’s rationale is disputed by most legal experts and the president’s own Justice Department, which brought the charges against Cohen. Impeachment talk That Trump has been implicated in a federal crime has a few Democrats calling for the president’s impeachment regardless of the conclusions of Mueller’s ongoing Russia probe. Trump said his outstanding record in office should make him immune to impeachment. “I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who’s done a great job,” he said. “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor, because without this thinking, you would see, you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse.” Wall Street experts told Yahoo Finance that they aren’t convinced an impeachment would derail markets. When asked to grade his presidency, Trump didn’t hesitate. “I would honestly give myself an A+,” he said. _____ | |
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| 08-23-18 08:13am - 2322 days | #997 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Mollie Tibbetts's cousin responds to claims that her loved one's murder is a political issue Yahoo Lifestyle Elise Solé,Yahoo Lifestyle 13 hours ago The death of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts has been politicized on social media. (Photo: Departamento de Investigacion Criminal de Iowa via AP, Archivo) The cousin of murdered college student Mollie Tibbetts is firing back at social media trolls who claim her loved one’s death is a political issue. On Tuesday night, Samantha Lucas, a second cousin of Tibbetts’s, shared a tweet written by Candace Owens, the communication director of the conservative nonprofit organization Turning Point USA, that read in part, “Leftists boycotted, screamed, and cried when illegal immigrants were temporarily separated from their parents. What will they do for Mollie Tibbetts?” In response, Lucas tweeted, “Hey, I’m a member of Mollie’s family and we are not so f***ing small-minded that we generalize a whole population based on some bad individuals. Now stop being a f***ing snake and using my cousin’s death as political propaganda. Take her name out of your mouth.” Lucas did not respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment. | |
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| 08-23-18 08:53am - 2322 days | #998 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Shades of Bill Clinton: The impeachment process of Bill Clinton started with an investigation by special prosecutor Ken Starr dealing with Whitewater, an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Then Ken Starr expanded the investigation into any alleged abuses, including Bill Clinton's sex life. This led to the Monica Lewinsky's perjury, which was used by Ken Starr and which led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton as President on two charges: perjury and obstruction of justice. So the same type of thing is happening with Donald Trump. Except that the Republicans are saying: it's a witch hunt. The prosecutors have no right to investigate Trump beyond the original investigation, which was supposed to be Russian interference in the national election. Ken Starr has now flipped his position. After going after President Bill Clinton on any grounds he could find, Starr now says that Mueller's investigation should only investigate Russian interference, and that Trump should be shielded from any further crimes because they are outside of the original brief. --------------- --------------- Fox's Bartiromo: Public can't see any credibility from Mueller investigation without including Clinton By Joe Concha - 08/22/18 09:48 AM EDT Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo said during her program Wednesday that she "can’t see the American people and the public see any credibility from the special counsel’s investigation if he is not looking at everything," including "that Hillary Clinton paid for the dossier." Bartiromo was referencing the dossier of alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia authored by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele that was funded in part by the Democratic National Committee and the 2016 Clinton campaign. "The Robert Mueller investigation started off as collusion with Russia, there was no evidence of that. Then they moved to obstruction. Now we're talking about a porn star and paying the porn star," Bartiromo said. “I can’t see the American people, the public, see any credibility from the special counsel’s investigation if he is not looking at everything that occurred regarding Russia in the 2016 campaign. And that includes that Hillary Clinton paid for the dossier which was used to get a [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrant to wiretap an American citizen." The Department of Justice in July released federal documents used in obtaining a warrant against Trump associate Carter Page during the 2016 presidential campaign. Those documents included the unverified dossier, compiled by Steele, that alleges ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia. The dizzying series of events on Tuesday afternoon surrounding President Trump included former campaign chairman Paul Manafort being found guilty in a Virginia courtroom of eight charges of bank and tax fraud while, almost at the same time, news broke that the president's former attorney, Michael Cohen, had pleaded guilty to charges of bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance law violations. | |
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| 08-23-18 09:03am - 2322 days | #999 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Cohen's plea deal is prosecutor's attempt to set up Trump By Mark Penn, opinion contributor - 08/22/18 07:25 AM EDT The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill Here we go, from Russia with love, to campaign finance with love. Why was Michael Cohen investigated? Because the “Steele dossier” had him making secret trips to meet with Russians that never happened, so his business dealings got a thorough scrubbing and, in the process, he fell into the Paul Manafort bin reserved by the special counsel for squeezing until the juice comes out. We are back to 1998 all over again, with presidents and candidates covering up their alleged marital misdeeds and prosecutors trying to turn legal acts into illegal ones by inventing new crimes. The plot to get President Trump out of office thickens, as Cohen obviously was his own mini crime syndicate and decided that his betrayals meant he would be better served turning on his old boss to cut the best deal with prosecutors he could rather than holding out and getting the full Manafort treatment. That was clear the minute he hired attorney Lanny Davis, who does not try cases and did past work for Hillary Clinton. Cohen had recorded his client, trying to entrap him, sold information about Trump to corporations for millions of dollars while acting as his lawyer, and did not pay taxes on millions. The sweetener for the prosecutors, of course, was getting Cohen to plead guilty to campaign violations that were not campaign violations. Money paid to people who come out of the woodwork and shake down people under threat of revealing bad sexual stories are not legitimate campaign expenditures. They are personal expenditures. That is true for both candidates we like and candidates we do not. Just imagine if candidates used campaign funds instead of their own money to pay folks like Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about affairs. They would get indicted for misuse of campaign funds for personal purposes and for tax evasion. There appear to be two payments involved in this unusual agreement. Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign violation for having “coordinated” the American Media payment to Karen McDougal for her story, not for actually making the payment. He is pleading guilty over a corporate contribution he did not make. Think about this for a minute. Suppose ABC paid Stormy Daniels for her story in coordination with Michael Avenatti or maybe even the law firm of the Democratic National Committee on the eve of the election. By this reasoning, if the purpose of this money paid, just before the election, would be to hurt Trump and help Clinton win, this payment would be a corporate political contribution. If using it not to get Trump would be a corporate contribution, then using it to get Trump also has to be a corporate contribution. That is why neither are corporate contributions and this is a bogus approach to federal election law. Note that none of the donors in the 2012 John Edwards case faced any legal issues and the Federal Election Commission ruled their payments were not campaign contributions that had to be reported, both facts that prosecutors tried to suppress at trial. Now, when it comes to Stormy Daniels, Cohen made a payment a few days before the election that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani says was reimbursed. First, given that this payment was in October, it would never have been reported before the election campaign and so, for all intents and purposes, was immaterial as it relates to any effect on the campaign. What is clear in this plea deal is that, in exchange for overall leniency on his massive tax evasion, Cohen is pleading guilty to these other charges as an attempt to give prosecutors what they want, which is a Trump connection. The usual procedures here would be for the Federal Election Commission to investigate complaints and sort through these murky laws to determine if these kinds of payments are personal in nature or more properly classified as campaign expenditures. On the Stormy Daniels payment that was made and reimbursed by Trump, it is again a question of whether that was made for personal reasons, especially since they have been trying since 2011 to obtain agreement. Just because it would be helpful to the campaign does not convert it to a campaign expenditure. Think of a candidate with bad teeth who had dental work done to look better for the campaign. His campaign still could not pay for it because it is a personal expenditure. Contrast what is going on here with the treatment of the millions of dollars paid to a Democratic law firm which, in turn, paid out money to political research firm Fusion GPS and British spy Christopher Steele without listing them on any campaign expenditure form, despite crystal clear laws and regulations that the ultimate beneficiaries of the funds must be listed. This rule was even tightened recently. There is no question that hiring spies to do opposition research in Russia is a campaign expenditure, yet no prosecutorial raids have been sprung on the law firm, Fusion GPS or Steele. The reason? It does not “get” Trump. So, Trump spends $130,000 to keep the lid on a personal story and the full weight of state prosecutors comes down on his lawyer, tossing attorney-client privilege to the wind. Democrats spend potentially millions on secret opposition research and no serious criminal investigation occurs. Remember that the feds tried a similar strategy against Democratic candidate Edwards six years ago and it failed. As Gregory Craig, a lawyer who worked both for President Clinton and Edwards, said, “The government theory is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. It is novel and untested. There is no civil or criminal precedent for such a prosecution.” Tried it there anyway and it failed. Let us also not forget that President Clinton was entrapped into lying about his affairs and, although impeached, was acquitted by the Senate. The lesson was clear: We are not going to remove presidents for lying about who they had affairs with, nor even convict politicians on campaign finance violations for these personal payments. With Cohen pleading guilty, there will be no test of soundness of the prosecution theories here, and it is yet another example of the double standards of justice of one investigation that gave Clinton aides and principals every benefit of the doubt and another investigation that targeted Trump people until they found unrelated crimes to use as leverage. Prosecutors thought nothing of using the Logan Act against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, but they are using obscure and unsettled elements of campaign finance law against Trump lawyer Cohen to manufacture crimes in what is a naked attempt to take Trump down and defeat democracy. Trump should do a better job of picking aides who pay their taxes, but he is not responsible for their financial problems and crimes. These investigations, essentially based on an opposition dossier, were never anything other than an attempt to push into a corner as many Trump aides and family members as possible and shake them down until they could get close enough to Trump to try to take him down. That is why so many of his aides, lawyers, and actions in the campaign and in the White House have undergone hour by hour scrutiny to find anything that could be colored into a crime, leaving far behind the original Russia collusion theory as the fake pretext it was. Paying for nondisclosure agreements for perfectly legal activities is not a crime, not a campaign contribution as commonly understood or ruled upon by the Federal Election Commission. Squeezing guilty pleas out of vulnerable witnesses does nothing to change those facts. Mark Penn is a managing partner of the Stagwell Group, a private equity firm specializing in marketing services companies, as well as chairman of the Harris Poll and author of “Microtrends Squared.” He served as pollster and adviser to President Clinton from 1995 to 2000, including during Clinton’s impeachment. You can follow him on Twitter @Mark_Penn. | |
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| 08-23-18 09:10am - 2322 days | #1000 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Why doesn't Trump do the smart thing? Issue pardons for all people who worked for him? Issue a pardon for Trump himself, for any and all actions he might have done both before and after he became President? Put that in your pipe, Mueller, and smoke it. | |
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